It may be because of that business, but I recall my teacher of composition, Steinberg, without any particular joy. He was a dry and didactic person, and I remember him primarily for two things. One was that Steinberg was Rimsky-Korsakov's son-in-law and the other was that he passionately hated Tchaikovsky. Rimsky-Korsakov's family, I must say, did not have a high regard for Tchaikovsky and his treatment was a sore point for them. It was a much sorer point, of course, for Nikolai Andreyevich himself. You don't need to dig around in the archives, just take a look at the works Rimsky-Korsakov composed and everything becomes clear.
Tchaikovsky kept Korsakov from composing, interfered simply by existing. This may sound blasphemous, but it's a fact. Rimsky-Korsakov tensed up because Tchaikovsky was composing next to him and he couldn't write a note. And like the old saying, a disaster came to the rescue-Tchaikovsky died and Korsakov's crisis ended.
For ten years Rimsky-Korsakov couldn't write an opera and after Tchaikovsky's death he wrote eleven operas in fifteen years. And it's interesting that this flood began with Christmas Eve. As soon as Tchaikovsky died, Korsakov took a theme already used by Tchaikovsky and rewrote it his way. Once he affirmed himself, the writing went smoothly.
But the hostility remained. Prokofiev said that he found a mistake in the score of Tchaikovsky's First Symphony-the flute had to play a B
flat. He showed it to Rimsky-Korsakov, who was gratified by this error and said, laughing into his beard, "Yes, Pyotr Ilyich really confused things here, he did."
I've never met a family like Korsakov's, words cannot describe their reverence for his memory. And naturally, Steinberg was no exception.
He and his wife, Nadezhda Nikolayevna, spoke only of Nikolai Andreyevich, they quoted and referred to him alone.
I remember November of 1 941 . It was wartime. I was sitting writing the Seventh Symphony, when there was a knock at the door. I was being called to the Steinbergs', urgently. All right, I dropped my work and went. When I got there I could see that a tragedy had befallen the 66
house. Everyone was subdued and grim, with tear-stained eyes. Steinberg himself was darker than a storm cloud. I thought that he would want to ask me something about evacuation, which was the most important issue of the day. And he did, but I could tell that that wasn't why I was there. Then Steinberg began talking about some composition of his. What composer doesn't like talking about his music? But I listened and I thought, This isn't it, obviously this isn't it.
Finally Steinberg could stand it no longer. He led me to his study, locked the door and looked around. He pulled out a copy of Pravda from his desk drawer and said, "Why did Comrade Stalin name Glinka and Tchaikovsky in his speech? And not Nikolai Andreyevich? Nikolai Andreyevich has more significance for Russian music than Tchaikovsky. I want to write to Comrade Stalin about it."
Here was the story. All the papers had just printed Stalin's speech.
This was his first major speech since the war began and he spoke, in part, about the great Russian nation-the nation of Pushkin and Tolstoy, Gorky and Chekhov, Repin and Surikov . . . and so on. You know, two of every living creature. And of the composers, Stalin singled out only Glinka and Tchaikovsky for praise. This injustice shook Steinberg to the very foundations of his being. Steinberg was seriously consulting me on how best to write to Stalin, as though it could have any meaning.
Years had passed, epochs changed, God knew what was going on, but nothing could shake the sacred enmity of Korsakov's family for Tchaikovsky.
Naturally, this is insignificant, a minor weakness. The main problem . was that Steinberg was a musician of limited scope. He shone in reflected light and therefore his words and opinions didn't elicit particular trust, while whatever Glazunov said elicited trust, primarily because he was a great musician. A living classic, so to speak. (And in my day, he was the only such exhibit at the Conservatory.) But in the final analysis, Glazunov's works could be seen then-as now-in various lights. There was something much more important for us and that was that each student (or pupil, as they were called then) could see for himself Glazunov's marvelous, even unique, abilities as a musician.
First there was his pitch. Glazunov had perfect, absolute pitch. His 67
ear terrified the students. Say there was an exam in harmony and part of it called for playing a modulation on the piano. Steinberg had trained us well for harmony. We could play a given modulation unbelievably fast, in the tempo of a virtuoso Chopin etude.
You went to the exam, Glazunov was there. You played and it was fantastic, you were even pleased yourself. After a pause came Glazunov's mutter, "And why did you allow parallel fifths between the 6/5
chord of the second degree and the 6/4 tonal chord?" Silence.
Glazunov caught all false notes, flawlessly, no matter where they were. Just before he left the country, however, he complained that he was hearing a half tone higher than the actual sound. He thought it was sclerosis. But it might not have been. The pitch to which ins�ruments are tuned might have risen, it's rising all the time, you know.
Anyone who has lived in music for over fifty years notices that. Recording is partly to blame. When you think about it, it's awful. You crank it faster, it sounds higher. Crank slower and it's lower. We're used to that now, but it's nothing less than a mockery of ,the human ear.
The other way in which Glazunov amazed us was with his memory.
Musical memory, naturally. There are many stories about that. I remember some of Glazunov's tricks, and I even tried to imitate them to a degree.
One of his more famous ones went something like this: Taneyev had come to Petersburg from Moscow to show his new symphony, and the host hid the young Glazunov in the next room. Taneyev played. When Taneyev finished and rose from the piano, he was surrounded by the guests, who congratulated him, naturally. After the obligatory compliments, the host suddenly said, "I'd like you to meet a talented young man. He's also recently written a symphony." What was that?
They brought Glazunov from the next room. "Sasha, show your symphony to our dear guest," the host said. Glazunov sat down at the piano and repeated Taneyev's symphony, from beginning to end. And he had just heard it for the first time-and through a closed door. I'm not so sure that even Stravinsky could do Glazunov's trick. And I know for certain that Prokofiev couldn't.
I remember that people said Stravinsky had trouble with pitch when he was studying with Rimsky-Korsakov; but perhaps that was just 68
slander, maybe they were just angry with an insubordinate student.
For such tricks the most important thing a musician needs is a good ear. And daring. These things are usually done on a bet. Sollertinsky used to goad me into recreating Mahler's symphonies that way, and it worked all right.
I managed a more minor bit of hooliganism. I was a guest in the home of a conductor when I was in my early twenties. They turned on the gramophone and played a popular record with a fox trot. I liked the fox trot but I didn't like the way it was played.
I confided my opinion to the host, who suddenly said, "Ah, so you don't like the way it's played? All right. If you want, write down the number by heart and orchestrate it and I'll play it. That is, of course, if you can do it and in a given amount of time. I'm giving you an hour.