The influx of new colleagues which followed the enlargement of the Conservatoire made very little difference to Tchaikovsky’s intimate circle. He admired Laub’s incomparable playing without entering into closer relations with him. He had more in common with Kossmann, an excellent musician and a man of culture. His acquaintance with the violinist Wieniawsky was of short duration, since at the end of six months the latter resigned his post as teacher, and they never met again. He often spent the evening with Dubuque, a most hospitable man, and a famous pianist, who was considered the finest interpreter of Field’s Nocturnes and other works which were accounted modern in those days. To these acquaintances we may add Anton Door, the well-known pianist, now residing in Vienna. Among such of Tchaikovsky’s friends as did not belong to the musical profession, the generous art patron Prince Vladimir Odoevsky takes the first place. Peter Ilich was grateful for the interest which this enlightened man took in him and his work. In 1878 he says in one of his letters:-- [Illustration: TCHAIKOVSKY (IN WINTER DRESS), 1867] “He was the personification of kindness, and combined the most all-embracing knowledge, including the art of music.... Four days before his death he came to the concert to hear my orchestral fantasia, _Fatum_. How jovial he was when during the interval he came to give me his opinion! The cymbals which he unearthed and presented to me are still kept at the Conservatoire. He did not like the instruments himself, but thought I had a talent for introducing them at the right moment. So the charming old fellow searched all Moscow until he discovered a pair of good ‘piatti,’ and sent them to me with a precious letter.” In the literary and dramatic world Tchaikovsky had two good friends--the dramatist Ostrovsky and Sadovsky. He won the sympathy of these distinguished men entirely by his own personality, since neither of them cared greatly for music. During the season 1866-7 the composer made another friendship which was of great importance to his future career. Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, Intendant of the Imperial Opera, Moscow, enjoyed a considerable reputation--first as an elderly Adonis, secondly as the hero of many romantic episodes in the past, and thirdly as the husband of his wife, a lady once renowned for her singing and for her somewhat sensational past. By her first husband Madame Begichev had two sons--Constantine and Vladimir Shilovsky. These young men were strongly attracted to art and literature, and played a considerable part in Tchaikovsky’s subsequent career. Soon after his arrival in Moscow Tchaikovsky began to compose an overture on the Danish National Hymn, which N. Rubinstein had requested him to have ready for the approaching marriage of the Tsarevitch with the Princess Dagmar, to be played in the presence of the royal pair during their visit to Moscow.