Alexander II in 1881. When the new emperor, Alexander III, acceded to thethrone, vigorous attempts were made to eradicate the activities of the People’sWill organizations, and in 1883 Figner was arrested. According to Barenboym,it was So¤ya’s association with Figner that resulted in her being placed underpolice surveillance, and for several years she was prohibited from visiting eitherSt. Petersburg or Moscow. Rubinstein’s relations with So¤ya grew much closerafter Nikolay’s death, and it was with her that he shared his most intimatethoughts about the loss of their brother. The bond between them was strength-ened still further after the death of Kaleriya Khristoforovna. By then Rubinsteinhad separated from his wife, for reasons indicated below, and was living alonein Dresden. His correspondence with So¤ya and with his daughter, Anna, is aparticularly useful source of information on his life during this period.

In 1865 Anton married Vera Chekuanova, and between 1866 and 1872 theyhad three children. The proceeds from the tour in the United States in 1872–73had enabled him to purchase a villa at Peterhof, a small town not far fromSt. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. Because of his busy schedule of concertengagements, Rubinstein was frequently absent from home for long periods,and the upbringing of the children was left mostly in Vera’s hands. Anton’s strictupbringing had instilled in him a belief in the need for authoritarianism, butVera’s approach to the children’s education was a good deal softer and more lib-eral. Toward the youngest child, Aleksandr, who was born with asthma and aweak heart, she was especially affectionate. She made a number of costly tripsto Italy with the boy to seek out medical help and to allow him time to recuper-ate. While Anton was able to earn money from his concert appearances, he con-tinued to shoulder the cost without complaint. In January 1886 he told hismother that Vera and the children were spending the winter in St. Petersburg,as they found it more cheerful there than in Peterhof. It was the kind of unnec-essary expense that eventually was bound to affect his ¤nancial security: “As faras the latter is concerned we have long ago lost all sense of scale. In the ¤nalanalysis it is a matter of indifference whether more is spent here or abroad.And while everyone here is well, we are spared the torments of moving fromone place to another, and that is something you cannot underestimate.”5 AfterRubinstein stopped giving concerts in mid-1886, Vera could not tolerate theneed to economize. Again he confessed to his mother in January 1889: “Vera iswell but unhappy: 1) she loves the South, but she has to live in the North; 2) sheloves her husband as all wives do, but she has in me only an artist; 3) she lovesa lot of money as all women do, but she has to content herself with little—especially since I stopped giving concerts! All this together makes her nervy, thatis, nervously irritable!!”6 On his reappointment as director of the Conservatoryin 1887, Rubinstein rented an apartment in St. Petersburg, which only acceler-ated the growing rift between husband and wife. He spent the summer of 1890not at Peterhof as usual but at Badenweiler in Germany. When he returned toSt. Petersburg in August of that year, he ¤nally cut his ties with the Conserva-tory and moved to Dresden. The ¤nal illness and death of his youngest son,Aleksandr, in October 1893 brought about a brief reconciliation with Vera, and

xxii Introduction