II
On January 31st (February 12th) Tchaikovsky, accompanied by Siloti, arrived at the frontiers of Bohemia. The triumphal character of the reception which awaited him was soon made apparent by the extraordinary attentions of the railway officials. At one of the last stations before Prague, a deputation of members of various societies had assembled to welcome him. At Prague a representative of the “Russian Club” awaited him on the platform, having come expressly from Vienna to pay him this compliment. He presented Tchaikovsky with an address in Russian. This was followed by a speech in Czech, delivered by Dr. Strakaty, the representative of the “Umclecká Beseda,”129 after which children presented him with flowers, and he was hailed with prolonged cries of “Slava!” (Hurrah!). The carriage which awaited him, and the suite of rooms at the Hotel de Saxe, were provided for him at the expense of the Artists’ Club.
In the evening he was invited to hear Verdi’s Otello, and a box was reserved for him at the Opera House. Rieger, “the leader of the Czech people,” was the first to greet the guest, after which followed many of the most prominent men in Bohemia.
The following day Tchaikovsky received a visit from Dvořák, and the two composers quickly made friends with each other.
It is impossible to give in detail the programme drawn up for each day of the composer’s visit to Prague. He made an almost royal progress to all the chief places of interest. On one occasion, entering the “Rathaus” while a session was being held, the entire body of members rose to greet him. One evening he was serenaded by the famous Choral Union “Hlahol.” He listened to the songs from his balcony, and afterwards came down to thank the singers in person. An offer, made in the course of his speech, to compose something expressly for the Society was received with loud cheering. On February 6th (18th) he was invited to the Students’ Union and presented to the students. In his diary he speaks of this as “a very solemn and touching ceremony.” Accompanied by cries of “Slava!” and “Na Sdrava!” he was next led off to the public rehearsal of the concert. The evening wound up with a brilliant soirée at the Town Club (Meschtschanska Beseda).
The first concert itself took place on February 7th (19th), in the “Rudolfinum.” The programme consisted entirely of Tchaikovsky’s music, and included: (1) Overture, Romeo and Juliet; (2) Concerto for Pianoforte (B♭ minor), played by Siloti; (3) Elégie from the Third Suite; (4) Violin Concerto, played by Halir; (5), Overture, “1812.” Of all these works the last-named excited the greatest applause. Tchaikovsky sums up his impressions as follows: “Undoubtedly it was the most eventful day of my life. I have become so attached to these good Bohemians... and with good reason! Heavens, what enthusiasm! Such as I have never known, but in my own dear Russia!”
Two days later, on February 9th (21st), the second concert was given in the foyer of the Opera House. This time the programme comprised: (1) Serenade for strings; (2) Variations from the Third Suite; (3) Pianoforte Solos (Siloti); (4) Overture, “1812.” The ovations were even more hearty, and the gifts more costly, than at the first concert. “An overwhelming success,” says Tchaikovsky in his diary. “A moment of absolute bliss. But only one moment.”
On the evening of February 10th (22nd), sped by farewell addresses, and smothered in flowers, the composer took leave of the festive city of Prague.
Although the chief object of Tchaikovsky’s tour was to make his works more widely known in Europe, and to carry them beyond the confines of his native land, he combined with this aim—although in a lesser degree—the desire to see for himself the extent of his reputation and to reap some profit by it. Distrustful and modest as he was, he made no great demands in this respect, and even the appreciation he received in Germany quite surpassed his expectations. The honour done him in Prague far outstripped his wildest dreams. These ten days were the culminating point of Tchaikovsky’s fame during his lifetime. Allowing that nine-tenths of the ovations lavished on him were really intended for Russia, even then, he could not fail to be flattered that he was the chosen recipient of the sympathy of the Czechs for the Russians, since it proved that he was already famous as a composer. It was flattering, too, to feel that he was honoured by a nation which could be regarded as one of the most musical in the world. It pleased him that Prague—the first place to recognise the genius of Mozart—should pay him honour, thus uniting his fate with that of the illustrious German. It touched Tchaikovsky deeply to feel that those who gave him one “moment of absolute happiness” were descendants of the same race which, long ago, had given a portion of joy to him who was his teacher and model, both as man and as musician. This strange coincidence was the most flattering event of his life—the highest honour to which he had ever ventured to aspire.
Simultaneously with this climax of his renown, came one of the bitterest experiences of his life. The Russian Press did not give a line to this triumph of a native composer in Prague. He felt this to be a profound injury, which surprised and mortified him the more, because all these triumphs in his life were regarded as important events even by the Czechs themselves. It was most painful to realise that Russia, for whom the greater part of these honours were intended, knew nothing whatever about them; that on account of the attitude of the Press towards him, personally, this warm sympathy, meant for his countrymen as a whole, would never be known to them, nor evoke any response.
