Again the press reviews were mixed but were largely favorable.

Rubinstein hastened to advise Liszt once more about his success: This time I can inform you
about a great success. Yesterday I played at the Gewandhaus, rst the Fantasy for
piano and orchestra in F [Second Piano Concerto, Op. 35], then a Nocturne,
the rst Prelude, and a StudyI scored a great success and the audience made
amends to me in an honorable way. I must thank you for your kind advice in
using a trumpet in the Adagio; this is an indisputable effect, and it drew the
attention of all the musicians.50 The success he had achieved in Leipzig had
exceeded his expectations despite some harsh newspaper reviews. But who can
stop them, he complained to Kaleriya Khristoforovna, especially I who will
not take a step to acquire the good favor of people for myself.51 On 25 December Rubinsteins Octet for piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, ute, and horn
was performed at a Gewandhaus chamber concert, and a few days later, on
28 December, the composer took the piano part in a performance of his Trio in
F with Ferdinand David.
For some time Rubinstein had been thinking seriously about composing a
grand oratorio. Liszt had recommended the German writer Arnold Schloenbach
as a possible librettist, and during his visit to Leipzig Rubinstein commissioned
him to prepare a text on the subject of Miltons Paradise Lost. The oratorio
would occupy Rubinsteins thoughts a great deal during the coming months, but
there was also another work, which was giving him serious cause for concern.
In mid-December he received a letter from St. Petersburg concerning the symphony that he had promised to the Philharmonic Society. His work on the Third
Symphony was progressing slowly, and although he was pinning his hopes on
an early performance in April, he doubted that he would nish it in time.
After a short visit to Weimar at the start of the New Year Rubinstein arrived in Berlin, and wrote at length to Liszt about his reception there: True to
his custom of keeping you informed about childe Rubinsteins pilgrimage
through the musical world, I hasten to advise you that last week I gave my
rst concert and paid 160 thalers from my own pocket, but scored a great success, even though the journals tear me to pieces [me dchirent belles dents].
Formlosigkeit et harmonisch wirr [Formlessness and harmonically incoherent
(Germ.)]these are the accusations they throw at me.52 At this concert Rubinstein played his Concerto in F under the baton of Leopold Ganz, and then
the composer took the rostrum for a performance of the Ocean Symphony. After
the concert he called on several important gures from the musical world of
Berlin. His old teacher Dehn, who liked his concerto very much but found that
the symphony was music which it is unusual to listen to, and so is bad; the
great musical theoretician Adolf Marx, who was not at home when Rubinstein
called, even though he had been present at his concert; Heinrich Dorn, the eminent conductor of the Berlin opera and coeditor of the Berliner Allgemeine Musikzeitung, whose operatic saga Die Nibelungen Rubinstein heard and found to
be a worthy composition; the composer and court Kapellmeister Wilhelm Taubert, who smiled slyly at my expense and took me to hear one of his symphonies (a work which, despite everything, was good); Julius Stern, who treated
Foreign Tour 59