STACK DAYS WITH THE GREAT COMPOSERS TSCHAIKOVSKY A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY RUSSIAN PEASANT DANCE. Across the innocent country mirth of the Finale one hears the laughter of man and maid, the tap of heel and toe, the voices ... of the moujiks. A DAY WITH TSCHAIKQVSKY BY MAY BYRON HODDER & STOUGHTON LTD., PUBLISHERS LONDON Uniform with this Volume DAYS WITH THE COMPOSERS BEETHOVEN CHOPIN GOUNOD MENDELSSOHN TSCHAIKOVSKY WAGNER DAYS WITH THE POETS BROWNING BUKNS KEATS LONGFELLOW SHAKESPEARE TENNYSON MiuUand Printed in Great Britain for Hodder & Stoughton, Limited, by C. Tinlint & Co., Ltd., Liverpool, London and Prescot. A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY TIME : 7 a.m. on a day of July, 1886. Scene : the village of Maidanovo, near Klin, in Central Russia. Dramatis Persona: Peter Ilyich Tschaikovsky, a man of forty-six, but looking ten years older; of ample build, grizzled hair, and beard beginning to go grey. To him, in bed, enter his servant, Alexis Sofronoff, with a tea tray, and followed by his favourite dog. " The morning is very beautiful, Peter Ilyich," observes Alexis, drawing the curtains apart. Tschaikovsky, rousing himself with difficulty from the heavy, almost lethargic sleep of exhaustion into which he nightly falls, gathers his wits together and restores his scattered consciousness by means of tea. Alexis, not in the least expecting any word from his master, prepares his toilet in general and leaves the room. The great composer pulls himself together to 5 2051154 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY face another day. The celestial sunshine, streaming in upon his somewhat heterogeneous furniture, and the recollection of how many flowers, wild and garden, are opening for his delight in these warm rays, serve to infuse a vague vitality of pleasure into this confirmed and incurable pessimist. Lastly, that deep if incoherent religious feeling which he experiences with increasing frequency, enters within the range of his perceptions, and stimulates him to an outburst of almost childlike gratitude to God the Giver. " What moments life holds ! " he murmurs, " Thanks to these intervals, it is possible to forget everything. ... I am learning to love God as formerly I did not know how to do. ... Every day, every hour I thank God for having given me this faith in Him." As he dresses himself he casts his eyes with childlike pride upon the various simple articles in the room. They are not due to any taste or selection of his own : for the faithful Alexis has attended to the furniture of the house as to every- thing else besides. Whatever Tschaikovsky has himself purchased, has been either useless or inherently faulty, such as the old English clock which will not " go," the two horses which he 6 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY does not care to ride, and the numerous volumes of music which he is unlikely ever to open. But for the first time in his life, everything is really his own; and he loves to talk, with the naivest airs of proprietorship, about " my cook, my washerwoman, my silver, my tablecloths," and so forth. For this new sense of ownership is quite a recent development : a year ago, the musician was inhabiting a large old manorhouse in the same village, whose lofty rooms, wide park, statues, arbours, orangery and rosery, were discrepant alike with his means and his modest needs. In this smaller and homelier house, his present abode, Tschaikovsky feels himself more settled than ever heretofore in his restless unsatisfied life. He is not exigent about the accessories of existence, furniture, upholstery, and the like : if they serve their own honest purpose, and do not actually break down in the process, he is quite content. He himself makes his own happiness or unhappiness to so abnormally large an extent, that outward things contribute but little to either. Tschaikovsky is not that unkempt and shaggy genius which many folks might imagine a Russian maestro should be. He presents a fairly well- 7 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY groomed aspect. His hair and beard are neat, his dress simple, but not careless : in short, his whole appearance is indicative of that peculiarly orderly mental habit, by which his days are carried out on a system of inflexible routine. His " looks do not pity him," as the saying is, and you could not guess that the man is a constant sufferer from a miserably delicate constitution, involving him in almost chronic catarrh of the stomach, with its concomitants of dyspepsia, depression and debility. And now, having completed his toilet, he puts spectacles on his weak-sighted eyes, and sits down to read the Bible as is his invariable custom for some twenty minutes or so. After this, he pauses a moment to select his morning's " heavy " reading. Some book of philosophy, Schopenhauer or Spinoza, some instructive or biographical book, or one in which he can continue his assiduous study of English, are his favourites for this time of the morning. He is extraordinarily anxious to acquire English sufficiently to be able to read it with ease. " That is my sole aim," he avows, " 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." For this melancholy and intro- 8 