instruments in combination. But I
soon realised that I had gone too far. With wind instruments in
particular, the different systems were innumerable, and each
manufacturer favoured his own pet theory. By the addition of a certain
key the maker endowed his instrument with the possibility of a new
trill, and made some difficult passages more playable than on an
instrument of another kind.

"There was no end to such complications. In the brass, I found
instruments with three, four, and five valves, the mechanism varying
according to the make. Obviously, I could not hope to cover so large a
field; besides, of what value would such a treatise be to the student?
Such a mass of detailed description of the various systems, their
advantages and drawbacks, could not but fail to confuse the reader
only too eager to learn. Naturally he would wish to know what
instrument to employ, the extent of its capabilities etc., and getting
no satisfactory information he would throw my massive work aside. For
these reasons my interest in the book gradually waned, and finally I
gave up the task."

In 1891 Rimsky-Korsakov, now an artist of standing, the composer of
_Snegourotchka_, _Mlada_, and _Sheherazade_, a master of the
orchestral technique he had been teaching for twenty years, returned
to his handbook on instrumentation. He would seem to have made notes
at different times from 1891 to 1893, during which period, after the
first performance of _Mlada_, he gave up composition for a while.
These notes, occasionally referred to in his _Memoirs_, are in three
volumes of manuscript-paper. They contain the unfinished preface of
1891, a paragraph full of clear, thoughtful writing, and reprinted in
this book.[2]

[Footnote 2: This preface had already been published in his _Notes and
Articles on Music_ (St. Petersburgh, 1911).]

As the author tells us in his _Memoirs_ (p. 297), the progress of his
work was hampered by certain troublesome events which were happening
at the time. Dissatisfied with his rough draft, he destroyed the
greater part of it, and once more abandoned his task.

In 1894 he composed _The Christmas Night_; this was the beginning of
his most fertile period. He became entirely engrossed in composition,
making plans for a fresh opera as soon as the one in hand was
completed. It was not until 1905 that his thoughts returned to the
treatise on orchestration, his musical output remaining in abeyance
through no fault of his own.