“Tchaikovsky appears to be the victim of the epidemic of the Music of the Future that wallows in torpor and time and time again collapses in dissonant convulsions.” (Wiener Fremdenblatt, Nov. 28, 1876) “Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, like the first pancake, is a flop.” (Novoye Vremya, St. Petersburg, Nov. 13, 1875) “Difficult, strange, wild, ultra-modern…