Quite another kind of ovation awaited Tchaikovsky in Paris. Here, too, his success surpassed his expectations; but the sympathy of the French capital differed as widely in character from that which was shown him in Prague as the Czechs differ from the French in their musical tastes and their relations towards the Russians. There is no country in which music is better loved, or more widely understood, than in Bohemia. Nor is there any other nation which feels such appreciation for all that is Russian; not merely as a matter of passing fashion, but on account of actual kinship between the Eastern and Western Slav. In Bohemia, therefore, both as a musician and a native of Russia, Tchaikovsky had been received with a warmth and sincerity hardly to be expected from France. It is true a little political feeling influenced his reception in Paris; it was just the beginning of the Franco-Russian rapprochement, so that everything Russian was the fashion of the hour. Many French people, who were not in the least musical, regarded it as their duty to express some appreciation of Tchaikovsky—simply because he was a Russian. All this, like the French sympathy itself, had no solid foundation of national affinity, but merely sprang from an ephemeral political combination. The enthusiastic, explosive, but fleeting, craze of the French for all that was Russian showed itself in hats à la Kronstadt, in shouting the Russian national anthem simultaneously with the “Marseillaise,” in ovations to the clown Durov, and in a “patronising” interest for our art and literature—as species of curiosities—rather than in the hearty relations of two countries drawn together by true affinity of aims and sympathies. Naturally the festivities of Kronstadt, Toulon, and Paris led to no real appreciation of Poushkin, Gogol, Ostrovsky, Glinka, Dargomijsky, or Serov, only, at the utmost, to a phase of fashion, thanks to which Tolstoi and Dostoievsky found a certain superficial vogue, without being understood in their fullest value. Tchaikovsky was also a modern, and this lent a kind of brilliance to his reception in Paris; but it was purely external.... It may truly be said that all Prague welcomed the composer; whereas in Paris only the musicians and amateurs, a few newspapers in favour of the Franco-Russian alliance, and that crowd which is always in pursuit of novelty, were interested in Tchaikovsky’s visit.
Time has proved the respective value of these ovations. Although it is now fifteen years since Tchaikovsky visited Prague, his operas still hold their own in the repertory of the theatre, and his symphonic music is still as well known there and as much loved as in Russia. In Paris, on the contrary, not only are his works rarely given, either on the stage or in the concert-room, but his name—although it has gained in renown all over Europe—is not considered worthy of inclusion among those which adorn the programmes of the Conservatoire concerts. And yet those who are at the head of this institution are the same men who honoured him in 1888. Is not this a proof of that hidden but smouldering antipathy which the French really feel for the Russian spirit—that spirit which Tchaikovsky shares in common with his great predecessors in music, and with the representatives of all that Russia has produced of lofty and imperishable worth?
Tchaikovsky arrived in Paris on February 12th (24th), and went almost straight from the station to the rehearsal of his Serenade for strings, which—conducted by the composer—was to be played by Colonne’s orchestra at a soirée given by M. N. Benardaky.
N. Benardaky had married one of the three sisters Leibrock, operatic artists well known to the Russian public. He had a fine house in Paris, frequented by the élite of the artistic world. As a wealthy patron of art—and as a fellow-countryman—he inaugurated the festivities in Tchaikovsky’s honour by this musical evening.
Over three hundred guests were present, and, besides his Serenade for strings, Tchaikovsky conducted the Andante from his Quartet and presided at the piano. The composer was grateful to his kindly host for the unexpected and—according to Parisian custom—absolutely indispensable réclame which this entertainment conferred upon him. To ensure the success of the evening, and in return for the service done him, Tchaikovsky felt himself obliged to run from rehearsal to rehearsal, from musician to musician. To appear as a conductor before this assemblage of amateurs—more distinguished for vanity than for love of art—and to earn their languid approval, seemed to him flattering and important. But when we reflect what far greater trouble and fatigue this entailed upon him than his appearance before the Gewandhaus audience—whose opinion was really of weight and value—we cannot but regret the waste of energy and the lowering of the artist’s dignity. When we think of him, exhausted and out of humour, amid this crowd of fashionably attired strangers, who to-morrow would be “consecrating” the success of the latest chansonette singer, or the newest dance of a Loie Fuller—we cannot but rebel against fate, who took him from his rural quiet, from the surroundings to which he was attached, in which—sound in body and mind—it was his pleasure to plan some new composition in undisturbed solitude. Thank God, my brother comforted himself with the belief that it was necessary to suffer this martyrdom cheerfully, and that he did not live to realise that it was indeed useless, for nowhere did he make a greater sacrifice for popularity’s sake with smaller results than in Paris.
