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It was here that I first met the younger Rubinstein, Anton's brother Nicholas, who, as director of the Russian Musical Society, was the leading authority in his profession in Moscow; his demeanour towards me was characterised throughout by modesty and consideration. The orchestra consisted of the hundred musicians who provided the Imperial household with Italian opera and ballet.
Penniket was closeted with Zillah and her cousin Melky Rubinstein in the back-parlour of the shop in Praed Street behind closed and locked doors which they had no intention of opening to anybody. Now that the old man was dead and buried, it was necessary to know how things stood with respect to his will and his property, and, as Mr.
Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, and even Bach in his B minor suite for strings and flute- -also indulged in this form. Wagner, as a student, wrote a Polonaise for four hands, in D, and in Schumann's Papillons there is a charming specimen. Rubinstein composed a most brilliant and dramatic example in E flat in Le Bal.
Two only were admitted neither of whom could come under the general category. One of these was Nicholas Rubinstein; the other Laroche. Probably, of all the world, only these two understood Ivan at this time. But their understanding and their love stood them in poor stead now. He whom they sought to comfort lay deep in a hell of his own, from the very threshold of which they were barred away.
When asked whether these programs were to resemble Rubinstein's famous historical recitals in London, years ago, he replied: "They will be more extensive than the Rubinstein recitals. The times make such a series possible now, which Rubinstein would have hesitated to give."
He sighed as he sat near her on the sofa and Mrs. Goldmark looked at him with concern. "Such a time you have lately, Mr. Rubinstein, don't you?" she said feelingly. "Such worries such troubles! And the risk you ran taking that wicked young man all by yourself so brave of you! You'd ought to have one of these medals what they give to folks, so!"
For she was playing Wagner, Brahms, and Rubinstein, interpreting all those passionate voices of the subtlest moderns, through which the heart of our own day has expressed itself even more freely and exactly than through the voice of literature.
As week succeeded week, he came to connect Christmas Day with a message, a note, a word, of some sort, from Prince Michael. Afterwards, looking back to his absolute faith in an event which he had no sort of reason to expect, it seemed as if some lost presentiment had found a mistaken home with him; for he actually spoke to Rubinstein of his visit to his father on that day, as a fact assured.
Next morning, still acting secretly, dreading, in his peculiar modesty, possible over-praise from those who might be prejudiced in his favor, he despatched his precious bundle to Petersburg, addressed to his old critics and masters, Zaremba and Anton Rubinstein. With it went a brief note requesting, humbly, that they examine it and send him their opinion of its worth.
The most artistic of Russia's novelists, Turgenieff, was cosmopolitan; and it was a frequent reproach made during his lifetime that the music of Tschaikovsky was too European, not sufficiently national. Naturally, Anton Rubinstein suffered the same criticism; too German for the Russians, too Russian for the Germans. It was altogether different in the case of Modeste Moussorgsky.
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