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY spective man has been known, not only to cry over Bleak House, " because I pity Lady Dedlock and find it hard to tear myself away from all those characters with whom I have been living for two months/' but to shed tears " from gratitude that so great a writer as Dickens ever lived." To what extent he appreciates Dickens' humour, it would be very hard to say : laughter is not frequent upon the lips of Peter Ilyich Tschaikovsky. To-day, however, he waives the weighty deliberations of philosophy, he postpones the difficulties of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, in favour of something peculiarly congenial to his tastes, and akin (as he feels) to the sweetness and limpidity of the morning. He immerses himself in a book of which he never wearies, Otto Jahn's Life of Mozart. All great musical composers have been worshippers at the shrine of Mozart : but none more enthusiastically so than this one. He loves to hear the very name of his adored one. " I idolise Mozart ! " he declares. " It is thanks to Mozart that I have devoted my life to music. . . . To me the most beautiful opera ever written is Don Giovanni. ... To my mind, Mozart is the culminating point of all beauty in the sphere of A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY music. He alone can make me tremble with delight at the consciousness of the approach of that which we will term the ideal. ... I am often surprised that a broken man, sound neither in mind nor in spirit, should still be able to enjoy Mozart. . . . When I play him, I feel brighter and younger, almost a youth again. ... He captivates, delights and comforts me." It is, therefore, with a sense of rehabilitation and refreshment that Tschaikovsky eventually lays down his cherished volume, and, inhaling deep breaths of the flower-scented air, betakes himself for a walk of about three quarters of an hour. Now, his whole conduct of the forthcoming day is known, by those who are accustomed to him, to depend upon the details of this early morning walk. If he should speak but little, and go out alone, it betokens a day's serious work in prospect. If, on the other hand, he should awaken loquacious and socially inclined, so that he talks during his breakfast and takes a friend to stroll with him, it means that he will not compass much completed work. To-day, as it happens, 10 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY his mind is overbrimming with creative energy : and as all his work is inspired and initiated by the lovely surroundings of nature, he seeks the open air in solitude, to evolve and to gather new impressions. For you must understand that this man lives solely for his work : which, indeed, to a musician is far more absorbing, and needs far longer self-concentration, than that of a painter or a writer. The painter has his model, his studies, his open-air scenery, he cannot go beyond that which is. The author has words and phrases ready to hand; they are the common property of his native speech, and his skill can only be evinced by his management and usage of them. But the musician has to create, so to speak, out of nothing. The mysterious and elusive method of clair-audience, by which a great composer becomes the percipient and recipient of beautiful combina- tions or progressions of sound, transcends all other human experience : it has never been adequately fathomed, analysed or explained. But one thing is certain, that among the exquisite silences and sweetnesses of out-door Nature, her vastitudes of hill and privacies of woodland, lie the best and worthiest possibilities for the musician towards the fulfilment of his dreams. A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY And this has always been the ideal existence for Tschaikovsky, with his morbid and abnormal temperament. Long since he declared, " I love solitude and silence, I dream of a calm, heavenly, serene existence. ... I long intensely for a quiet peaceful life, such as one lives in the country : " and now, as the " hermit of Klin," this life is his. " To feel myself free and alone," he says to himself as he paces on, " to be able to visit the forests every day and wander among the flowers, I cannot find such joys elsewhere." He gazes around him with enraptured eyes : and the " homely unassuming landscape of Central Russia," " the common sun, the air, the skies to him are opening Paradise." He needs no gorgeous scenery of East or West, no tropical luxuriance or Southern glow, to content him : for he has, as he confesses, " never come across any one so much in love with Mother Russia" as himself; and he finds perennial fascination in " that indefinable charm which lies in our modest, plain, poor, but wide and open landscape." Never, indeed, has there been a more essentially patriotic man that this, "passionately devoted," in his own words, " to the Russian people, to the Russian language, to the Russian spirit, to the Russian type of countenance and to A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY Russian customs." He might be described as the spirit of local colour incarnate : and probably he has never enjoyed himself more thoroughly than when developing some characteristically national folk-song into a glorious work of