“Dearest,—Your letter touched me deeply, and at the same time made me feel ashamed. I wonder that you could doubt, even for an instant, the constancy of my affection for you! My silence proceeds partly from idleness, and partly from the fact that I need great peace of mind to write satisfactorily, and I hardly ever attain it. Either I am at the Conservatoire, or I am seizing a free hour for composition in feverish haste, or someone wants me to go out, or I have visitors at home, or I am so tired out I can only fall asleep.... I have already told you what an important part you play in my life—although you do not live near me. In dark hours my thoughts fly to you. ‘If things go very badly with me, I shall go to Sasha,’ I say to myself; or, ‘I think I will do this, I am sure Sasha would advise it’; or, ‘Shall I write to her? What would she think of this ...?’ What a joy to think that if I could get away from these surroundings into another atmosphere I should sun myself in your kindly heart! Next summer I will not fail to come to you. I shall not go abroad.”
To his father.
“February 14th (26th).
“My Very Dear Father,—You say it would not be a bad thing if I wrote to you at least once a month.
“No, not once a month, but at least once a week I ought to send you news of all I am doing, and I wonder you have not given me a good scolding before this! But I will never again leave you so long without a letter. The news of the death of uncle Peter Petrovich[26] came to me several days ago. God give him everlasting peace, for his honest and pure soul deserved it! I hope, dear, you are bearing this trouble bravely. Remember that poor uncle, with his indifferent health and his many old wounds, had enjoyed a fairly long life.”
This letter closes Tchaikovsky’s correspondence for the year 1870-1. It is very probable that some of his letters may have been lost, but undoubtedly after February, 1871, he corresponded less frequently than before.
Being very short of funds, he decided to act upon Rubinstein’s advice to give a concert. To add to the interest of the programme he thought it well to include some new and important work of his own. He could not expect to fill the room, and an expensive orchestral concert was therefore out of the question. This led to the composition of the first String Quartet (D major). Tchaikovsky was engaged upon this work during the whole of February.
The concert took place on March 16th (28th) in the small hall of the Nobles’ Assembly Rooms. Thanks to the services of the Musical Society’s quartet, with F. Laub as leader, Nicholas Rubinstein at the piano, and Madame Lavrovsky—then at the height of her popularity—as vocalist, Tchaikovsky had a good, although not a crowded, house.
In his reminiscences Kashkin says that among those who attended this concert was the celebrated novelist, I. S. Tourgeniev, who was staying in Moscow at the time, and was interested in the young composer, about whom he had heard abroad. This attention on the part of the great writer did not pass unnoticed, and was decidedly advantageous for the musician. Tourgeniev expressed great appreciation of Tchaikovsky’s works, although he arrived too late to hear the chief item on the programme, the Quartet in D major.
At the end of May Tchaikovsky went to Konotop, where his eldest brother Nicholas Ilich was residing, and from thence to visit Anatol in Kiev. Afterwards the two brothers travelled to Kamenka, where they spent most of the summer. Tchaikovsky, however, devoted part of his holidays to his intimate friends Kondratiev and Shilovsky.