3

Foreign Tour, 185459

Before leaving Russia, Rubinstein was engaged to appear a number of times at

various concert venues in St. Petersburg. In an all-Rubinstein concert at the
Lichtenthal Hall on 2/14 March he performed the solo part in his Piano Concerto No. 3 under the baton of Carl Schuberth and then conducted the premiere
of his Symphony in B
. On 14/26 March he performed his Piano Trio in F,
Op.15, No. 1, with Pikkel and Schuberth at Myatlev Hall. Two weeks later the
Philharmonic Society gave a charity concert under the direction of Schuberth,
performing works by Dargomzhsky, Rubinstein, Mikhail Wielhorski, Glinka,
Lvov, and Maurer.1 On 31 March/12 April he appeared with Ludwig Maurer at
the Mikhaylovsky Theater, and on 15/27 April he played some of his own works
at a concert given by the Italian clarinetist Ernesto Cavallini at the Lichtenthal
Hall. This was the last concert in which Rubinstein appeared in Russia before
embarking on his long concert tour.
As the European winter season was almost over, he realized that it was not
the most propitious time to begin a concert tour, but when the necessary permission to travel arrived, he resolved to go: The die is cast: it will be one thing
or the other, he wrote to Kaleriya Khristoforovna in Odessa. I still hope to
achieve the goal I have set for myself. The most important thing is to familiarize
people with my works, to get them printed, to listen to good music more often,
and to work myself.2
Rubinstein set out from St. Petersburg on 30 April/12 May 1854 and his rst
stop was Warsaw, where the company of a certain Laura Sveykovskaya caused
him to dally for four days longer than he had intended. When you see Fredro,
Rubinstein told his brother Yakov, tell him that in the near future I shall write
to him much about her. Tell him that she has asked me to pass on her respects.
I gave her his letter.3 Maksimilian Fredro was the son of the celebrated Polish
playwright Count Alexander Fredro, known in his time as the Polish Molire.
Born in 1820, Maksimilian was an amateur artist and a music lover, and held
the post of an ofcial in St. Petersburg. Rubinstein kept his promise, for he eventually wrote to Fredro:
Laura [Sveykovskaya] is more beautiful than ever, and although suffering, even ill,
she completely captivates all the young people; she feels a real affection for you; she
favored me like an out and out coquette; besides, I nd that for a beautiful woman
she is very natural and good, which is rare in this milieu. Constanze, her sister, is
becoming the observer of the weaknesses of human nature; in my opiniona bad
omen. Sobansky, Branitssky, etc., the one has tabes dorsalis, the other consumption,