In the New Year Rubinstein conducted more RMS concerts on 9 and 29 Janu-

ary, and 5 February (o.s.). The programs consisted primarily of the German
classical and romantic repertory (Michael Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert,
and Weber) prompted most likely by the arrival in St. Petersburg of Clara Schu-
mann. She took part in chamber music evenings at the Bernardaki Hall in Janu-
ary and February and also played the solo part in her husbands Piano Concerto
in a concert of 29 February/12 March. Laroche recalled that during this visit
Clara Schumann heard a performance of a ute quartet by Kuhlau played by
the young Tchaikovsky in the company of three other students (Pugni [the son
of the ballet composer], Gorshkov, and Pomerantsev). Rubinstein had been
striving for more than a year to form an orchestra of conservatory students.
Apart from a respectable contingent of violinists attracted by the name of
Wieniawski, Laroche recalled, there was in the rst year, as far as I remember,
not a single student who could even tolerably play any orchestral instrument.
Rubinstein, who at that time received a very meager income, forfeited fteen
hundred rubles each year to provide free training on the missing instruments
needed to make up a complete orchestra.76 Laroche himself played the timpani,
Vasily Besselthe viola, and Ludwig Homeliusthe cello, but the orchestra was
mostly lacking in woodwind players, and it was on Rubinsteins initiative that
Tchaikovsky studied the ute under Cesare Ciardi, and then occupied the po-
sition of second ute in the Conservatory orchestra from 1863 to 1864.
Some months earlier, the Directorate of Imperial Theaters had intimated to
Rubinstein that his opera Die Kinder der Haide would be staged in St. Peters-
burg. In February he wrote to Count Aleksandr Borkh, director of the Imperial
Theaters, explaining that Pavel Fyodorov, the head of the repertory section, had
given him permission to distribute the roles in the opera himself. He wanted
the eminent soprano Kseniya Prokhorova to take the role of Maria and had al-
ready promised it to her, but now the Directorate had given it to the much less
notable singer Mikhaylovskaya. He also wanted the role of the Count to be en-
trusted to Komissarzhevsky, Nikolsky, or Bulakhov (all prominent tenors of the
day), but this request was also ignored by the Directorate. Rubinstein felt that
he had been treated abominably, and on 1/13 February he wrote directly to
Andrey Krayevsky, editor of the inuential paper Golos, asking him to publish
an open letter in which he insisted that the opera was not being staged because
of the Directorates blatant disregard for the composers wishes. Opposition to
the opera came not only from ofcial circles and the press. Balakirev, too, was
stirring up hostility toward it. After the publication of the vocal score, he wrote
to Rimsky-Korsakov on 11/23 January 1863: he [Rubinstein] has done a lot of
imitating, and do you know of whom? Gurilyov, Alyabyev, and the other Gypsy
composers, turning out their wares in the center of that servile, obscene, and
anti-artistic placeMoscow.
In March Rubinstein dismissed Konstantin Lyadov for failing to show up for
classes, although this did not prevent him from taking part in a concert given
by Lyadov on 9 April.77 His relations with Raden were also giving him much
cause for concern. In the period since she last entered our narrative, his relations

The Founding of the Russian Music Society 105