SYMPHONY No. 6, "PATHETIC": Op. 74
- Adagio; Allegro non troppo
- Allegro con grazia
- Allegro, molto vivace
- Finale: Adagio lamentoso
Tschaikowsky wrote to Vladimir Davidoff on February 23, 1893:
"Just as I was starting on my journey [the visit to Paris in December, 1892] the idea came to me for a new symphony. This time with a programme; but a programme which should be a riddle to all—let them guess it who can! The work will be entitled 'A Programme Symphony' (No. 6). This programme is penetrated by subjective sentiment. During my journey, while composing it in my mind, I have often wept bitterly. Now that I am home again I have settled down to sketch out the work, and I work at it with such ardor that in less than four days I have finished the first movement, while the other movements are clearly outlined in my mind. There will be much, as regards the form, that will be novel in this work. For instance, the Finale will not be a boisterous Allegro, but, on the contrary, an extended Adagio." Six months later he wrote to Davidoff that the symphony was progressing, and that he considered it the best—especially "the most open-hearted"—of all his works. "I love it as I have never loved any of my musical offspring before." On August 24th he informed his publisher, Jurgenson, that he had finished orchestrating the symphony; nor did his opinion of it change. "It is indescribably beautiful," he wrote, in a fervor of enthusiasm, to his brother Modeste; and to the Grand-Duke Constantine he wrote, on October 3d: "Without exaggeration I have put my whole soul into this work." It was the last score but one upon which he was to work. Five weeks later he was dead.[176]
The symphony was produced at St. Petersburg on October 28th, when it made little impression; it was said that its inspiration "stood far below Tschaikowsky's other symphonies." It did not then bear the title "Pathetic." How it came to be so named is thus related by Modeste Tschaikowsky:
"The morning after the concert I found my brother sitting at the breakfast-table with the score of the symphony before him. He had agreed to send the score to Jurgenson [his publisher] that very day, but could not decide upon a title. He did not care to designate it merely by a number, and he had abandoned his original intention of entitling it 'A Programme Symphony.' 'What would Programme Symphony mean,' he said, 'if I will not give the programme?' I suggested 'Tragic' Symphony as an appropriate title, but that did not please him. I left the room while he was still undecided. Suddenly 'Pathetic' occurred to me, and I went back to the room and suggested it. I remember, as though it were yesterday, how he exclaimed: 'Bravo, Modi, splendid! Pathetic!' And then and there he added to the score, in my presence, the title that will always remain."
What, precisely, was in Tschaikowsky's mind when he composed this "Programme Symphony"? According to Tschaikowsky's intimate friend Nicholas Kashkin, "if the composer had disclosed it to the public, the world would not have regarded the symphony as a kind of legacy from one filled with a presentiment of his own approaching end." To him it seems more reasonable "to interpret the overwhelming energy of the third movement and the abysmal sorrow of the Finale in the broader light of a national or historical significance, rather than to narrow them to the expression of an individual experience. If the last movement is intended to be predictive, it is surely of things vaster and issues more fatal than are contained in a mere personal apprehension of death. It speaks rather of a lamentation large et souffrance inconnue, and seems to set the seal of finality on all human hopes. Even if we eliminate the purely subjective interest, this autumnal inspiration of Tschaikowsky, in which we hear 'the ground whirl of the perished leaves of hope,' still remains the most profoundly stirring of his works."
No one has speculated with finer tact and sympathy concerning this extraordinary human document than has Mr. Philip Hale, whose meditations may well serve as a comment upon the character of the music:
"Each hearer has his own thoughts when he is 'reminded by the instruments.' To some this symphony is as the life of man. The story is to them of man's illusions, desires, loves, struggles, victories, and end. In the first movement they find, with the despair of old age and the dread of death, the recollection of early years, with the transports and illusions of love, the remembrance of youth and all that is contained in that word.
"The second movement might bear as a motto the words of the Third Kalandar in the Thousand Nights and a Night: 'And we sat down to drink, and some sang songs and others played the lute and psaltery and recorders and other instruments, and the bowl went merrily round. Hereupon such gladness possessed me that I forgot the sorrows of the world one and all, and said: "This is indeed life O sad that 'tis fleeting!'" The trio[177] is as the sound of the clock that in Poe's wild tale compelled even the musicians of the orchestra to pause momentarily in their performance, to hearken to the sound; 'and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions, and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation.' In this trio Death beats the drum. With Tschaikowsky, here, as in the 'Manfred' symphony, the drum is the most tragic of instruments. The persistent drum-beat in this trio is poignant in despair not untouched with irony. Man says: 'Come now, I'll be gay'; and he tries to sing and to dance and to forget. His very gaiety is labored, forced, constrained, in an unnatural rhythm. And then the drum is heard, and there is wailing, there is angry protest, there is the conviction that the struggle against Fate is vain. Again there is the deliberate effort to be gay, but the drum once heard beats in the ears forever.
"The third movement—the march-scherzo—is the excuse, the pretext, for the final lamentation. The man triumphs; he knows all that there is in earthly fame. Success is hideous, as Victor Hugo said. The blare of trumpets, the shouts of the mob, may drown the sneers of envy; but at Pompey passing Roman streets, at Tasso with the laurel wreath, at coronation of czar or inauguration of president, Death grins, for he knows the emptiness, the vulgarity, of what this world calls success.
"This battle-drunk, delirious movement must perforce precede the mighty wail—
"'The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armor against fate;
Death lays his icy hands on kings.'"
The last movement—the prodigious Adagio lamentoso—moved Mr. Vernon Blackburn to a comparison with Shelley's "Adonais": "The precise emotions," he wrote, "down to a certain and extreme point, which inspired Shelley in his wonderful expression of grief and despair, also inspired the greatest of modern musicians since Wagner in his 'Swan Song'—his last musical utterance on earth. The first movement is the exact counterpart of those lines—
"'He will awake no more, oh, never more!—
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death....'
"As the musician strays into the darkness and into the miserable oblivion of death, ... Tschaikowsky reaches the full despair of those other lines—
"'We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.'
"With that mysterious and desperate hopelessness the Russian comes to an end of his faith and anticipation.... For as ['life'], writes Shelley, 'like a many-colored dome of glass, stains the white radiance of eternity,' even so Tschaikowsky in this symphony has stained eternity's radiance: he has captured the years and bound them into a momentary emotional pang."
"THE VOYVODE,"[178] ORCHESTRAL BALLAD (Posthumous): Op. 78
Tschaikowsky composed Le Voyvode at Tiflis in 1890, under the inspiration of a poem by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855). It is said that after the first performance of the work at Moscow in November, 1891, Tschaikowsky, disheartened over the cool reception of his music by the audience, and by the adverse criticism of his friends, "tore his score in pieces, exclaiming, 'Such rubbish should never have been written!'" [179] The orchestral parts are alleged to have been preserved, and the score restored from them. At all events, the work was published in 1897, four years after Tschaikowsky's death.
Mickiewicz's poem, in French and Russian, prefaces the score. It has been translated into English prose as follows:[180]
"The voyvode comes back from the war late at night. He orders silence, rushes toward the nuptial bed, draws aside the curtains. 'Tis, then, true! No one; the bed is empty.
"Darker than black night, he lowers his eyes shot with rage, twists his grizzling mustache; then, throwing back his long sleeves, he leaves, and bolts the door. 'Hallo, there,' he cries, 'Devil's food!'
"'Why do I not see at the gate bolts or watch dogs? Race of Ham! Quick, my gun; bring a sack, a cord, and take the carbine hanging on the wall. Follow me. I shall make known my vengeance on this woman!'
"The master and the young servant spy along the wall. They go into the garden and see through the bushes the young woman, all in white, seated near the fountain with a young man at her feet.
"He was saying: 'And so nothing is left to me of those former delights, of that which I so dearly loved! The sighs of your white breast, the pressure of your soft hand—these the voyvode has bought!
"'How many years did I sigh after you, how many years did I seek you, and you have renounced me! The voyvode did not seek you, he did not sigh for you—he made his money jingle and you gave yourself to him!
"'I have passed through the darkness of the night to see the eyes of my well-beloved, to press her soft hand, to wish her in her new dwelling many prosperous years, much joy, and then to leave her forever.'...
"The fair one wept and mourned; the young man embraced her knees; and the other two watched them through the bushes. They laid their guns on the ground; they took cartridges from their belts; they bit them and rammed them home.
"Then they crept up gently. 'Master, I cannot aim,' said the poor servant; 'is it the wind? But there are tears in my eyes—I tremble—my arms are growing weak; there is no priming powder in the pan'— "'Be silent, slave; I'll teach you to whimper! Fill the pan—now aim—aim at the forehead of the false woman—more to the left—higher—I'll take care of the lover—hush—my turn first—wait!'
"The carbine-shot rang through the garden. The young servant could not wait. The voyvode screamed; the voyvode staggered. The servant's aim, it seems, was poor: the ball pierced the voyvode's forehead."
FOOTNOTES:
[163] Without opus number.
[164] The first of Tschaikowsky's programmatic orchestral works is the virtually unknown Fatum ("Destiny"), to which are attached lines from a poem by Batioushkov. This work was composed in 1868, and produced at Moscow in March of the following year. Tschaikowsky destroyed the score "during the seventies"; but the orchestral parts were preserved, and the score was reconstructed from them and published in 1896. Batioushkov's lines were affixed to the score after its completion, on the eve of the concert at which the work was produced.
[165] See page 12 (foot-note).
[166] It is known that Tschaikowsky thought seriously of composing an opera based on the subject of "Romeo and Juliet." "The operas of Gounod and Bellini," he wrote in 1870, "do not frighten me"—Shakespeare, he truly observed, "is not to be found in them."
[167] This and the foregoing excerpt from Tschaikowsky's correspondence are from the translation by Mrs. Rosa Newmarch.
[168] This is Carlyle's concise epitome of the experience related by Dante in the fifth canto:
"The Second Circle, or proper commencement of Hell; and Minos, the Infernal Judge, at its entrance. It contains the Souls of Carnal Sinners; and their punishment consists in being driven about incessantly, in total darkness, by fierce winds. First among them comes Semiramis, the Babylonian queen. Dido, Cleopatra, Helena, Achilles, Paris, and a great multitude of others pass in succession. Dante is overcome and bewildered with pity at the sight of them, when his attention is suddenly attracted to two spirits that keep together and seem strangely light upon the wind. He is unable to speak for some time, after finding that it is Francesca da Rimini, with her lover Paolo; and falls to the ground, as if dead, after he has heard their painful story."
[169] Ravenna: "on the coast of that sea to which the Po, with all his streams from Alps to Apennines, descends to rest therein."
[170] Francesca was the daughter of Guido Vecchio da Polenta, lord of Ravenna. She was given in marriage to Giovanni (or Gianciotto) Malatesta, the eldest son of Malatesta Vecchio, tyrant of Rimini. Giovanni was called "Lo Sciancato"—"the lame," or "hipshot." Not only was he a cripple, but he was much older than Francesca, and of stern and forbidding temper. Some say that he secured Francesca for wife by trickery, she being led to suppose that Paolo ("Il Bello"), the young brother of Giovanni, "a handsome man, very pleasant and of courteous breeding," was her future husband; that she therefore permitted herself to love him, and did not learn of the deception until "the morning ensuing the marriage." Giovanni surprised his wife and his brother together, and killed them both—between the years 1287 and 1289, says Hieronymus Rubeus in the first edition of his Hist. Ravennat. (Venice, 1572); in a later edition (1603) the date is given as early in 1289. The lovers were buried in the same grave. Guido Novello, with whom Dante lived at Ravenna, was the son of Francesca's brother, Ostagio da Polenta, and from him, it is believed, Dante heard the tragic story.—L. G.
[171] "Lancelot of the Lake, in the old Romances of the Round Table, is described as the greatest knight of all the world; and his love for Queen Guenever, or Ginevra, is infinite. Galeotto, Gallehaut, or Sir Galahad, is he who gives such a detailed declaration of Lancelot's love to the queen; and is to them, in the romance, what the book and its author are here [in Dante's poem] to Francesca and Paolo."—J. A. CARLYLE.
[172] This is the culmination of the scene described by Francesca as it occurs in Mr. Stephen Phillip's drama, "Paolo and Francesca":
"FRANCESCA [Reading]. 'And Guenevere,
Turning, beheld him suddenly whom she
Loved in her thought, and even from that hour
When first she saw him; for by day, by night,
Though lying by her husband's side, did she
Weary for Launcelot, and knew full well
How ill that love, and yet that love how deep
I cannot see—the page is dim; read you.
"PAOLO [Reading]. 'Now they two were alone, yet could not speak;
But heard the beating of each other's hearts.
He knew himself a traitor but to stay,
Yet could not stir; she pale and yet more pale
Grew till she could no more, but smiled on him.
Then when he saw that wished smile, he came
Near to her and still near, and trembled; then
Her lips all trembling kissed.'
"FRANCESCA [Drooping towards him]. Ah, Launcelot!
[He kisses her on the lips.]"
[173] Nadeshda Filaretowna von Meck was born in the village of Znamensk, in the government of Smolensk, February 10, 1831. She was thus nine years older than Tschaikowsky. When her husband, an engineer, died, in 1876, she was left with eleven children and a very large fortune, although they had not always been rich. Modeste Tschaikowsky described her as "a proud and energetic woman, of strong convictions, with the mental balance and business capacity of a man; ... a woman who despised all that was petty, common-place, and conventional; ... absolutely free from sentimentality in her relations with others, yet capable of deep feeling, and of being completely carried away by what was lofty and beautiful."
[174] The passages quoted from Tschaikowsky's letters are given in Mrs. Rosa Newmarch's translation.
[175] Translated by Mr. Philip Hale.
[176] In the October before his death Tschaikowsky was busied with the orchestration of his third piano concerto, Op. 75, based on portions of a symphony which he began in May, 1892, but afterwards destroyed.
[177] See page 210 (foot-note).
[178] "Voyvode": in Russian, "a military commander, general, or governor of a province."
[179] The authorship of this story is attributed to the pianist Alexander Siloti, a pupil of Tschaikowsky.
[180] By Mr. Philip Hale.