art, such as the Finale of his Fourth Symphony, founded upon a peasant dance-tune. " There is not a single bar in the Fourth Symphony," he declares, " which I have not truly felt, and which is not an echo of my most intimate spiritual life. ... I love this child of my fancy very dearly : it is one of the things which will never disappoint me." And across the innocent country mirth of the Finale one hears the laughter of man and maid, the tap of heel and toe, the voices shrill or deep of the moujiks in their holiday garb. That " fiery exaltation on a basis of languid melancholy" which is the very essential of the Slavonic tempera- ment, pulsates in unwonted gaiety throughout this delightful epic of dancing. Tschaikovsky enters the forest, and the delicious emanations of summer foliage salute him on every side. His face is filled with a visible joy as he recognises, by sight or by aroma, his innumerable friends among the flowers and trees. He is glad 13 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY that no one is near to witness his ecstatic enjoy- ment : for it is immediately frustrated by the presence of any second person. He is passionately fond of flowers, especially wild ones. " To my mind/' says he, " the lily of the valley is the queen of flowers : I love it to distraction. . . . When I am old and past composing, I shall devote myself to growing flowers." And from their subtle, intoxicating perfumes, a strange result accrues to him. Not a languid enervation, a desire to lounge among these visions of loveliness, but a definite and insistent impulse towards creative work. Tschaikovsky is no dilettante in his methods : he has very distinct ideas upon the necessity of industrious labour. In the first place, he is " convinced that if a musician desires to attain the greatest heights to which his inspiration will carry him, he must develop himself as a craftsman." But, that accomplished, one must never look back from the plough. ..." We must always work. And a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands upon the pretext that he is not in the mood." He perceives that the greatest achievements in music have been the outcome of commissioned 14 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY THE SULTANA AND HER CANARY. The Sultana questioned her canary, " Lov'st thou not this palace where I've placed thee ? Here thou warblest for Zuleika's pleasure, Wherefore dost thou long afar to haste thee ? " (The Canary Bird.) A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY work, not, so to speak, of free-will inspiration : that they have been carried out with the steadiness, the deliberate diligence, with which a shoemaker makes shoes : that " if we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we become indolent and apathetic." And therefore, having practised what he preaches, the master surrenders himself more joyfully to the streams of inspiration now welling up both within and without him : for who shall say whether music is of mental, of extraneous, or of " subliminal " origin ? And " it would be vain to try to put into words," so, he himself has confessed, " that immeasurable sense of bliss which comes over me, directly a new idea wakens and begins to take a definite form." Definite form, with him, includes the instrumentalization : for the musical thought never appears to him without being clad " in a suitable external form : " so that the idea and its presentment are born simultaneously. .... Tschaikovsky rummages his pockets for an exercise-book or note-book, such as he generally utilises for the jotting down of these ideas : but he searches in vain ; and, with an impatient grunt, he drags out all the scraps of paper he can find upon c 17 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY him, letter, envelope or bill, and presses them into service. For his memory is untrustworthy, and his imaginings too precious to be entrusted to it. He will subsequently work out all these notes and sketches at the pianoforte, and transcribe them in their final and authentic form. " But if that condition of mind and soul which we call inspiration, lasted long without intermission, no artist could survive it." So Tschaikovsky has written : and thus, although it causes a momentary jar to his nerves in their state of tension, and a transient sense of irritation flits across his highly strung mind, dragged down from radiant altitudes, it is perhaps just as well for him that he is suddenly confronted by a little peasant girl some six years old, who, with a charming blend of shyness and audacity, holds out her hand and begs him for a coin. The lonely man loves children ; and he is, indeed, in a fair way to spoil the little villagers, for ever since his arrival at Maidanovo he has been unable to refrain from " tipping " every child he meets. They have readily fallen in with this benevolent habit, and are now apt to waylay his wandering steps at unexpected corners : but at present he is not au fait with their strategies. The advent of a 18 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY little rogue like this only intensifies that sense of wildness, spaciousness and freedom, which is so dear to the man long cooped up in cities. " I appear in my works," says he, " just as God made me, such as I have become through the action of time, nationality and education. ... I always choose subjects in which I have to deal with real men and women who share the same emotions as myself." And hence he has expressed, with infinite pathos, much of his sufferings intra muros, in that plaintive arabesque of secret meanings, The Canary Bird. The Sultana questioned her canary, " Lov'st thou not this palace where I've placed thee ? Here thou warblest for Zuleika's pleasure, Wherefore dost thou long afar to haste thee ? " Sing me, birdie, sing of realms beyond the sunset. Sing me stories of the West where thou would'st wander ! Have they skies like ours, so blue and sunny, Have they harems, have they cages yonder ? 19 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY " In the West do roses grow as richly ? What great king what lady's love possesses ? Is such beauty in such splendour clad there ? " But the bird with mournful song confesses : " Ask me now no more of distant regions, Wherefore wilt thou take my heart and rend it ? What I sing within the stifling harem, No Sultana e'er may comprehend it ! " .... The baby peasant has broken the spell of his art : and the master retraces his steps. Arrived at home, with his usual punctuality and punctiliousness he addresses himself to the day's routine. From 9.30 a.m. to i p.m. he is indefatigably busy. Completing his roughed-out compositions, correcting his proofs, reading and answering letters, swallow up the time with incredible rapidity. Tschaikovsky always prefers to polish off a distasteful task before undertaking a congenial one : and, perhaps, proof-correcting is to him, even more than to most people, tedious and annoying. So he disposes of that first : and then he attacks his correspondence. This is a weightier matter to him than to the composers of the early nineteenth century : increasing postal A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY facilities bring their additional burden to any man who has acquired fame. And Tschaikovsky's mail- bag is a full one, whether incoming or outgoing : because, not only does he receive an extraordinary number of letters from unknown admirers, musicians professional and amateur, officers, priests, girls and enthusiastic students, all seeking that advice and assistance which they are quite certain to receive from this most conscientious and sympathetic of men, but his personal entourage of acquaintance is large, and he is himself addicted to very lengthy epistles. Sometimes he writes thirty of these a day, to the exclusion of all other work, and does not get finished before night. " I am continually exchanging letters," he grumbles, " with four brothers, several cousins, and many friends, besides a quantity of casual correspondence. . . . The necessity of sacrificing so much of my time to letter-writing is such a burden to me, that from the bottom of my heart I curse all the postal arrangements in the world." Yet there is one person with whom he has maintained for years an intimacy so close, and a friendship so confidential, as to be probably unique in the annals of letter- writing. " One person," he has confessed, " plays the chief part in the story of my life for the last A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY ten years : she is my good genius : to her I owe all my prosperity and the power to devote myself to my beloved work." And he has never set eyes upon her, never heard her voice nor held her hand : his whole intercourse with this amie inconnue has been conducted through the post. Nadeshda Filarevna von Meek is a wealthy widow, who, being an enthusiastic admirer of Tschaikovsky's music, presents him with a fixed yearly income of 6,000 roubles, so that he may devote himself entirely to composition, being relieved of the irksomeness of teaching and the wprry of insufficient means. And she bestows this generosity upon one condition namely, that he and she shall never meet, because their ideals of each other might be tarnished by personal acquaintance. The history of art holds no more disinterested a kindness than that of Madame von Meek : and Tschaikovsky repays it, as she would wish, by pouring out his soul to her on paper and by dedicating to her his best and noblest creations : in particular that Fourth Symphony to which he always alludes as " your Symphony " in his letters to her. And in this veiled benefactress he finds all that sympathy and DAY WITH TSCH AIKO VSKY THE SUGAR-PLUM FAIRY. The Sugar-Plum Fairy of the ' ' Casse Noisette " Suite, all charm, abandon, and vivacity, whom he has ' ' felt the absolute impossibility of depicting in music." A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY affection which has been denied him in the ordinary relationships of life. A man especially in need of a woman's help and comfort, he has never been able to experience it. Various poignant and vehement love affairs have been his in youth, he has " felt the whole power and inexpressible stress of love," and has endeavoured to " render in music all the anguish and the bliss of it." But these volcanic eruptions had long subsided, when, some ten years ago, he received a proposal from a woman who represented her life to be unlivable without him. After vainly attempting to elude