Classical Music / Orchestral
The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, also known as the Pathétique Symphony, is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony. It was written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer entitled the work "The Passionate Symphony", employing a Russian word, (Pateticheskaya), meaning "passionate" or "emotional", not "arousing pity," which was then translated into French as pathétique, meaning "solemn" or "emotive". It is a word reflective of a touch of concurrent suffering. Tchaikovsky considered calling it "Program Symphony" but realized that would encourage curiosity about the program, which he did not want to reveal.
Tchaikovsky led the first performance in Saint Petersburg on 28 October of that year, nine days before his death. The second performance, conducted by Eduard Nápravník, took place 21 days later, at a memorial concert on 18 November. It included some minor corrections that Tchaikovsky had made after the premiere, and was thus the first performance of the work in the exact form in which it is known today.
The first performance in Moscow was on 16 December, conducted by Vasily Safonov. It was the last of Tchaikovsky's compositions premiered in his lifetime. His very last composition, the single-movement 3rd Piano Concerto, Op. 75, which was completed a short time before his death in October 1893, received a posthumous premiere.
Highly Recommended Reading:
Symphony guide: Tchaikovsky's Sixth ('Pathetique'). Written by Tom Service, Tuesday 26 August 2014. www.theguardian.com. Accessed November 6, 2023. With gratitude, I'm quoting from Tom Service's touching article on Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 "Pathetique", one of my two all-time favourite symphonies from this beloved Russian composer (the other symphony is Symphony No. 5):
"So yes, this symphony is about a battle between a stubborn life-energy and an ultimately stronger force of oblivion that ends up in a terrifying exhaustion, but what makes the piece so powerful is that it’s about all of us, not just Tchaikovsky... so when you’re listening to the performances, hear instead how the cry of pain that is the climax of the first movement is a musical premonition of the inexorably descending scales of the last movement, and how the second movement makes its five-in-a-bar dance simultaneously sound like a crippled waltz and a memory of a genuinely sensual joy. Listen to how the March of the third movement creates a seething superficial motion that doesn’t actually go anywhere, musically speaking, and whose final bars create one of the greatest, most thrilling, but most empty of victories in musical history, at the end of which audiences often clap helplessly, thinking they have arrived at the conventionally noisy end of a symphonic journey. But then we’re confronted with the devastating lament of the real finale, that Adagio lamentoso, which begins with a composite melody that is shattered among the whole string section (no single instrumental group plays the tune you actually hear, an amazing, pre-modernist idea), and which ends with those low, tolling heartbeats in the double-basses that at last expire into silence." (Thank you very much, Tom Service. You nailed it!)
Video:
Maestro Herbert von Karajan conducts Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique", with Wiener Philharmoker (Vienna Philharmonic).
The symphony is in four movements:
- Adagio – Allegro non troppo
- Allegro con grazia
- Allegro molto vivace
- Adagio lamentoso
The symphony is scored for an orchestra with the following instruments:
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Video Credit:
TCHAIKOVSKY - Symphony no. 6 (Pathétique) - Herbert von Karajan & Wiener Philharmonic. YouTube, uploaded by PermafrostIndustries. Accessed November 6, 2023.
Resource:
Symphony No. 6. (Tchaikovsky). en.wikipedia.org.
(c) November 2011. Updated November 6, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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