“I must tell you how happy I am about my work. As you know, I destroyed a Symphony which I had partly composed and orchestrated in the autumn. I did wisely, for it contained little that was really fine—an empty pattern of sounds without any inspiration. Just as I was starting on my journey (the visit to Paris in December, 1892) the idea came to me for a new Symphony. This time with a programme; but a programme of a kind which remains an enigma to all—let them guess it who can. The work will be entitled “A Programme Symphony” (No. 6). This programme is penetrated by subjective sentiment. During my journey, while composing it in my mind, I frequently shed tears. Now I am home again I have settled down to sketch out the work, and it goes with such ardour that in less than four days I have completed the first movement, while the rest of the Symphony is clearly outlined in my head. There will be much that is novel as regards form in this work. For instance, the Finale will not be a great Allegro, but an Adagio of considerable dimensions. You cannot imagine what joy I feel at the conviction that my day is not yet over, and that I may still accomplish much. Perhaps I may be mistaken, but it does not seem likely. Do not speak of this to anyone but Modeste.”
After an interval of three years Tchaikovsky once more conducted a concert of the Moscow Musical Society on February 14th (26th). This was in response to a letter from Safonov begging him to make up their former personal differences and to take part again in the work of Nicholas Rubinstein, of imperishable memory. The Overture-Fantasia Hamlet was played at this concert for the first time in Moscow.
About the end of February Tchaikovsky again returned to Moscow to hear a new Suite From Childhood’s Days, by George Konius, which pleased him very much. Through the influence of the Grand Duke Constantine, Tchaikovsky succeeded in getting an annual pension of 1,200 roubles (£120) for the struggling young composer.
At this time he suffered from a terrible attack of headache, which never left him, and threatened to become a chronic ailment. It departed, however, with extraordinary suddenness on the fourteenth day after the first paroxysm.
On March 11th (23rd) he visited Kharkov, where he remained till the 16th (28th), and enjoyed a series of triumphs similar to those he had experienced in Odessa earlier in the year.
By March 18th (30th) Tchaikovsky was back in Klin. Here he received news that Ippolitov-Ivanov was leaving Tiflis to join the Moscow Conservatoire. In his answer, which is hardly a letter of congratulation, Tchaikovsky refers to his last Symphony, which he does not intend to tear up, to the sketch of a new Pianoforte Concerto, and to several pieces for piano which he hopes to compose in the near future.
He spent the Easter holidays in the society of his relatives and intimate friends in Petersburg, and, but for the hopeless illness of his oldest friend, the poet Apukhtin, this visit would have been a very quiet and cheerful interlude in his life.
To Vladimir Davidov.
“Klin, April 15th (27th), 1893.
“I am engaged in making musical pancakes.[187] To-day I have tossed the tenth. It is remarkable; the more I do, the easier and pleasanter the occupation grows. At first it was uphill work, and the first two pieces are the outcome of a great effort of will; but now I can scarcely fix the ideas in my mind, they succeed each other with such rapidity. If I could spend a whole year in the country, and my publisher was prepared to take all I composed, I might—if I chose to work à la Leikin—make about 36,000 roubles a year!”