The famous series of "Historical Concerts," begun in Berlin in October, 1885, was concluded in London in May, 1886, after which Rubinstein returned to St. Petersburg and resumed his duties as Director of the Conservatoire, a position which he had relinquished since 1867. During the next few years he composed the Biblical operas _Moses_ (Paris, 1892) and _Christus_, a concert performance of which was given under his own direction at Stuttgart, in 1893; the first stage performance following in 1895, at Bremen.
In the winter of 1894 Rubinstein became seriously ill in Dresden, and, feeling that his days were numbered, he returned in haste to his villa at Peterhof. He lingered several months and died of heart disease in November 1895. "His obsequies were solemnly carried out," says Rimsky-Korsakov.[23] "His coffin was placed in the Ismailovsky Cathedral, and musicians watched by it day and night. Liadov and I were on duty from 2 to 3 a.m. I remember in the dim shadows of the church seeing the black, mourning figure of Maleziomova[24] who came to kneel by the dust of the adored Rubinstein. There was something fantastic about the scene."
With Rubinstein's fame as a pianist, the glamour of which still surrounds his name, with his vast output of instrumental music, good, bad and indifferent, I have no immediate concern. Nor can I linger to pay more than a passing tribute to his generous qualities as a man. His position as a dramatic composer and his influence on the development of Russian opera are all I am expected to indicate here. This need not occupy many pages, since his influence is in inverse ratio to the voluminous outpourings of his pen. Rubinstein's ideal oscillates midway between national and cosmopolitan tendencies. The less people have penetrated into the essential qualities of Russian music, the more they are disposed to regard him as typically Russian; whereas those who are most sensitive to the vibrations of Russian sentiment will find little in his music to awaken their national sympathies. The glibness with which he spun off music now to Russian, now to German texts, and addressed himself in turn to either public, proves that he felt superficially at ease with both idioms. It suggests also a kind of ready opportunism which is far from admirable. His attack on the national ideal in music, when he failed to impress the public with his _Dmitri Donskoi_, and his rapid change of front when Dargomijsky and the younger school had compelled the public to show some interest in Russian opera, will not easily be forgiven by his compatriots. We have seen how he fluctuated between German and Russian opera, and there is no doubt that this diffusion of his ideals and activities, coupled with a singular lack of self-criticism, is sufficient to account for the fact that of his operas--about nineteen in all[25]--scarcely one has survived him. Let a Russian pass judgment upon Rubinstein's claims to be regarded as a national composer. Cheshikin, who divides his operas into two groups, according as they are written to German or Russian librettos, sums up the general characteristics of the latter as follows: