Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony, the Pathéthique, is emotional; alternately joyous and despairing, achingly melodic and then frighteningly brassy. The composer’s brother, Modeste, suggested the nickname for the symphony and although Tchaikovsky was uncertain, the nickname stuck and is what we call this work today. The best rendering in English of the original Russian word usually translated into French is probably “passionate”: it is Tchaikovsky’s Passionate symphony. The composer died at only 53 years of age nine days after conducting the premiere and the fi nal movement’s raw tragic nature along with certain biographical details of the composer’s life led many to suggest that the symphony served as a suicide note. While this theory is mostly debunked now, the music itself should have nixed this idea from the beginning.
The two themes of the first movement are far apart in spirit. The first is quick and agitated, becoming ever more so as it builds toward the second theme, one of Tchaikovsky’s most inspired long, romantic melodies. No composer before him would have used such a tune in a symphony. The middle movements provide some release from the fi rst movement’s tensions. For the second Tchaikovsky wrote what sounds like a waltz but in the wrong time, a rare five beats per measure rather than three, although it retains the elegant lilt and motion of the dance form. The composer displays his craftsmanship in the third movement, Molto vivace. Over more than half the movement he teases us with the idea that something big is coming, holding us in suspense and anticipation for a really good, memorable and rousing melody. When we finally get what we desire, however, the tune we have been anticipating sneaks in quietly rather than with fanfare. Only at the end do we get the triumphant announcement providing the biggest contrast possible for what is to follow.
From Mozart to Brahms (Tchaikovsky’s near contemporary), composers had written tragic symphonies, but none ended their music in the deepest, darkest recesses of our soul as Tchaikovsky ends his Symphony No. 6. He has taken us on a roller coaster of emotion and then leaves us in a sea of despair with no lifeboat in sight. After the extreme beauty, grace, and excitement of the previous movements, why does he end with some of the saddest and devastating music ever written? The answer does not seem to be in Tchaikovsky’s life story, and so it must be somewhere in the music itself.