tory, he demanded that they not be content with mediocrity but strive for the

greatest perfection.
Seeing before us so great a number wishing to devote themselves to art, I cannot
but depend on the successful advancement of our undertaking; many people of
both sexes, of all ages, of all social strata, from every corner of our vast empire
have turned toward our school. This striving cannot be false, it even serves as a
guarantee that our Conservatory may in the not too distant future stand alongside
the greatest establishments of this kind.59

The rst teachers at the new Conservatory included:

Piano: Anton Rubinstein; Alexander Dreyschock; and Anton Gerke, with assistance
provided by a few advanced students including Frants Czerny, Pavel Petersen,
and Karl Karlovich Fan Ark.
Music theory: Nikolay Zaremba; Otto Deutsch (died in 1863); and Konstantin
Lyadov
Violin: Henryk Wieniawski
Cello: Carl Schuberth
Double-bass: Ivan Ferrero
Flute: Cesare Ciardi
Oboe: Johann Heinrich Luft
Clarinet: Ernesto Cavallini
Bassoon: Krankenhagen
Horn and trumpet: Hermann Metzdorf
Harp: Albert Heinrich Zabel
Organ: Heinrich Stiehl
Singing: Henrietta Nissen-Saloman; Gamieri; Catalano; and Piccioli
Other teachers were Karl Davdov and Theodor Leschetizky.

There were 179 students in the rst intake that fall, including Tchaikovsky
and Laroche.60 Laroche, in fact, has left us a vivid picture of the students who
were drawn to the edgling Conservatory: Flocking to the new institution
from the most varied strata of society and, in part, from the most far-ung
corners of Russia, we were a motley crowd. There was Kross, a retired ofcial
from the customs department; Rbasov, the son of a singer from the court cap-
pella; Rubets, a former coroners assistant from the Chernigov criminal depart-
ment; Tchaikovsky, a senior stolonachalnik 61 from the Ministry of Justice; Ti-
ron, a student from Derpt; the Georgian Savanelli; Miretsky, a military engineer;
Baranetsky, a lawyer; von Zur-Muhlen, a lieutenant of the Life Guards in the
Semyonovsky regiment; Ludger, an Englishman from Newcastle who was a clerk
with a steamboat company in St. Petersburg;62 and the son of the junior French
teacher at the Third St. Petersburg High school, Laroche.63
The rst classes were held on the corner of Demidov pereulok [lane] and the
Moyka Embankment at 64/1 (the so-called Demidov House). The classes con-
tinued to be given there until 1866, when new premises were found on Zagorod-
ny Prospekt. From the outset, the Conservatory aimed to provide an all-round
education for its students, and classes in Russian, German, and Italian, his-

The Founding of the Russian Music Society 101