Stories of Symphonic Music / A Guide to the Meaning of Important Symphonies, Overtures, and Tone-poems from Beethoven to the Present Day

by Lawrence Gilman

SYMPHONY No. 4, IN F MINOR: Op. 36

1. Andante sostenuto

Moderato con anima in movimento di valse

2. Andantino in modo di canzona

3. Scherzo, "Pizzicato ostinato": Allegro

4. Finale: Allegro con fuoco

Tschaikowsky began this symphony in 1876, and completed it in the winter of 1877-78. The score bears the dedication: "To my Best Friend"; and behind the phrase lies a singular history, too long to be told here in full. The "best friend" was Nadeshda Filaretowna von Meck, [173] a widow living in Moscow. Exceedingly wealthy, she deeply admired the music of Tschaikowsky. She inquired concerning his pecuniary circumstances, and, learning that his means were straitened and that he was in debt, she sent him, in the summer of 1877, the sum of three thousand rubles. A correspondence had meanwhile begun between them (the first letter, from Mrs. von Meck, is dated December 30, 1876); she had given Tschaikowsky certain small commissions to do for her—transcriptions for violin and piano of certain of his works which she wished made—and for these she paid him generous fees. In the autumn of 1877 she asked him, with many apologies, to permit her to settle upon him an annual allowance of 6000 rubles (about $3000), that he might compose undisturbed by material cares. "If I wanted something from you," she wrote, "of course you would give it me—is it not so? Very well, then, we cry quits. Do not interfere with my management of your domestic economy, Peter Iljitsch." She desired and insisted that they should never meet or personally know each other; "the more you fascinate me, the more I shrink from knowing you," she wrote. Tschaikowsky accepted the settlement, and respected her wish concerning their intercourse. "I can only serve you," wrote the composer, "by means of my music. Nadeshda Filaretowna, every note which comes from my pen in future is dedicated to you!" They corresponded frequently, at length, and with the deepest intellectual and spiritual intimacy; but they never met. "When they accidentally came face to face," writes Tschaikowsky's brother Modeste, "they passed as total strangers. To the end of their days they never exchanged a word...."

Their correspondence, which extended over thirteen years, was abruptly and lamentably ended. In December, 1890, Tschaikowsky received a letter from his patroness informing him that she was on the brink of ruin, and that she would be obliged to discontinue his allowance; this, despite the fact that she had more than once declared to him that, no matter what occurred, his annuity was assured to him for life. As it happened, this curtailment of his income did not greatly affect Tschaikowsky's pecuniary situation, for he had come to know prosperity with his increasing fame; but he suffered keen anxiety on his friend's account. Not long after, it turned out that Mrs. von Meck's fortune was not seriously affected, after all—a turn of events which, however, brought misery to the hyper-sensitive soul of Tschaikowsky. He persuaded himself that Mrs. von Meck's announcement had been merely "an excuse to get rid of him on the first opportunity"; that he had been mistaken in idealizing his relations with his "best friend"; that his allowance had long since ceased to be the outcome of a generous impulse. "Such were my relations with her," he wrote at this time to a friend, "that I never felt oppressed by her generous gifts; but now they weigh upon me in retrospect. My pride is hurt; my faith in her unfailing readiness to help me, and to make any sacrifice for my sake, is betrayed." He thought of returning to her in full the money she had settled upon him, but feared to mortify her. He endeavored, both frankly and diplomatically, to renew their intercourse; but to no avail. She made no response whatever to his attempts to continue their relationship, either through letters or in response to overtures made by Tschaikowsky through mutual friends. He learned that she was ill—ill of "a terrible nervous disease, which changed her relations not only to him, but to others." Yet no illness, no misfortune, it seemed to him, could, as he wrote, "change the sentiments which were expressed in [her] letters."... "I would sooner," he declared, "have believed that the earth could fail beneath me than that our relations could suffer change. But the inconceivable has happened, and all my ideas of human nature, all my faith in the best of mankind, have been turned upside-down. My peace is broken, and the share of happiness fate has allotted me is embittered and spoiled." Two years later, on his death-bed, her name was constantly and feverishly on his lips, "in an indignant or reproachful tone," says Modeste. "... In the broken phrases of his last delirium these words alone were intelligible to those around him."[174] Nadeshda von Meck survived him by only two months. She died January 25, 1894.