a prospect which held out no enchantment for him, the master succumbed to a spasm of sentiment, as so many other men have done. Although, as he confessed, " to live thirty- seven years with an innate antipathy for marriage, and then suddenly by force of circumstances, to find oneself engaged to a woman with whom one is not in the least in love, is very painful ! " he married her, to leave her very shortly, but not before he was involved in a frightful nervous breakdown, and on the sheer edge of insanity. They have never met again, and never will meet. He is incapable even of working while she is D 25 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVKSY present; but he does not blame either her or himself: alone he attributes their calamity to " the perversity of Fate, which had thrown together two utterly incompatible natures." Ever since then, " to regret the past, to hope in the future, and never to be satisfied with the present " is the occupation of his lonely heart, and he avows that his " nerves get out of gear for no particular reason a wearing maddening depression which never leaves me." Generous, amiable, gentle and long- suflfering as Tschaikovsky is by nature, it is reason- able to conclude that his ci-devant wife must have been the very acme and apotheosis of incompatibility, to arouse such feelings of shuddering aversion in one so kindly of disposition. Be that as it may, he still preserves and cherishes a lofty feminine ideal. From the self-sacrificing heroines of his operas, singularly noble and beautiful creations, down to the Sugar-Plum Fairy of the " Casse Noisette " Suite, all charm, abandon and vivacity, whom he has " felt the absolute impossibility of depicting in music " his conceptions are on the highest and worthiest plane. And this man, who has " never been quite so bored as with Tristan und Isolde" with whom, in person, the rosy radiant Love of mortal dreams has had no dealings, 26 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY can depict in tone-colours of the most triumphant joy, the most poignant pathos, or the most exquisite yearning, all the varied phases in which Love can possibly be revealed. Particularly is this the case in his songs, those little masterpieces of finished emotional expression, such as Why?, with its continuous crescendo of impassioned unrest, O mightest thou but once forget, suffused with the sweetest sadness of remembrance, 'Twos when the Spring as yet was young, through which every warm and lovely odour of Maytime breathes perceptibly, and The Songs that I loved as a child, with its dimly-suggested rocking of a cradle, and its celestial hint of tender motherhood. Such another extraordinarily subtle insight into human passion is The Red Beads When I rode to join the Cossacks, Anna whispered lightly, " God forbid that I with tears Should daily mourn and nightly ! When a victor thou return'st, Remember what I said, Bring me but a little necklace, Beads of rosy red ! " 27 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY Gallant leader led us onward : Ha ! behind him sweeping. Soon we slew their lord in battle, Fill'd their land with weeping. Blazing roof and burning rafter, Light the Cossack's tread ! But I never have forgotten Beads of rosy red. O, thou dear and dark-eyed maiden, Here's a necklace for thee ! Come and fetch thy rosy beads, For they of thee are worthy ! Ne'er, I swear, I'll leap from horse, Till homewards I have sped, Till around thy neck I fasten Beads of rosy red ! To thine arms across the desert, Fiercely I am racing : See, the village people slowly From the church are pacing : And they cry in solemn voices, Thrilling me with dread, " Now no more thine Anna needeth Beads of rosy red ! " 28 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY Ah ! what fears and deathly terrors Are my heart affrighting ! There before the Holy Image From my horse alighting ; 'Twas for her alone, none other, That my blood I shed, Here I fling you, here I leave you. Beads of rosy red ! And such is that typically gallant, reckless and magnificent production, Don Juan's Serenade, redolent of moonlit Seville and all its splendid sinners : Peace upon the world is falling, And the light of day doth fade ; To my song so softly calling, Show thyself, thou lovely maid ! Who shall e'er be named beside thee, Half so fair of form and face ? Death himself, who hath espied thee, Draws from out his dwelling-place. The moonbeams are streaming Adown from the height, O come now, Niseta, I wait thee to-night ! 29 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY Hearken, all the wide world over Many a dreamy serenade Is to-night by many a lover Brought to many a lovely maid. For the fairest, for the dearest, Oft the shining swords will start : Song and clash of steel thou hearest, Thou, the lady of my heart ! The splendour is streaming Adown from the height ; O come now, Niseta, I wait thee to-night ! The genius of Tschaikovsky, it has been said, belongs to the borderland between the Teutonic and the Slavonic : but it is the latter element, with its fatalism, its ineradicable pessimism, its underlying latency of savage primitive emotion, which mainly tinges his greatest music. And to the Slavonic, also, may be attributed a certain inherent dislike of form. " I have suffered all my life," complains the composer, " from my inability to grasp form in general. I shall go to my grave without having produced anything perfect in form." For this very reason, doubtless, with unflagging industry he pursues the quest of his 30 DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY THE RED BEADS. 