And the lovely ower wreath of duty and humility rashly snatches from his

head. Therefore, Prince of Heavens armies, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, com-

mence the ght! Chase hence the Fiend to the brink of Heaven. Then hurl him
downward into Hells depths, mid aming chaos,108 exclaims the voice in No.4.
Satan rises to the challenge (No.5): Come all to me, who are ready to combat
for freedom! and in the ensuing chorus Rubinstein provides quite vigorous and
rousing music for: On, on, on, on, attack the Tyrants throne, where the basses,
tenors, altos, and sopranos enter in canonic imitation (D minor). At the begin-
ning of part 2 the Voice (narrator) calls for an end to the chaos. The culmination
of the act of Creation is a magnicent choral fugue in C major: Praise ye the
Mighty one. In the nal part Adam and Eve are banished from Paradise, while
in another grand fugue the Rebel Angels rejoice over the undoing of Creations
masterwork. The two rival choruses continue to battle it out with increasing
fury. The archangels express the hope that mankind may yet regain paradise,
but the oratorio ends with the closing of the gates of Paradise.
After Weimar, Rubinstein traveled rst to Paris and then to London. His en-
deavors to obtain a satisfactory opera libretto had been unsuccessful: the one
commissioned in Vienna from Hebbel had proved useless, but under the terms
of the contract he was still obliged to pay eight hundred guelders. It was a matter
of great regret, he lamented, that Scribe would not write for young composers.
In Paris Rubinstein gave four concerts in March and April, and also accompa-
nied Wieniawski in a program that included the Kreutzer Sonata. In the rst
concert on 18 March Richard Hammer directed the orchestra in a performance
that the composer gave of his Piano Concerto No. 2. The second concert fol-
lowed on 11 April, when Rubinstein performed both his piano concertos No. 2
and No. 3 at the Salle Herz. A year earlier, when Rubinstein had made appear-
ances in Paris, the young Camille Saint-Sans had failed to make the personal
acquaintance of the Russian pianist. In the spring of 1858, encouraged most
likely by Pauline Viardot and Turgenev, he was more successful. Saint-Sans viv-
idly recalled Rubinsteins appearances the previous season: As for the gods of
the piano, the race of them seemed to be forever extinct, when one ne day
a little full-length notice appeared on the walls of Paris, bearing this name:
Antoine Rubinstein, of whom no one had yet heard anything; for this great
artist had the foolhardy coyness to disdain the assistance of the press, and no
publicity, none, you understand me, had announced his appearance.109 When
Rubinstein conducted a performance of the Ocean Symphony at his third Paris
concert in mid-April 1858, the young Frenchman astounded him by sight-
reading complex passages from the score at the piano. Subsequently they often
played duets together, and this seemed to seal their friendship. Saint-Sans was
genuinely impressed by Rubinsteins artistic integrity: I was so happy to have
met an artist who was truly an artist, devoid of the paltriness that sometimes
so sadly attends the greatest talents.110
In London, Grisi, Mario, Rossi, and Tamberlick were appearing to full houses
at the Crystal Palace and at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden, where
Meyerbeers Les Huguenots was being performed. On Friday 11 June 1858 the

Foreign Tour 73