Tchaikovsky
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Nikolai Hubert

Nikolai Al'bertovich Hubert (Николай Альбертович Губерт) was a Russian music critic, teacher and pianist, born in Saint Petersburg on 7/19 March 1840.

Hubert studied composition with Nikolai Zaremba and harmony with Anton Rubinstein at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he formed a lifelong friendship with his fellow student Tchaikovsky. After graduating in 1869, Hubert moved to Kiev, where he was a teacher in choral singing and music theory for the local branch of the Russian Musical Society, and also worked briefly as an opera conductor in Odessa. In 1871 he was appointed professor of music theory at the Moscow Conservatory), where he once again worked alongside Tchaikovsky, and became its director after Nikolai Rubinstein's death in 1881.

During the 1870s and 1880s Nikolai Hubert was also the music critic for the journals Contemporary Chronicle (Современная летопись) and Moscow Register (Московские ведомости).

Nikolai Hubert and his wife Aleksandra were among Tchaikovsky's closest friends, and they each made piano transcriptions of many of the composer's orchestral works. Tchaikovsky dedicated his song O Sing that Song (No. 4 from the Six Romances, Op. 16) to Hubert in 1872.

Hubert left his post at the Moscow Conservatory in 1883 due to ill health, but returned to the faculty in 1885 and remained there until his death.

Nikolai Hubert died in Saint Petersburg on 26 September/8 October 1888, aged 48.