Symphony No. 6, Op. 74 “Pathétique”

A bassoon begins low, above double basses that descend by semitones. Its four-note phrase rises, is repeated higher, then passes to the violas.

The violas take the bassoon’s phrase into the Allegro, adding quick descending notes and playing it short and detached. Second violas and cellos accompany them.

In February 1893 Tchaikovsky told his nephew Vladimir Davydov that he had finished the sketches for the first movement in less than four days. “You can’t imagine how blissful I feel,” he wrote, “in the conviction that my time is not yet passed, and to work is still possible.”

Muted violins and cellos play the D major melody after the short viola notes. Tchaikovsky marked it teneramente, molto cantabile, con espansione.

In a letter of 11/23 February 1893, Tchaikovsky told Vladimir Davydov that the symphony had a programme which would remain an enigma: “Let them guess.” He also said he had wept while composing it in his head on his travels. The autograph score bears a dedication to Davydov.

On 3 August 1893, scoring the symphony, Tchaikovsky wrote to his brother Modest: “Today I spent the whole day sitting over two pages — and nothing came out as I wanted it to.” Twenty years earlier he had gone full steam ahead without thinking; now he was timid and unsure of himself.

The exposition ends with a bassoon line marked pppppp. The development opens with the full orchestra at fortissimo, and fast strings play fragments of the earlier theme.

In bars 202–⁠205 of the first movement the brass play a fragment of the Orthodox funeral service. Its words ask Christ to give peace to the soul of his servant.

George Balanchine, who made a ballet to the symphony’s finale, called this first movement “a blizzard”. In the development, fast strings play fragments of the earlier themes, and the brass, led by trombones and tuba, build the music in wider waves.

The broad string melody returns in B major. First heard in D, it now comes back in the major of the symphony’s home key, after the passage for trombones and fast strings.

The closing phrases in the wind and brass sit over descending pizzicato strings. The coda stays in B major to the end of the movement.

Modest Tchaikovsky later claimed that he thought of the title the day after the première. Weeks earlier, on 2 October 1893, the publisher Jurgenson had already written: “What is to be done with pathétique and W. Davidoff or Dawidow?” The dedicatee is Davydov, Tchaikovsky’s nephew.

The cellos play a D major tune above plucked strings. Each bar holds five beats, grouped as two and three. Clarinets and bassoons follow with short falling phrases, and the horns fill the gaps.

In August 1893, while he was still scoring the symphony, Tchaikovsky made his own arrangement of it for piano four hands. Jurgenson published the piano duet in November 1893 and the full score in February 1894.

At the end of this movement’s sketches Tchaikovsky wrote: “Today 24 March finished the rough sketches completely!!!” The year was 1893, and he had already drafted the other three movements. The second movement was the last part of the symphony to be sketched.

The middle section is in B minor. Flute, first violins and cellos play a descending melody while timpani and double basses repeat D beneath it. Tchaikovsky marked the passage con dolcezza e flebile, asking for sweetness and a plaintive tone.

The opening dance returns in D major. The tune is again in five beats to the bar, and plucked strings accompany the long notes.

Descending woodwind scales lead into the coda. The falling phrases of the middle section return in the D major dance, softened for the close.

The strings play rapid groups of three, and the woodwind reply above them. Fragments of a march tune appear among the running notes. Later in the movement the full orchestra takes up this tune.

The clarinets play the march theme in full, quietly and in E major. The strings keep moving underneath.

On the title page of his full score Tchaikovsky added a note, apparently after the first performance: “I made some corrections in the 2nd and 3rd movements, which need to go into the parts!!! Ask Mr Kleinecke to attend to this.”

The opening scherzo material returns. Running figures in the strings alternate with scales in the woodwind, now following the full statement of the march.

The preparation rests on a pedal on D, the dominant of G major. The orchestra plays over the held note before the march returns in the movement’s home key.

The march returns in G major, now with bass drum and cymbals. The tune, first played softly by the clarinets, is taken up by the full orchestra.

In his February 1893 sketches, Tchaikovsky noted that his first job after returning from a trip was to compose this ending. He wanted the G major march “in a solemnly triumphant manner”.

Critics and audiences have found this march confusing. David Brown read it as “a desperate bid for happiness so prolonged and vehement” that it confirms both the desperation of the search and its futility. The movement ends in G major, and the close often draws applause before the symphony is over.

At the end of the movement, scales descend through four octaves, first in the violins and then in the low brass. The movement ends in G major. The Adagio lamentoso follows as the final movement.