 Modest chose to dedicate his entire life to literature and music.He wrote plays, translated sonnets by Shakespeare into Russian and wrote librettos for operas by his brother Pyotr, as well as for other composers such as Eduard Nápravník, Arseny Koreshchenko, Anton Arensky and Sergei Rachmaninoff.Being the nearest friend of his brother, he became his first biographer, and also the founder of the Tchaikovsky Museum in Klin.