“‘Well?’ I asked, and rose from the piano. Then a torrent broke from Rubinstein’s lips. Gentle at first, gathering volume as it proceeded, and finally bursting into the fury of a Jupiter-Tonans. My concerto was worthless, absolutely unplayable; the passages so broken, so disconnected, so unskilfully written, that they could not even be improved; the work itself was bad, trivial, common; here and there I had stolen from other people; only one or two pages were worth anything; all the rest had better be destroyed, or entirely rewritten. ‘For instance, that?’ ‘And what meaning is there in this?’ Here the passages were caricatured on the piano. ‘And look there! Is it possible that anyone could?’ etc., etc., etc. But the chief thing I cannot reproduce: the tone in which all this was said. An independent witness of this scene must have concluded I was a talentless maniac, a scribbler with no notion of composing, who had ventured to lay his rubbish before a famous man. Hubert was quite overcome by my silence, and was surprised, no doubt, that a man who had already written so many works, and was professor of composition at the Conservatoire, could listen calmly and without contradiction to such a jobation, such as one would hardly venture to address to a student before having gone through his work very carefully. Then he began to comment upon Rubinstein’s criticism, and to agree with it, although he made some attempt to soften the harshness of his judgment. I was not only astounded, but deeply mortified, by the whole scene. I require friendly counsel and criticism; I shall always be glad of it, but there was no trace of friendliness in the whole proceedings. It was a censure delivered in such a form that it cut me to the quick. I left the room without a word and went upstairs. I could not have spoken for anger and agitation. Presently Rubinstein came to me and, seeing how upset I was, called me into another room. There he repeated that my concerto was impossible, pointed out many places where it needed to be completely revised, and said if I would suit the concerto to his requirements, he would bring it out at his concert. ‘I shall not alter a single note,’ I replied, ‘I shall publish the work precisely as it stands.’ This intention I actually carried out.”
Not only did Tchaikovsky publish the concerto in its original form, but he scratched out Rubinstein’s name from the dedication and replaced it by that of Hans von Bülow. Personally, Bülow was unknown to him, but he had heard from Klindworth that the famous pianist took a lively interest in his compositions, and had helped to make them known in Germany.
Bülow was flattered by the dedication, and, in a long and grateful letter, praised the concerto very highly—in direct opposition to Rubinstein—saying, that of all Tchaikovsky’s works with which he was acquainted this was “the most perfect.”
“The ideas,” he wrote, “are so lofty, strong, and original. The details, which although profuse, in no way obscure the work as a whole, are so interesting. The form is so perfect, mature, and full of style—in the sense that the intention and craftsmanship are everywhere concealed. I should grow weary if I attempted to enumerate all the qualities of your work—qualities which compel me to congratulate, not only the composer, but all those who will enjoy the work in future, either actively or passively (réceptivement).”
I have already mentioned that Tchaikovsky, in spite of a nature fundamentally noble and generous, was not altogether free from rancour. The episode of the pianoforte concerto proves this. It was long before he could forgive Rubinstein’s cruel criticism, and this influenced their friendly relations. It is evident from the style of his letter to Nadejda von Meck, from the lively narration of every episode and detail of the affair, that the wound still smarted as severely as when it had been inflicted three years earlier.
In 1878 Nicholas Rubinstein entirely healed the breach, and removed all grounds of ill_feeling when, with true nobility and simplicity, recognising the injustice he had done to the concerto in the first instance, he studied and played it, abroad and in Russia, with all the genius and artistic insight of which he was capable.
To Anatol Tchaikovsky.
“March 9th (21st).
“The jester Fate has willed that for the last ten years I should live apart from all who are dear to me.... If you have any powers of observation, you will have noticed that my friendship with Rubinstein and the other gentlemen of the Conservatoire is simply based on the circumstance of our being colleagues, and that none of them give me the tenderness and affection of which I constantly stand in need. Perhaps I am to blame for this; I am very slow in forming new ties. However this may be, I suffer much for lack of someone I care for during these periods of hypochondria. All this winter I have been depressed to the verge of despair, and often wished myself dead. Now the spring is here the melancholy has vanished, but I know it will return in greater intensity with each winter to come, and so I have made up mind to live away from Moscow all next year. Where I shall go I cannot say, but I must have entire change of scene and surroundings.... Probably you will have read of Laub’s death in the papers.”
To Modeste Tchaikovsky.