A man is known by the company
he keeps. This popular Russian saying also applies to the teachers you
learn from…
 Anton
Rubinstein and Pyotr Tchaikovsky – a famous teacher and his even more famous
student. Their relationship is the subject we are going to speak about.
Rubinstein was 11 years Tchaikovsky’s senior and by the time they first
met the age difference looked like an abyss neither of the two would ever
be able to cross. Starting his career early on, Anton Rubinstein, then
33, had long been the darling of concertgoers all across the continent
rubbing shoulders with royalty and admired by celebrities everywhere…
Unlike his high-riding new friend,
the 22-year-old Tchaikovsky, a law school graduate, was given a lowly job
at the Justice Ministry. The two first met in 1862 when Anton Rubinstein
had just announced the opening of his music classes, which later became
the St.Petersburg Conservatory, the first institute of higher musical learning
in Russia. Pyotr Tchaikovsky was among the first to be admitted…
Quick to appreciate the unusual
abilities of his student who was learning composition and arrangement,
Rubinstein never pampered him with easy assignments or lavish praise…
An appreciative Tchaikovsky later
wrote: “the hectic work schedule imposed on us by the very demanding Rubinstein
instilled in us the much needed professionalism in writing music…”
Once Rubinstein asked his student
to do an almost impossible thing – to write a piece for choir and orchestra
to the Ode to Joy by Friedrich Schiller. The very same Ode… that graced
the finale of the venerable Ludwig van Beethoven’s magnificent Ninth Symphony.
Tchaikovsky was enraged by the
assignment but did not dare to argue with the quick-tempered maestro. After
weeks of hectic work, Tchaikovsky showed his opus to Rubinstein and, much
to his jubilation, the no nonsense maestro did not change a thing in the
score and even allowed himself a bit of reserved praise for the work done…
Shortly after graduation,
Tchaikovsky, who had always felt uneasy under his mentor’s rigid supervision,
moved down to Moscow invited there by Rubinstein’s younger brother Nikolai.
Just like Anton before him, Nikolai was in the process of opening a conservatory
in Moscow and was looking for professional teachers. Tchaikovsky was exactly
the man he needed…
Nikolai Rubinstein was an easier
man to get along with but Anton Rubinstein’s influence was still being
felt very strongly forcing the young composer to adjust his writing to
his former mentor’s taste.
Anton Rubinstein was the first in Russia to write multi-part symphonies
and even though those cycles closely followed the German pattern, some
of them boasted many original ideas. Rubinstein had sensed the country’s
growing need for symphonies as a genre reflecting the complexity of the
surrounding world in what was perceived as a musical parallel to the up
and coming genre of the psychological novel.
The young Tchaikovsky was very well familiar with Rubinstein’s symphonies
which he had played many times with his course mates. Little wonder that
the Winter Dreams symphony became one of the biggest compositions Tchaikovsky
wrote shortly after graduating from the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
The 26-year-old author sent his new work to Anton Rubinstein who criticized
the symphony. Tchaikovsky made all necessary amends only to be dressed
down again by the maestro who flatly refused to conduct the symphony’s
premiere. The Winter Dreams was unveiled in Moscow under the expert conductorship
of Nikolai Rubinstein.
 Tchaikovsky
followed Anton Rubinstein’s lead also in opera focusing, just like his
onetime mentor, on the lyrical aspect of his music.
In 1871 Rubinstein wrote his opera Demon based on an eponymous poem
by Mikhail Lermontov – the first lyric musical drama in Russian history.
There is a great deal of
stylistic similarity between Rubinstein’s Demon and Yevgeny Onegin, the
opera Tchaikovsky wrote in 1878 after a novel by the same name by another
Russian literary classic, Alexander Pushkin. Stylistically and psychologically
involved, these two operas emphasize the love stories of their main characters.
In a clear effort to enhance this generic coloration, Tchaikovsky called
Yevgeny Onegin a collection of lyric episodes rather than an opera in the
true meaning of the word…
A great fan of Ferenz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein emulated his beloved
genre of symphonic poem. Sticking to the best traditions of European romanticism,
Rubinstein painted a colorful symphonic portrait of Tsar Ivan the Terrible
who ruled Russia in the late 16th century.
Following in his mentor’s
footsteps, Tchaikovsky was also writing overtures and poems based on the
timeless literary heritage of William Shakespeare and Dante Alighieri.
Tchaikovsky diligently sent
his new works for Rubinstein’s expert consideration but the latter rarely
bothered to praise his up and rising disciple. Not because he envied him
but in his capacity of a big-time European celebrity, he simply refused
to acknowledge Tchaikovsky’s ever growing success…
Tchaikovsky often bemoaned that lack of attention from his onetime
mentor. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: “Rubinstein, who once used to
be my teacher, knows like no one else, my abilities and could help make
my music a success in Europe. It’s a great pity that this high-nosed
windbag has always looked down on me and like no one else, has been able
to hurt my pride…”
Despite all this, Rubinstein
still dedicated a Scherzo to his onetime student.
And Tchaikovsky fully returned
the favor dedicated to Rubinstein a choral anthem and his Six Pieces for
Piano cycle. He also translated from German into Russian the texts of several
songs written by his mentor…
_______________________
B.Berezovsky, “The St.Petersburg Philharmonic Society, History and Present
Day”, Cult-Inform Press, St.Petersburg, 2002
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