He [Ivan Pokrovsky] introduced me to authors of whom, till then, I had known nothing – above all to French composers such as Gounod, Bizet, Delibes, and Chabrier. Even then I noticed a certain affinity between the music of these composers and that of Tchaikovsky, an affinity able to examine and compare their works with a more practiced eye. It is true that I was familiar with those pages of 'Faust' and 'Carmen' which one heard everywhere, but it was chiefly the fact that I was always hearing them that had prevented me from consciously forming an opinion of these musicians. It was only on looking into their works with Pokrovsky that I discovered in them a musical language which was unfamiliar to me, and which differed noticeably from that of the Belaieff group and its kind. I found in them a different type of musical writing, different harmonic methods, a different melodic conception, a freer and fresher feeling for form. This gave rise to doubts, as yet barely perceptible, with regard to what had up till then seemed unassailable dogma. << less