maining Tuesdays of the month (i.e., 15, 22, 29 June) for their subscription con-
certs that were now held at the St Jamess Hall. The same day (11 June) Rubin-
stein appeared in a concert with Joachim given by the Royal Society of Female
Musicians under the direction of William Sterndale Bennett.111 His rst Musical
Union concert was on 15 June, as indicated above, and the program included
Spohrs Double Quartet in E minor; Rubinsteins Piano Trio No. 2 in G minor,
Op. 15, No. 2 (wrongly billed as the rst time), and Mozarts Quartet in D.
The artists were listed as Sainton, [Henry] Blagrove, Goffrie, Piatti, [Louis] Ries,
[Richard] Blagrove, Webb, and [Guillaume] Paque. PianoRubinstein. During
this same London season Rubinstein played Webers Concertstck at a concert
of the Philharmonic Society (7 June) and solo piano works by Mozart, Bee-
thoven, Field, and Mendelssohn. It was also on this visit to London that Rubin-
stein made the personal acquaintance of Julius Rodenberg, who ten years later
would furnish him with the text for the oratorio Der Thurm zu Babel. For the
moment Rodenberg beguiled Rubinstein with his literary refashioning of Solo-
mons Song of Songs, but it was not until 1882 that his texts eventually found
their ultimate incarnation in the opera Sulamith.
At the beginning of July Rubinstein returned to Paris for eight days, where
he performed with Wieniawski, and then traveled to Leipzig via Weimar.112 Fi-
nally, he returned to Russia, arriving in Petersburg around 4/16 September.
He went to see Yakov, whom he found in good health, but few people, including
the grand duchess, had yet returned to St. Petersburg for the start of the win-
ter season. A few weeks later Rubinstein went to Moscow, but Kaleriya Khris-
toforovna had rented a dacha in the nearby village of Bogorodskoye, and it was
there that a notable event took placeafter many years of separation, the entire
Rubinstein family assembled (Kaleriya Khristoforovna, Anton, Nikolay, and
Yakov, Soya and Lyuba). By this time Nikolays separation from Yelizaveta
Khrushchova was already a fait accompli, and Kashkin tells us that, the couple
separated without any quarrel or anger, but also without regret.113 Anton was
pleased at Nikolays separation from Yelizaveta Khrushchova and enthusiastically
supported his intention to resume his career as a concert artist. He even sug-
gested that Nikolay should go abroad with him for a six-month period to nd
a lucrative post somewhere. The plan did not materialize, as, in the words of
Barenboym, Nikolay did not want to live on the money of his elder brother.114
What did materialize during those late summer months, however, was a coming
together of minds; the entire family took part in discussions about reforming
musical education in Russia, and many of their cherished ideas began to take
on a more positive shape. In his writings on the founding of the Moscow Con-
servatory, Kashkin suggests that the broad ideas about the formation of a Rus-
sian music society belonged to the elder Rubinstein and the practical details to
the younger one.
By mid-October Anton and Yakov were already speeding their way toward
St. Petersburg, where the former rented an apartment. Anton was awaiting the
return of Yelena Pavlovna, who once again engaged him as her musical stoker
74 Anton Rubinstein