X To N. F. von Meck
“Kamenka, April 18th (30th), 1880.
“To-day a cold north wind is blowing. Spring has not yet entered into possession of her own, and the nightingale is not singing yet. Still, it is beautiful in the forest.
“During the last few days I have read through two new operas: Anton Rubinstein’s Kalashnikov and Jean de Nivelles by Délibes. The former is weak all through. Rubinstein is like a singer who has lost her voice, but still believes she sings charmingly. His talent has long since lost its charm. He really ought to give up composing and to be contented with his earlier works. I pray that I may never fall into the same error. Délibes makes just the opposite impression. His work is fresh, graceful, and very clever.”
About the end of April the director of the Kiev branch of the Russian Musical Society offered to make Tchaikovsky the principal of this section, and of the musical school connected with it. Although on account of its proximity to the home of the Davidovs at Kamenka, the neighbourhood of Kiev offered many attractions to him, he declined the offer without hesitation. He had tasted the fruits of liberty and was more than ever convinced that teaching was not his vocation.
During his stay at Kamenka, Tchaikovsky finished the orchestration of his “Italian Fantasia,” which he considered, apart from its musical worth, one of his most effective and brilliant orchestral works.
To P. I. Jurgenson.
“Kamenka, June 23rd (July 5th), 1880.
“Dear Soul,—I believe you imagine I have no greater happiness than to compose occasional pieces to be played at forthcoming exhibitions, and that I ought to put my inspirations down post-haste upon paper, without knowing how, when, or where. I shall not stir a finger until I get a positive commission. If something vocal is required of me, I must be supplied with a suitable text (when it is a question of an order I am ready to set an advertisement of corn-plasters to music); if it is to be an instrumental work, I must have some idea of the form it should take, and what it is intended to illustrate. At the same time a definite fee must be offered, with a definite agreement as to who is responsible for it, and when I shall receive it. I do not make all these demands from caprice, but because I am not in a position to write these festival works without having some positive instructions as to what is required of me. There are two kinds of inspiration: one comes direct from the soul, by freedom of choice, or other creative impulse; the other comes to order.... Matters of business must be put very clearly and distinctly. Fancy if I had already been inspired to write a Festival Overture for the opening of the Exhibition! What would have come of it? It might have happened that the great Anton had also (An-)toned something of his own. Where should I have been with my scribblings?
“I shall finish the corrections of the fourth act to-day. The opera (The Maid of Orleans) has become a long affair. My poor publisher! Well, we must live in hope!”
Early in July Tchaikovsky visited Nadejda von Meck’s estate at Brailov, for the sake of repose. At this time a feeling of dissatisfaction with his work seems to have taken possession of him. “I have written much that is beautiful,” he wrote to his brother Modeste, “but how weak, how lacking in mastery!... I have made up my mind to write nothing new for a time, but to devote myself to the correcting and re-editing of my earlier works.”
A letter to Nadejda von Meck, dated Brailov, July 5th (17th), 1880, contains some interesting comments upon Glinka and his work.
“... Glinka is quite an unusual phenomenon! Reading his Memoirs, which reveal a nice, amiable, but rather commonplace man, we can hardly realise that the same mind created that wonderful ‘Slavsia,’78 which is worthy to rank with the work of the greatest geniuses. And how many more fine things there are in his other opera (Russlan) and the overtures! How astonishingly original is his Komarinskaya, from which all the Russian composers who followed him (including myself) continue to this day to borrow contrapuntal and harmonic combinations directly they have to develop a Russian dance-tune! This is done unconsciously; but the fact is, Glinka managed to concentrate in one short work what a dozen second-rate talents would only have invented with the whole expenditure of their powers.
“And it was this same Glinka who, at the height of his maturity, composed such a weak, trivial thing as the Polonaise for the Coronation (written a year before his death), or the children’s polka, of which he speaks in his Memoirs at such length, and with such self-satisfaction, as though it had been a masterpiece.
