ish musicians that Cambridge
University thought fit to honour itself by offering him an honorary
musical degree. Tschaikowsky, simple soul, good-humouredly accepted
it, apparently in entire ignorance of the estimation in which such
cheap decorations are held in this country; and it is to be hoped that
before his death he obtained a hearing in Russia for the Cambridge
professor's music. The incident, comical as it appeared to those of us
who knew the value of musical degrees, the means by which they are
obtained, and the reasons for which they are conferred, yet served a
useful purpose by calling public attention to the fact that there was
living a man who had written music that was fresh, a trifle strange
perhaps, but full of vitality, and containing a new throb, a new
thrill. Since 1893 his reputation has steadily grown, but in a curious
way. One can scarcely say with truth that Tschaikowsky is popular:
only his "Pathetic" symphony and one or two smaller things are
popular. Had he not written the "Pathetic," one may doubt whether he
would be much better known to-day than he was in 1893. It caught the
public fancy as no other work of his caught it, and on the strength of
its popularity many of the critics do not hesitate to call it a great
symphony, and on the strength of the symphony Tschaikowsky a great
composer. (For in England criticism largely means saying what the
public thinks.) Passionately though that symphony is admired, hardly
any other of his music can be truly said to get a hearing; for, on the
rare occasions when it is played, the public thoughtfully stays away.
It is true that the Casse Noisette suite is always applauded, but it
is a trifling work compared with his best. Tschaikowsky shares with
Gray and one or two others in ancient and modern times the distinction
of being famous by a single achievement. The public is jealous for the
supremacy of that achievement, and will not hear of there being
another equal to it.

Whether the public is right or wrong, and whether we all are or are
not just a little inclined to-day to exaggerate Tschaikowsky's gifts
and the value of his music, there can be no doubt whatever that he was
a singularly fine craftsman, who brought into music a number of fresh
and living elements. He seems to me to have been an extraordinary
combination of the barbarian and the civilised man, of the Slav and
the Latin or Teuton, the Slav barbarian preponderating. He saw things
as neither S