Those musicians who had been absent during Tchaikovsky’s visit to Paris in 1886 now made his acquaintance for the first time. All of them, including Gounod, Massenet, Thomé and others, received him with great cordiality and consideration. The sole exception was Reyer, the composer of Salammbô, whose indifference was the less hurtful to Tchaikovsky because he did not esteem him greatly as a musician. Of the virtuosi with whom he now became acquainted, Paderewski made the most impression upon him.
Among the brilliant Parisian gatherings held in Tchaikovsky’s honour must be mentioned the memorable evening at Colonne’s; the soirée given by the aristocratic amateur, Baroness Tresderne, at whose house in the Place Vendôme Wagner’s Trilogy had been heard for the first time in Paris (“Marchionesses, duchesses—bored,” is Tchaikovsky’s laconic entry in his diary the day after this entertainment); the fête at the Russian Embassy; a reception at Madame Pauline Viardot’s; and an entertainment arranged by the Figaro.
Tchaikovsky made two public appearances in the double capacity of composer and conductor; both these were at the Châtelet concerts. At the first, half the programme was devoted to his works, including the Serenade for strings, Fantasia for pianoforte (Louis Diemer), Songs (Madame Conneau), pieces for violoncello (Brandoukov), and Theme and Variations from the Third Suite.
On ascending to the conductor’s desk he was received with a storm of applause, intended as much for his nationality as for his personality. Of his orchestral works, the Valse from the Serenade won most success, and had to be repeated in order to satisfy the audience.
The second concert, which took place a week later, consisted almost exclusively of Tchaikovsky’s works. The Variations from the Third Suite, the Elégie, and Valse from the Serenade, and the pieces for violoncello were repeated; to which were added the Violin Concerto (Marsick) and Francesca da Rimini. The applause was as vociferous as on the first occasion, although comparatively little of it fell to the lot of Francesca.
As long as they dealt with the private performances in the houses of Benardaky, Colonne, Madame Tresderne, or at the Figaro, the representatives of the Paris Press spoke with enthusiasm of the composer, of his works, and his nationality. After the public concerts, however, there was a sudden change of tone, and their fervour waned. It seemed they had most of them studied Cui’s book, La Musique en Russie, to good purpose, for, without quoting their source of information, they discovered that Tchaikovsky “was not so Russian as people imagined,” that he did not display “much audacity or a strong originality,” wherein lay the chief charm of the great Slavs: Borodin, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, Liadov, etc.
The Western cosmopolitanism of Tchaikovsky’s works was made a subject of reproach. “The German dominates and absorbs the Slav,” says one critic, who had looked for “impressions exotiques” at the Châtelet—perhaps for something in the style of the music of Dahomey, which had created such a sensation at the Jardin d’Acclimatation.
The remaining critics, who had not read Cui’s book, disapproved of the length of Tchaikovsky’s works, and held up to him as models, Saint-Saëns and other modern French composers. His own sense of disappointment appears in a letter addressed to P. Jurgenson towards the end of his visit:—
“I have expended a great deal of money, and even more health and strength,” he writes.130 “In return I have gained some celebrity, but every hour I ask myself—Why? Is it worth while? And I come to the conclusion it is far better to live quietly without fame.”
From Paris Tchaikovsky crossed to England.
“The journey to London was terrible,” he wrote to Nadejda von Meck. “Our train was brought to a standstill in the open country in consequence of a snowstorm. On the steamer it was alarming, for the storm was so severe that every moment we dreaded some catastrophe.”
Tchaikovsky only spent four days in London. No one welcomed him, no one paid him special attention, or worried him with invitations. Except for a complimentary dinner given to him by Berger, the Secretary of the Philharmonic Society, he spent his time alone, or in the society of the violinist Ondricek and his wife. Yet, in spite of appearances, his visit to London had brilliant results for his future reputation. Next to Russia and America his music at present is nowhere more popular than in England.
He conducted the Serenade for strings and the Variations from the Third Suite. “The success was great,” he wrote, in the letter quoted above. “The Serenade pleased most, and I was recalled three times, which means a good deal from the reserved London public. The Variations were not so much liked, but all the same they elicited hearty applause.”
The leading London papers mostly gave Tchaikovsky the credit of a signal success. The Musical Times only regretted that he had not chosen some more serious work for his début before the London public. “The Russian composer was received with signs of unanimous approbation,” said the Times, while the Daily Chronicle felt convinced that Tchaikovsky must have been fully satisfied with the extraordinarily warm welcome accorded him by the Londoners.
“Thus ended the torments, fears, agitations, and—to speak the truth—the joys of my first concert tour abroad.” In these words Tchaikovsky concludes his letter to N. F. von Meck, from which the above extracts have been quoted.