Tchaikowsky's last symphony

[Alison]

Is 6 (iii) really a triumphal March as Hornspieler suggests?

[Dave2002]

Is 6 (iii) really a triumphal March as Hornspieler suggests?

Probably.

The last movement of 5 though can be played with a lot of irony, which some conductors bring out more than others.

[Hornspieler]

Probably.

The last movement of 5 though can be played with a lot of irony, which some conductors bring out more than others.

Can we please stick to the subject of this post:

Tchaikowsky's 6th symphony and the legends which surround it

I received this email from a former member who finds that he is unable to post on these message boards:

I have just read your forum post regarding Tchaikovsky's last symphony to which I cannot respond on the forum.
You may wish to note that there is a book about the history of the Houston Symphony Orchestra which I once borrowed from the Manchester Henry Watson Music Library. It relates how one of their Chief Conductors in the inter-war period was a German (I forget his name) who used to perform movements 1 to 3 but refused to play the last one as he thought that it was 'evil'. Somehow the management prevailed upon him to perform the complete opus. After this performance he set off with his wife in their car during a snowstorm and met with an accident in which they were both killed. Given what happened to Dennis Brain it makes you wonder!
Regards
Paul

CDs and how to remove sticky labels are totally off the point.
Symphony Nº 5 and its merits does not belong here.
Can we not stick to the point of this thread and take our matters both technical and irelevant elsewhere?

Thank you

HS

[vinteuil]

... and relax.

[Bryn]

... Who could fail to be moved by those closing bars? ...

The late, great Pierre Boulez, for one.

For me the Pathetique will always lead me on to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. As a schoolboy I heard so many pre-echoes (no, not the recording artefact phenomenon) of the the latter in the former. It was only a year of so later that I learned of Stravinsky's avowed love of Tchaikovsky's music. I wonder if others here hear a similar association between the two works.

[Richard Barrett]

I wonder if others here hear a similar association between the two works.

That's an interesting point, if I have a chance I'll have a listen today to see if I can hear what you mean - I know the Stravinsky quite well but the Tchaikovsky hardly at all (compared to his 4th which has always interested me a lot more, though I see I'm not allowed to say that). Moved by the closing bars? I can hear that I'm supposed to be, but until now it isn't music I've been drawn to.

[ahinton]

The late, great Pierre Boulez, for one.

For me the Pathetique will always lead me on to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. As a schoolboy I heard so many pre-echoes (no, not the recording artefact phenomenon) of the the latter in the former. It was only a year of so later that I learned of Stravinsky's avowed love of Tchaikovsky's music. I wonder if others here hear a similar association between the two works.

It's an interesting thought and must have been an equally interesting experience for you but I can't say that such an association has ever struck me and I've listened to both works often; what the closing pages of the symphony do lead me to, however, are the closing pages of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony...

[HighlandDougie]

Can we please stick to the subject of this post:

Tchaikowsky's 6th symphony and the legends which surround it

I received this email from a former member who finds that he is unable to post on these message boards:

CDs and how to remove sticky labels are totally off the point.
Symphony Nº 5 and its merits does not belong here.
Can we not stick to the point of this thread and take our matters both technical and irelevant elsewhere?

Thank you

HS

The conductor was Ernst Hoffmann, who was the Houston SO's conductor from 1936 to 1947, at which point he went to the University of Indiana as its director of orchestral music. He and his wife were indeed killed in a car crash in January 1956 in Mississippi, en route from a visit to their son in Houston back to Indiana. I can't be exactly sure but I somehow think that the accident following on from him having conducted the Pathetique may be apocryphal, although it is a good - if rather tragic - story.

The last time I heard it in the flesh (conducted - very well - by Dima Slobodeniouk) I found myself unable to speak for about 15 minutes. Even allowing for the Sibelius and the DSCH 4ths, is there any bleaker and more heart-rending ending to any symphony?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Tchaikovsky's Music meant a lot to me when I was a teenager, and the Pathétique remains one of the works that I still find a moving experience: no tears, but a sombre mood resulting from feeling that somebody has said something that really mattered both to themselves and to me. Much of his other work remains in my affections purely because of its nostalgic connections, and, because of this, it is specific recordings rather than other performances that make the greater impression on me. These days, I find most pleasure in the ballet Music (and the ballet-like Music elsewhere: the wonderful Scherzo of the Fourth Symphony, for example, is a pure joy) - but the Pathétique (and Manfred and the Winter Daydreams) are my favourites amongst the Symphonies - perhaps particularly the Pathétique with its original un-academic attitude towards/creation of Form.

Not sure if this is what HS was wanting, but the "legends surrounding" the work have no appeal or association for me, and with many performances these can result in thw conductor imposing a melodramatic sentimentality onto the score, which isn't justified in the score itself (well - not always: the ppppp followed by fff from the Expo to the Development seems to suggest that maybe the "hammy" conductors might have a better idea of what the composer wanted). Karajan's four recordings (and many others) are exemplary - bring out the details in the score and the Music speaks more powerfully. To me, anyway.