The Fourth Symphony is closely bound up with this singular experience. Not only is it dedicated to Tschaikowsky's devoted benefactress, but he speaks of it repeatedly in his correspondence with her as "our" symphony. "May this music, which is so intimately associated with the thought of you," he wrote to her in November, 1877, "speak to you and tell you that I love you with all my heart and soul. O my best and incomparable friend!" That the symphony has a well-defined programme we know on the authority of the composer himself, though the score bears no descriptive title or prefatory note of any kind. Writing to Mrs. von Meck from Florence in March, 1878, Tschaikowsky sent this exposition of his music, which he accompanied with thematic illustrations:

"You ask if in composing this symphony I had a special programme in view.... For our symphony there is a programme. That is to say, it is possible to express its contents in words, and I will tell you, and you alone, the meaning of the entire work and of its separate movements. Naturally, I can do so only as regards its general features."

[I. Andante sostenuto; Moderato con anima in movimento di valse]

"The Introduction is the kernel, the quintessence, the chief thought of the whole symphony. [Tschaikowsky quotes the stern and threatening opening theme, announced by horns and bassoons, Andante.] This is Fate, the fatal power which hinders one in the pursuit of happiness from gaining the goal, which jealously provides that peace and comfort do not prevail, that the sky is not free from clouds—a might that swings, like the sword of Damocles, constantly over the head, that poisons continually the soul. This might is overpowering and invincible. There is nothing to do but to submit and vainly to complain. [Tschaikowsky quotes here the expressive theme for strings, Moderato con anima.] The feeling of despondency and despair grows ever stronger and more passionate. It is better to turn from the realities and to lull one's self in dreams. [Clarinet solo, accompanied by strings.] O joy! What a lovely and gentle dream! A radiant being, promising happiness, floats before me and beckons me on. The importunate first theme of the allegro is now heard afar off, and now the soul is wholly enwrapped with dreams. There is no thought of gloom and cheerlessness. Happiness! Happiness! Happiness!... No, they are only dreams, and Fate dispels them. The whole of life is only a constant alternation between dismal reality and flattering dreams of happiness. There is no port: you will be tossed hither and thither by the waves, until the sea swallows you. This, approximately, is the programme of the first movement."

[II. Andantino, in modo di canzona]

"The second movement shows suffering in another stage. It is a feeling of melancholy such as fills one when one sits alone at home, exhausted by work; the book has slipped out of one's hand; a swarm of memories arise in one's mind. How sad that so much has been and is gone, and yet it is pleasant to think of the days of one's youth. We regret the past and have neither the courage nor the desire to begin a new life. We are weary of life. We wish refreshment, retrospection. We think of happy hours when our young blood still sparkled and effervesced and life brought satisfaction. We think of moments of sadness and irrepressible losses. But these things are far away, so far away! It is sad, yet sweet, to pore over the past."

[III. Scherzo, "Pizzicato ostinato": Allegro]

"No definite feelings find expression in the third movement. These are capricious arabesques, intangible figures which flit through the fancy as if one had drunk wine and become slightly intoxicated. The mood is neither merry nor sad. We think of nothing, but give free rein to the fancy which humors itself in drafting the most singular lines. Suddenly there arises the memory of a drunken peasant and a ribald song.... Military music passes by in the distance. Such are the disconnected images which flit through the brain as one sinks into slumber. They have nothing to do with reality; they are incomprehensible, bizarre, fragmentary."

[IV. Finale: Allegro con fuoco]

"Fourth movement. If you find no pleasure in yourself, look about you. Go to the folk. See how it understands to be jolly, how it surrenders itself to gaiety. The picture of a folk-holiday. Scarcely have you forgotten yourself, scarcely have you had time to be absorbed in the happiness of others, before untiring Fate again announces its approach. The other children of men are not concerned with you. They neither see nor feel that you are lonely and sad. How they enjoy themselves, how happy they are! And will you maintain that everything in the world is sad and gloomy? There is still happiness—simple, native happiness. Rejoice in the happiness of others—and you can still live.

"This is all that I can tell you, my dear friend, about the symphony...."