'Twas for her alone, none other, That my blood I shed, Here I fling you, here I leave you, Beads of rosy red ! A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY Fata Morgana, and contrives very often to achieve an assured and consummate mastery over form such as has been denied to men of equal ability. For no pains are too tedious, too severe, which Tschaikovsky may take in the service of his beloved art. Music is all in all to him : " it is indeed," in his own words, " the most beautiful of Heaven's gifts to humanity wandering in the darkness Alone, it calms, enlightens and stills our souls. It is not the straw to which the dying man clings, but a true friend, refuge and comforter, for whose sake life is worth living." Having completed his letter-writing for the day, and despatched a long, loquacious epistle to Madame von Meek, the musician is buried in manuscripts. He is transcribing, with a mixture of pleasure and impatience, the ideas which he has conceived the previous day : and, as is so often the case, they do not now bear so attractive and striking an aspect as on their original appearance. " This old man is breaking up," murmurs Tschaikovsky, " I am very dissatisfied with myself because of the commonplaceness of everything that occurs to me ... I must be getting old ... I am losing bit by bit the capacity to do * 33 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY anything at all ... If I can no longer furnish my musical table with anything but warmed-up fare, I shall give up composing altogether." And he groans in the abysses of a profound dissatisfaction. The door opens, and he starts irritably. Perfect solitude is an essential to him while working. . . . Oh, it is only Alexis. Alexis always pretends not to hear or see his master : so he usually counts as nobody. On this occasion, however, he walks straight up to him, and remarks respectfully, but with resolution, " Peter Ilyich, it is the middle of the month. It is about time to send something off to Petersburg." This is a piece of simple routine which Alexis carries out with the punctual precision of machinery. One pianoforte piece per month is due to a certain musical journal : but unless Alexis reminds his master, it is certain to be overlooked. Peter Ilyich obediently betakes himself to the piano with a sheet of music-paper, and completes the thing right off: another of those simple but charmingly picturesque pieces among which are numbered familiar favourites like Barcarolle, Chanson Triste and Chant sans Paroles. To the average public, perhaps, Tschaikovsky's name is better known by these modest little buds of genius, than by the " strangely-marked rhythms," 34 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY the "huge and fantastic outlines/' of his more important works. But, indeed, he does not greatly concern himself about public estimate or apprecia- tion. " Fame ! what contradictory sentiments," he declares, " the word awakes in me ! On the one hand I desire and strive for it : on the other hand I detest it. ... I have the reputation of being modest. But I will confess that my modesty is nothing less than a secret but immense amour- propre. ... I have long since resigned myself to the belief that I shall not live to see the general recognition of my talents. But I have a foretaste during my lifetime of the fame which will be meted out to me when the history of Russian music comes to be written." At one o'clock sharp the composer sits down to his dinner : it is a plain and simple meal, to suit his homely tastes, but he has an excellent appetite, is pleased with all that may be set before him, and invariably sends a message of thanks to the cook by way of Alexis. After dinner, be it wet or fine, he starts off on another walk. He has read that if a man would keep in health, he must walk not less than two hours a day. As before, he goes entirely alone : even a dog would be an 35 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY intrusion upon his solitude. He goes round the garden and inspects with supreme delight the progress of his many plants. " What a pleasure it is ! " he murmurs to himself, " to watch them growing, and to see daily, even hourly, new blossoms coming out ! ... The garden is a mass of flowers ; I simply swim in an ocean of delightful impressions." Their luxuriant bloom and glow of colour is ineffably refreshing to his soul : he bathes and basks, as it were, in their opulent beauty. He tries to make up for the little knowledge or experience he has of horticulture, by the sedulous zeal with which he potters about after his flowers in all weathers, always over-anxious about them, whether on hot days or cold nights. Now he passes on towards the forest, through the millet-field which lies beyond the garden. And as the warmth of the summer afternoon, steeped in golden languor, and the full-tide loveliness of the world at large, permeate his quick susceptible