“Mozart, too, expresses himself with great naïveté in his letters to his father and, in fact, all through his life. But this was a different kind of simplicity. Mozart is a genius whose childlike innocence, gentleness of spirit and virginal modesty are scarcely of this earth. He was devoid of self-satisfaction and boastfulness; he seems hardly to have been conscious of the greatness of his genius. Glinka, on the contrary, is imbued with a spirit of self-glorification; he is ready to become garrulous over the most trivial events in his life, or the appearance of his least important works, and is convinced it is all of historical importance. Glinka is a gifted Russian aristocrat of his time, and has the faults of his type: petty vanity, limited culture, intolerance, ostentatiousness and a morbid sensibility to, and impatience of, all criticism. These are generally the characteristics of mediocrity; how they come to exist in a man who ought—so it seems—to dwell in calm and modest pride, conscious of his power, is beyond my comprehension! In one page of his Memoirs Glinka says he had a bulldog whose conduct was not irreproachable, and his servant had to be continually cleaning the room. Kukolnik, to whom Glinka entrusted his Memoirs for revision, remarked in the margin, ‘Why put in this?’ Glinka pencilled underneath, ‘Why not?’ Is not this highly characteristic? Yet, all the same, he composed the ‘Slavsia’!”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Brailov, July 6th (18th), 1880.
“To-day I went to the Orthodox, the new Catholic, and the monastery churches. There is something about the monastic singing here, as in all Russian churches, which enrages me to the last degree. It is the chord of the dominant seventh in its original position, which we misuse so terribly. There is nothing so unmusical, or so unsuitable to the Orthodox Church as this commonplace chord, which was introduced during the eighteenth century by Messrs. Galuppi, Sarti, Bortniansky and Co., and has since become so much a part of our church music that the Gospodi pomilui79 cannot be sung without it. This chord reminds me of the accordion, which only gives out two harmonies: the tonic and dominant. It disfigures the natural progression of the parts and weakens and vulgarises our church music. To make you clearly understand what it is that annoys me I will give you an example:—
instead of this they ought to sing
“The new Catholic church makes a pleasant impression. I much prefer our Orthodox liturgy to the Mass, especially to the so-called ‘Low Mass,’ which seems to me devoid of all solemnity.”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Brailov, July 8th (20th), 1880.
“Yesterday I went an expedition in the forest, where formerly there used to be wild goats, of which now only one specimen is left. They say the others were all devoured by the wolves in winter. It is a great pity! But I was consoled by the beauty of the evening and a wonderful walk. At sunset I had tea, and then wandered alone by the steep bank of the stream behind the deer-park, and drank in all the deep delight of the forest at sundown, and freshness of the evening air. Such moments, I thought, helped us to bear with patience the many minor grievances of existence. They make us in love with life. We are promised eternal happiness, immortal existence, but we do not realise this, nor shall we perhaps attain to it. But if we are worthy of it, and if it is really eternal, we shall soon learn to enjoy it. Meanwhile, one wishes to live, in order to experience again such moments as those of yesterday.
“To-day I intended to leave for Simaki, but while I am writing to you a terrific storm is raging, and it is evidently going to be a wet day; so perhaps I shall remain here. I am drawn to Simaki, and yet I regret leaving Brailov. Dear friend, to-day I have committed a kind of burglary in your house, and I will confess my crime. There was no key to the bookcase in the drawing-room next to your bedroom, but I saw it contained some new books which interested me greatly. Even Marcel could not find the key, so it occurred to me to try the one belonging to the cupboard near my room, and it opened the bookcase at once. I took out Byron and Martinov’s Moscow. Make your mind easy, all your books and music remain untouched. To quiet Marcel’s conscience I gave him, when about to leave for Simaki, a memorandum of what I had taken, and before I actually depart I will return him the books and music to replace in their proper order. Pray forgive my self-justification.”
To Modeste Tchaikovsky.
“Simaki, July 8th (20th), 1880.
“... I expected a great deal from Simaki, but the reality far surpasses my expectations. What a wonderful spot this is, and how poor Brailov seems now I am here! The small house is just the same as when I saw it last year, only it has been done up a little; the furniture and upholstery are partly new; the arrangements are the ideal of comfort. But the surroundings are enchanting! The garden is a mass of flowers. I simply swim in an ocean of delightful impressions. An hour ago I was in the millet-field which lies beyond the garden, and so great was my ecstasy that I fell upon my knees and thanked God for the profound joy I experienced. I stood on rising ground; nothing was visible in the distance but the dense green which surrounds my little house; on every side the forest spreads to the hills; across the stream lay the hamlet, whence came various pleasant rural sounds; the voices of children, the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle, driven home from pasture. In the west the sun was setting in splendour; while in the east the crescent moon was already up. Everywhere beauty and space! What moments life holds! Thanks to these intervals, it is possible to forget everything!”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Simaki, July 9th (21st), 1880.
