most directly involved, and his relations with her were far from harmonious.

In
a letter of 2/14 March 1861 he declared to her: I shall never understand why
you always interpose your person in things which relate to me. I assure you that,
although your letter of today is curt, it is not sufciently curt to cause me to be
mistaken in my feelings toward youthis is out of malice toward the grand
duchess. I shall not come, whatever you may think. I am used to being unrec-
ognized. 29 This letter was followed by a further one dated Tuesday 21 March/
2 April in which he asked to be relieved of his duties as musical accompanist at
the Thursday soires of the grand duchess, nding them incompatible with
the dignity of the art which I hold like a religious fanatic.30 As the grand duch-
ess continued to send him invitations to appear at her soires, he told Raden
that he considered it necessary to resign from a position which until today was
so attering and so honorable. He asked Raden to take steps to stop paying his
salary, no longer considering myself in the service of her Imperial Highness.31
It is clear from subsequent letters to Raden that this did not lead to a complete
rupture with the grand duchess. He continued to carry out his musical duties
at the Mikhaylovsky Palace until his departure for Vienna a few months later,
but his anger bubbled away for a whole year and then nally erupted in a con-
versation with Raden which took place in early March (n.s.) 1862.

Music in Russia
Early in 1861 Pyotr Isaeyevich Veynberg (the brother of Rubinsteins
brother-in-law, Yakov, who had married his sister Lyuba) asked Rubinstein to
provide an article for his weekly journal Vek [The age]. Veynberg had been edu-
cated at the Odessa Gymnasium and the University of Kharkov from which he
graduated in 1854, and was a poet, translator, and literary historian. In the mid-
1850s he wrote the poem Titulyarny sovetnik [The Titular Councilor] that Dar-
gomzhsky had famously set to music in 1859. The poem was written while
Veynberg was in the service of the governor of Tambov (while there, he earned
the nickname The Heine from Tambov) and it is thought to be a reection of
Veynbergs unrequited love for the governors daughter. He moved to St. Peters-
burg in 1858 and was appointed editor of Vek a few years later. In an attempt
to reverse the fortunes of the journal which was failing to attract readers, Veyn-
berg wrote a scandalous feuilleton about a woman, who, seemingly breaking all
the laws of morality, reads Pushkins Yegipetskiye nochi [Egyptian nights] at a
literary soire in Perm, and presents herself toward her audience as Cleopatra.
Perhaps Veynberg had correctly judged the impact Rubinsteins article might
have on public opinion and saw in it a way to draw attention to the journal. If
so, his instincts did not fail him. The rst issue of Vek for 1861 carried Rubin-
steins article, O muzkye v Rossii [On music in Russia] and it was a bombshell.32
This article ferociously attacked what Rubinstein saw as dilettantism in Rus-
sian music. He scorned the amateurs who studied music solely for their own
pleasure and compared them with the true artist who, in the words of Goethe,
has moistened his bread with tears.

The Founding of the Russian Music Society 91