senses, Tschaikovsky suddenly falls upon his knees in an impulse of overwhelming joy and gratitude, and gives God audible thanks for such great and overwhelming happiness. Arrived within the forest, he continues his delight by devoting himself to the one out-door pursuit which he adores above all others. Mush- 36 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY rooming contains, for him, the germs of all excitement ! " The manner in which one first catches sight of a plump white mushroom is simply fascinating ! " so he has confided to his friends : " Passionate card-lovers may experience the same feeling when they see the ace of trumps in their hands ! All day long, if I could, I would wander in the forest and bring home quantities of mush- rooms ! All night long I dream of large, pink, fat mushrooms ! These mushroomy dreams, I allow, are very childish : but in truth one would become wholly a child again if one lived long enough with Nature." As he goes, with a sharp eye ransacking every possible locale for his prey, he stops occasionally to make observations of ants or other busy insects : and he recites aloud, for his own entertainment, as a rule in French, or improvises some dramatic scene, or thinks out operatic schemes. Under normal circumstances, he declares, there is no hour of the day at which he cannot compose; but the preliminary accessories of composition, so to speak, the planning-out of some important work, necessarily occupy a certain amount of time. Often he roams the garden for hours, distrait and discontented, because he cannot grasp the evasive 37 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY thought which is for ever just out of reach before him. Tschaikovsky has not found what he desired either of popular or artistic success in operatic composition. The "little more, and how much it is," has for him been transformed into the " little less, and what worlds away ! " Neither Eugene Oniegin, described as being " like a woman with many faults of heart and character, but whom we love for her beauty in spite of them all," nor Joan of Arc, nor Pique-Dame (Queen of Spades) have turned out as they should have done : nor has the reason why been always easy to find. The composer himself is beginning to think that opera is not his true me'tier or medium of music. " The older I grow," he ruefully reflects, " the more convinced I am that symphony and opera are in every respect at the opposite poles of music. ... I think, if God grants me a long life, that I shall never again compose an opera. ... It is perhaps the richest of musical forms : I think, however, that personally I am more inclined to symphonic music." Yet, meditating the subject as he walks, he is unconsciously formulating the 38 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY DON JUAN'S SERENADE. The moonbeams are streaming Adown from the height, O come now, Niseta, I wait thee to-night ! (Don Juan's Serenade.) A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY material for The Sorceress, which he has long ruminated : and presently he concludes that " Of course I am no judge of my own works, but I can truthfully say that with very few exceptions they have all been felt and lived by me, and have come straight from my heart. . . . This fact should undoubtedly improve my chances of creating a really human, living work, not a mere replica of worn-out patterns. . . . But if one may no longer write opera on the old lines, are we obliged to write as Wagner does ? I reply, Certainly not ! I cannot bear the Wagnerian subjects, in which there is so little human interest." For it is a curious paradox, that Tschaikovsky, who " feels at his best when alone, when trees, flowers and books take the place of human society," is pre- eminently human in his views of life for others. " Yes," says he, becoming more and more emphatically convinced of his own desires, " and then we shall see what we shall see ! But, O God, how short life is ! How much I have yet to accomplish before it is time to leave off! How many projects to fulfil ! When I am quite well, as I am at present, I am seized with a feverish thirst for work but the thought of the shortness of human life paralyses all my energy. I hate F 4 I A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY the flat-nosed horror, death, who puts an end to all one's glorious visions, I would gladly drive away those disquieting thoughts when they thrust themselves upon me. Yet I seem to come upon them at every corner. A sense of the triviality of existence is always present with me, it is perceptible in every Finale I have ever written. If I cannot disregard these gloomy spectres, I had at least better conceal them from others, under mere c sound and fury signifying nothing,' like that of the e 1812 ' Overture, or boisterous fantastic gaiety, like that of the pizzicato Scherzo of my Fourth Symphony. For if I endeavour to portray life as I really see it, I shall people it with capricious goblins." Wrapped in these melancholy musings, he has reached the limit of his stroll : and retraces his steps, consoling himself en route with golden discoveries of mushrooms. As the clock strikes four, he is re-entering the house, and greeted by the grateful scent of tea. He reads the daily papers