[ahinton]

Tchaikovsky's Music meant a lot to me when I was a teenager, and the Pathétique remains one of the works that I still find a moving experience: no tears, but a sombre mood resulting from feeling that somebody has said something that really mattered both to themselves and to me. Much of his other work remains in my affections purely because of its nostalgic connections, and, because of this, it is specific recordings rather than other performances that make the greater impression on me. These days, I find most pleasure in the ballet Music (and the ballet-like Music elsewhere: the wonderful Scherzo of the Fourth Symphony, for example, is a pure joy) - but the Pathétique (and Manfred and the Winter Daydreams) are my favourites amongst the Symphonies - perhaps particularly the Pathétique with its original un-academic attitude towards/creation of Form.

Not sure if this is what HS was wanting, but the "legends surrounding" the work have no appeal or association for me, and with many performances these can result in thw conductor imposing a melodramatic sentimentality onto the score, which isn't justified in the score itself (well - not always: the ppppp followed by fff from the Expo to the Development seems to suggest that maybe the "hammy" conductors might have a better idea of what the composer wanted). Karajan's four recordings (and many others) are exemplary - bring out the details in the score and the Music speaks more powerfully. To me, anyway.

I share your love of the Fourth Symphony (Tchaikovsky's, I mean!) and think that, along with his Sixth, it represents the peak of the composer's symphonic achievement. As to the ballet-like music in socres other than those written for that specific medium, I've long been struck by how this puts in an appearance in the remarkable second movement of his piano trio where it seems to find itself in the company at various times of Tchaikovsky the opera composer, Tchaikovsky the solo piano composer, Tchaikovsky the symphonist and Tchaikovsky the song composer.

To return to those extremes of dynamic in the Sixth, the late and much-lamented writer Malcolm MacDonald once berated those who accused a particular conductor (I cannot now recall who) of exaggerating by reminding his readers that "it's in the score!"...

[visualnickmos]

Can we please stick to the subject of this post:

Tchaikowsky's 6th symphony and the legends which surround it

I received this email from a former member who finds that he is unable to post on these message boards:

CDs and how to remove sticky labels are totally off the point.
Symphony Nº 5 and its merits does not belong here.
Can we not stick to the point of this thread and take our matters both technical and irelevant elsewhere?

Thank you

HS

Quite right too, IMV.

[Dave2002]

Can we please stick to the subject of this post:

Tchaikowsky's 6th symphony and the legends which surround it

CDs and how to remove sticky labels are totally off the point.
Symphony Nº 5 and its merits does not belong here.
Can we not stick to the point of this thread and take our matters both technical and irelevant elsewhere?

Sorry HS.

Are you suggesting that the Tchaikovsky 6th is a musical equivalent of the Scottish play?

Other than what has been written here so far I know little, other than that the 2nd movement is in 5/4 and I have long felt, as this writer suggests, that it has some similarities to a waltz - http://www.classical.net/music/comp....y/tchaik62.php

There are also some well known effects - tunes which aren't really there - how did Tchaikovsky figure that out?

Re the last movement I have always felt it to be very moving. http://www.classical.net/music/comp....y/tchaik64.php

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sorry HS.
Are you suggesting that the Tchaikovsky 6th is a musical equivalent of the Scottish play?

Because Tchaikovsky died nine days after conducting the premiere, the work has accrued the reputation of being associated with portents of death - when Stravinsky was in his final illness, Robert Craft began to play a recording of the work, which met with Vera (the composer's wife) reacting with horror and switching the player off*, such was the reputation of the work (amongst emigré Russians at any rate).

The legends have attached themselves to the composition of the work - that it is some kind of self-premonition, or even the composer's Musical last will & testament as he prepared for death. Such ideas overlook (as legends are wont to do with facts) the fact that Tchaikovsky lived some months after finishing composing the work, and many weeks after he'd finished work on the fair copy of the score - and that he also wrote another work in that time (the Third Piano Concerto) and was preparing to work on others.


* - Craft was working and living in the Stravinsky home: Vera didn't arbitrarily burst into the homes of any complete strangers whom she happened to overhear playing the work!

[kea]

Is 6 (iii) really a triumphal March as Hornspieler suggests?

I guess. I once heard an orchestra try to perform it in a desperately unhinged manner, slightly too fast and with great big bass drum whacks and so on, but the musical material doesn't have the depth to support that kind of ambiguity. (That said, like everything else he wrote in G major, that is one of my favourite Tchaikovsky movements for some reason >_>)

As far as the Scottish Play idea goes, I doubt Tchaikovsky had any intention of dying when he wrote it. It was dedicated to his nephew, whom he was in love with at the time; I don't remember if the attraction was reciprocal but suspect not. As it happens, ending a symphony (or a sonata or a song cycle, or whatever) dedicated to one's Unattainable Beloved in such a manner is absolutely a very proper and Romantic thing to do, and the withholding of a final consolation (as you get in, idk, Die schöne Müllerin or whatever) makes sense for anyone who remembers their Sorrows of Young Werther.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The late, great Pierre Boulez, for one.

The one think I didn't like about PB was his attitude to Tchaikovsky.

The 6th symphony was played in the first concert I ever attended. it was an all-Tchaikovsky evening and I thoroughly enjoyed the first half. The symphony seemed long and perplexing to a 10-year old and I didn't come back to the work for several years.