“... The night has been glorious! At 2 a.m. I reluctantly left my place by the window. The moon shone brightly. The stillness, the perfume of the flowers, and those wondrous indefinable sounds that belong to the night—ah God, how beautiful it all is! Dear friend, I am glad you are at Interlaken, of which I am very fond; but all the same I do not envy you. It would be hard to find a place in which the conditions of life would conform better to my ideal than Simaki. All day long I feel as though I were lost in some wonderful, fantastic dream.”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Simaki, July 14th (26th), 1880.
“I have just been playing the first act of The Maid of Orleans, which is now ready for the printer. Either I am mistaken, or it is not in vain, dear friend, that you have had the clock you gave me decorated with the figure of my latest operatic heroine. I do not think The Maid of Orleans my finest, or the most emotional, of my works, but it seems to me to be the one most likely to make my name popular. I believe Oniegin and one or two of my instrumental works are far more closely allied to my individual temperament. I was less absorbed in The Maid of Orleans than in our Symphony, for instance, or the second Quartet; but I gave more consideration to the scenic and musical effects—and these are the most important things in opera.”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Simaki, July 18th (30th), 1880.
“Yesterday evening—to take a rest from my own work—I played through Bizet’s Carmen from cover to cover. I consider it a chef d’œuvre in the fullest sense of the word: one of those rare compositions which seems to reflect most strongly in itself the musical tendencies of a whole generation. It seems to me that our own period differs from earlier ones in this one characteristic: that contemporary composers are engaged in the pursuit of charming and piquant effects, unlike Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann. What is the so-called New Russian School but the cult of varied and pungent harmonies, of original orchestral combinations and every kind of purely external effect? Musical ideas give place to this or that union of sounds. Formerly there was composition, creation; now (with few exceptions) there is only research and invention. This development of musical thought is naturally purely intellectual, consequently contemporary music is clever, piquant, and eccentric; but cold and lacking the glow of true emotion. And behold, a Frenchman comes on the scene, in whom these qualities of piquancy and pungency are not the outcome of effort and reflection, but flow from his pen as in a free stream, flattering the ear, but touching us also. It is as though he said to us: ‘You ask nothing great, superb, or grandiose—you want something pretty, here is a pretty opera;’ and truly I know of nothing in music which is more representative of that element which I call the pretty (le joli).... I cannot play the last scene without tears in my eyes; the gross rejoicings of the crowd who look on at the bull-fight, and, side by side with this, the poignant tragedy and death of the two principal characters, pursued by an evil fate, who come to their inevitable end through a long series of sufferings.
“I am convinced that ten years hence Carmen will be the most popular opera in the world. But no one is a prophet in his own land. In Paris Carmen has had no real success.”
To Modeste Tchaikovsky.
“Simaki, July 18th (30th), 1880.
“My dear Modi,—How worried I am by my Maid of Orleans, and how glad I am to have done with her! Now she has flown to Moscow and, until the time of performance comes, I need not bother about her any more....
“Thanks (in an ironical sense) for your suggestion that I should read L’homme qui rit. Do you not know the story of my relations to Victor Hugo? Anyhow, I will tell you what came of them. I took up Les travailleurs de la Mer; I read, and read, and grew more and more irritated by his grimaces and buffoonery. Finally, after a whole series of short, unmeaning phrases, consisting of exclamations, antitheses, and asterisks, I lost my temper, spat upon the book, tore it to pieces, stamped upon it, and wound up by throwing it out of the window. From that moment I cannot bear the mention of Victor Hugo! Believe me, your Zola is just such another mountebank, but more modern in spirit. I do not dislike him quite so much as Hugo, but very nearly. He disgusts me, as a girl would disgust me who pretended to be simple and natural, while all the time she was essentially a flirt and coquette.
“In proportion as I like modern French music, their literature and journalism seem to me revolting.
“Yesterday I wrote to you about Bizet, to-day I am enthusiastic about Massenet. I found his oratorio, Mary Magdalene, at N. F.’s. After I had read the text, which treats not only of the relations between Christ, the Magdalene, and Judas, but also of Golgotha and the Resurrection, I felt a certain prejudice against the work, because it seemed too audacious. When I began to play it, however, I was soon convinced that it was no commonplace composition. The duet between Christ and the Magdalene is a masterpiece. I was so touched by the emotionalism of the music, in which Massenet has reflected the eternal compassion of Christ, that I shed many tears. Wonderful tears! All praise to the Frenchman who had the art of calling them forth.... The French are really first in contemporary music. All day long this duet has been running in my head, and under its influence I have written a song, the melody of which is very reminiscent of Massenet.”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Simaki, July 24th (August 5th), 1880.