whilst at tea; and at five o'clock, with his customary systematic sedulity, sits down for a good two hours' work. Whilst he is engaged upon this, visitors arrive : but the faithful Alexis 42 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY does not permit his master to be disturbed until the latter emerges at eight for a final " constitu- tional/' when he gives a hearty welcome to the friends who are awaiting his leisure. Whether they be expected or unexpected, he is always a model of hospitality and kindliness. They go out happily together into the open fields to watch the splendours of the sunset. Jurgenson, the great music-publisher, is one of them, Laroche and Kashkin are familiar faces there : the presence of Modeste, Tschaikovsky's best-beloved brother, compensates for the absence of such dear companions as Taneiev, Hubert and Albrecht. They discourse and discuss with the composer the subjects nearest to his heart, that is to say, those which deal with music in all its branches. Since he relinquished his professorship at the Petersburg Conservatoire, Tschaikovsky has been able to devote much more time to the study of other composers : and he holds strong opinions upon the relative merits of master tone-poets. By the music of Brahms he is left absolutely cold, untouched at any point. " It is all very serious," says he," very distinguished, apparently even original, but in spite of all this, the chief thing is lacking beauty." Beethoven, again, appals rather than charms him : " Beethoven 43 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY makes me tremble, from a sense of fear and yearning and anguish." To the " glow and passion of Schumann " he alludes with admiration, and to the " deep humanity " of Grieg, in whose music " there prevails that fascinating melancholy which serves to reflect in itself all the beauty of Norwegian scenery." But above and beyond all, ancient and modern, he reveres his unrivalled Mozart. ..." You would not believe," he tells his companions, " what wonderful feelings come over me when I give myself up to his music ! " As the calming influences of the fragrant evening air are shed around him, the reticent and solitary man becomes more communicative, more talkative; he confides to those around him his most secret joys and sorrows : he permits himself to disclose that rankling trouble which he can never quite ignore, the coldness of his erstwhile idolized teacher and chief friend Anton Rubinstein the one man who never visits, never congratulates him, never condoles with him, but passes him over in perpetual silence. " The most probable explanation of this mortifying silence," Tschaikovsky bitterly admits, " is that Rubinstein 44 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY does not care for my music. There is indeed no other solution of his behaviour." The rest of the evening is spent in pleasant social intercourse. After supper, the composer sits chatting with his guests. In former years he used to enjoy a card-game now and then, or the performance of four-handed duets with Laroche or Kashkin. But now, as he reluctantly allows, " my age, though not very advanced, begins to tell : I get very tired now, and can no longer play or read at night as I used to do." From work at night, even when alone, he has long abstained : it would result in terrible hallucinations, accompanied by a hammering sensation in the head. So he listens tranquilly to Laroche's reading aloud of some favourite book, Flaubert being specially enjoyed by him. At eleven precisely the household retires for the night. The guests are shown by Alexis to their apartments, and the master, in his own room, writes up his diary, and reads for a little while. He is, as he himself has put it, " left alone to read, dream, or recall the past : to think of those near and dear to me : to open the window and gaze 45 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY out on the stars : to listen to the sounds of night, and finally to go to bed." But all this may occupy a long while, even hours. He fills his heart with tender musings upon the truths of that Christianity which is at last endearing itself to his naturally religious mind : he prays, with the simplicity of a child, in the self-same words that he has used, through all his doubts, since childhood. " What touching love and compassion for mankind," sighs the prematurely old and weary man, " lie in these words, Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy-laden I " Gradually he succumbs to that strange and inexplicable exhaustion which is beyond fatigue,* which overtakes him every night : and, planting himself at the window, he expends his last remaining energy in assimilating the glory of the night. " The stillness, the perfume of the flowers, and those wondrous and indefinable sounds that belong to the night," he whispers, " Ah, God, how beautiful it all is ! " Not until the chill of the " small hours " begins to invade the warm and languorous garden air, will Peter Ilyich Tschaikovsky reluctantly tear himself away from the spell of the midsummer night, and fall into dreams of mushrooms. 4 6 NOTE. The author desires to acknowledge indebtedness, for many authentic sayings of Tschaikovsky, to the admirable books of Mrs. Rosa Newmarch.