Not only the episode of the symphony--which afterwards won a fair measure of success in St. Petersburg--but many other events contributed to estrange Tchaikovsky from the city of his first affections. Gradually the circle of his friends there decreased, and the most intimate of them all, Laroche, was appointed Professor at the Moscow Conservatoire in December, 1867. Besides which that little school of gifted “young Russians,” under the leadership of Balakirev, and the protection of Dargomijsky, which included Moussorgsky, Cui, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov, were gaining more and more acknowledgment and weight in Petersburg. This circle, supported by the pens of Cui and Stassov, who held extremely modern views and were opposed to the Conservatoire and Anton Rubinstein, made a very unsympathetic impression upon Tchaikovsky. The hostility with which he regarded this group of composers had its origin in his distrustful attitude towards society generally. He met all strangers with dislike, but at the first friendly advance, or kind word, he forgave them, and even thought them sympathetic. So it was with his intercourse with the members of the New School in St. Petersburg. Until 1868 none of them were known to him personally, but all the same he was hostile to them. This was sufficient to awaken in him the notion that they were all disposed to be his enemies, and when in 1867 Anton Rubinstein resigned the conductorship of the Symphony Concerts, and it passed into the hands of this school, he decided that Petersburg was now a hostile camp, whereas in reality they were simply neutral, or indifferent, to him. Meanwhile, by closer acquaintance with Nicholas Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky had begun to recognise his worth as an executant, a conductor, and an indefatigable worker; while the presence of such musicians as Laub and Kossmann, and such intimate friends as Kashkin, Albrecht and Laroche, reconciled him to Moscow as a musical centre where it was worth while to be appreciated. The earliest of Tchaikovsky’s letters in 1867 is dated May 2nd (14th); therefore it is difficult to fix the precise date at which he began to compose his opera, _The Voyevode_. In any case he received the first part of the libretto from Ostrovsky in March or April. I remember that in the summer the first act was not even finished. At the very outset he was delayed in his work because he lost the manuscript, and Ostrovsky had to rewrite it from memory. _To Anatol Tchaikovsky._ “_May_ 2_nd_(14_th_), 1867.