“Have I told you, dear friend, that I am studying English? Here I work very regularly, and with good results. I hope in six months I shall be able to read English easily. That is my sole aim; I know that at my age it is impossible to speak it well. But to read Shakespeare, Dickens, and Thackeray in the original would be the consolation of my old age.”80
To Modeste Tchaikovsky.
“Kamenka, July 31st (August 12th), 1880.
“It is two days since I came to Kamenka. I was glad, very glad, to see all our people again, but I am not in high spirits. A kind of apathy has come over me; a dislike to work, to reading, and particularly to exercise, although I dutifully do my two hours a day. Apart from the people, everything here seems to me stuffy and frowsy, beginning with the air. When I think of the intoxicating charm of the gardens, the air perfumed by field and forest, at Simaki; when I look at the poor, dusty trees, and the arid, barren soil of this place; when instead of the clear, cold stream I have to content myself with my sitz-bath—I am overcome with a sickening sense of regret.”
To P. I. Jurgenson.
“Kamenka, August 12th (24th), 1880.
“If I should ever become famous, and anyone should collect materials for my biography, your letter to-day would give a very false impression of me. Anyone would suppose I had been in the habit of flattering influential people and making advances to them with the object of getting my works performed. This would be entirely untrue. I have never in my life raised a finger to win the favour of Bilse, or another. This is a sort of ‘passive’ pride. It is another matter if the advances are made from the other side....
“As regards your advice to imitate Anton Rubinstein, I must tell you that our positions are so different that no comparison can be made between us. Take away Rubinstein’s virtuosity, and he immediately falls from his greatness to the level of my nothingness. Well, I should like to see which of us has the most composer’s pride! In any case I am not such a grandee that at the advances of so profitable and influential a personage as Bilse I can reply: ‘this is no business of mine; apply to Jurgenson.’
“The corrected manuscripts are ready, and shall be sent to-morrow. The Italian Capriccio can be printed, but I should like to look through the concerto once more, and beg you to send me another revise. When I sent it to Nicholas Rubinstein in the spring, I asked him to make his criticisms to Taneiev, and to request the latter to make the necessary alterations in the piano part without changing the musical intention, of which I will not alter a single line. Taneiev replied that there were no alterations required. Consequently this must have been Rubinstein’s opinion. But we can hardly assume that he will study the work.”
From a letter to Jurgenson, dated some days later than the above, we see that Tchaikovsky had resolved to devote part of the current year to revising all his works published by this firm “from Opus I. to the Third Symphony.”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Kamenka, August 13th (25th), 1880.
“You ask me if I share your feelings when thinking of the possibility of monumental fame? Fame! What contradictory sentiments the word awakes in me! On the one hand I desire and strive for it; on the other I detest it. If the chief thought of my life is concentrated upon my creative work, I cannot do otherwise than wish for fame. If I feel a continual impulse to express myself in the language of music, it follows that I need to be heard; and the larger my circle of sympathetic hearers, the better. I desire with all my soul that my music should become more widely known, and that the number of those people who derive comfort and support from their love of it should increase. In this sense not only do I love fame, but it becomes the aim of all that is most earnest in my work. But, alas! when I begin to reflect that with an increasing audience will come also an increase of interest in my personality, in the more intimate sense; that there will be inquisitive people among the public who will tear aside the curtain behind which I have striven to conceal my private life; then I am filled with pain and disgust, so that I half wish to keep silence for ever, in order to be left in peace. I am not afraid of the world, for I can say that my conscience is clear, and I have nothing to be ashamed of; but the thought that someone may try to force the inner world of my thoughts and feelings, which all my life I have guarded so carefully from outsiders—this is sad and terrible. There is a tragic element, dear friend, in this conflict between the desire for fame and the fear of its consequences. I am attracted to it like the moth to the candle, and I, too, burn my wings. Sometimes I am possessed by a mad desire to disappear for ever, to be buried alive, to ignore all that is going on, and be forgotten by everybody. Then, alas! the creative inspiration returns.... I fly to the flame and burn my wings once more!
“Do you know my wings will soon have to bear the weight of my opera? I shall be up to my neck in theatrical and official mire, and be suffocated in an atmosphere of petty intrigue, of microscopical, but poisonous, ambitions, and every kind of dense stupidity. What is to be done? Either do not write operas, or be prepared for all this! I believe I never shall compose another opera. When I look back upon all I went through last spring, when I was occupied with the performance of my last one, I lose all desire to write for the stage.”