As regards the composer of this Quartett, it may be added that _Le Ménestrel_ of July 13th of the year 1902 announced “that a new opera, entitled _Nikita Dobriniez_, by a young and unknown composer named Gretchaninoff, will be produced in St. Petersburg during the coming winter season.” [Sidenote: =Russian Schools of Musical Thought=] The two chief cities of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg and Moscow, have each had its representative school of musical thought, the one at first working almost entirely for the advancement of a purely national style, the other, with a more eclectic taste, favouring outside ideas and influences. Tschaïkovsky was the leader at Moscow, having for his adherents Arensky, Rachmaninoff, and Siloti; while Rimsky-Korsakoff, Balakireff, Borodin, and others represented the more conservative St. Petersburg. But along with this external division of interests there always prevailed the utmost unanimity and a genuine feeling of brotherhood, and one result of this may be found in their working together, in a quite intimate way, in the composition of works like the String Quartett based on the notes B A F, which is the joint production of Rimsky-Korsakoff, Liadoff, Borodin, and Glazounoff. [Sidenote: =Belaieff=] The story runs[35] that in the year 1881, at St. Petersburg, a certain M. Belaieff, a wealthy and enthusiastic amateur, happened to be present at the rehearsal of the first Orchestral Symphony by Alexander Glazounoff, and was so much impressed by its fine qualities that he decided to remove what had hitherto been a difficulty and establish a music-publishing house, which should have for its object the issuing of Glazounoff’s works and those of other composers of this Russian school. He, indeed, proved himself a very Mæcenas, organising concerts in and out of Russia, and never tiring in his endeavours to gain a hearing for the composers whose cause he had thus so practically espoused. [Footnote 35: _Notes on Modern Russian Music_ (Edwin Evans).] No wonder, therefore, that they should desire to do him honour, and in this Quartett we find one such act of homage. As most musicians are quite well aware, the note B♭ is in Germany called B, and B♮ is called H; hence the possibility of writing, as has several times been done, a fugue whose subject is the name of the great composer Bach. [Music: B A C H] [Sidenote: =String Quartett on Name Belaieff=] In like manner these Russian composers took the three syllables of the name of their friend Belaieff, and, Be standing for B♭, la for the sixth note A of the natural scale, and eff for the note F, they used the theme— [Music: B la F] as the leading motive of a composition, consisting of (1) an Allegro by Rimsky-Korsakoff, (2) Scherzo by A. Liadoff, (3) Serenata alla Spagnola by A. Borodin, and (4) Finale by A. Glazounoff. The composition begins in this manner:— [Music: N. RIMSKY-KORSAKOFF.] Leading to the Allegro:— [Music]