Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, whose own musical preferences in the later years of his career were not overly progressive, may have sounded an advance warning on hearing the symphony in rehearsal when he told Rachmaninoff, "Forgive me, but I do not find this music at all agreeable." As the elder statesman of Russian music after Tchaikovsky's death, Rimsky-Korsakov may have felt justified saying something to Rachmaninoff, but he may have said it for the wrong reason. By the reports of many present, the rehearsal that Rimsky-Korsakov had heard, conducted by his friend and musical protégé Glazunov, was both a disaster as a performance and a horrific travesty of the score.