[Vigilanteman]

Probably true. He was a brilliant musician despite his deviant lifestyle. Russian composers were rivaling and even threatening to displace Vienna as the center of the classical music world at the time and the Tsar was very proud of that fact.

One need only look at the crop of great musicians from Russia who evolved about the time Tchaikovsky made his debut on the world state and the dearth of them after the Bolshevik Revolution. Those who survived the Communists either escaped or somehow managed to convince the Bolsheviks they were promoting their new world order.

[Borges]

Vienna’s best days ended when Schubert died in 1828. Towards the end of the 19th century the city had become a smug metropolis living in the past regardless of Brahms.