Next day, in the same theatre*, I heard Stravinsky's Petrushka. I was most interested to see and hear this ballet, which has not yet been seen or heard in Russia, and went to the performance with the liveliest curiosity. The way it was staged sent me into ecstasies, as the the orchestration and the wit constantly displayed, so that my attention did not flag for a moment, so engaged was it; but the music... I thought about it a great deal, and finally came to the conclusion that there is ultimately something not real about it, despite its many talented passages. But my God, what an avalanche of padding it contains, music not needed for the sake of the music but purely for the stage. A week after hearing Petrushka I set out in a letter to Myaskovsky a more exhaustive statement of my thoughts about Stravinsky and my verdict on him.