Vladimir Stasov
Rubinstein invited several musicians of the group known as "The Five", including César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as the critic Vladimir Stasov to a private hearing of the opera in September 1871, where the guests did not regard the work favourably. However, melodic motifs from "The Demon" inspired comparable motifs in Mussorgsky's "Khovanshchina" and Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin".