"MANFRED. 'Tis over—my dull eyes can fix thee not;
But all things swim around me, and the earth
Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well—
Give me thy hand.
"ABBOT. Cold—cold—even to the heart;
But yet one prayer. Alas! how fares it with thee?
"MANFRED. Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die."
[MANFRED expires.]
"ABBOT. He's gone—his soul hath ta'en his earthless flight.
Whither? I dread to think; but he is gone."
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]