Although Tschaikowsky himself thought of the Pathetic symphony as his crowning masterpiece, the première on October 28, 1893, in St. Petersburg proved a disappointment. Tschaikowsky took it bitterly. Two weeks later, however, the tables were turned. Everybody acclaimed it warmly. But Tschaikowsky was not there to bow his acknowledgment. He had fallen victim to the cholera epidemic then raging in St. Petersburg. Though warned by the authorities, Tschaikowsky drank some unboiled water on November 2. Four days later he was dead. No symphony was more appropriately named than this melancholy masterpiece, the Pathetic symphony, the brooding phrases of which sound truly like the “swan song” of a tired and abysmally disillusioned man of genius.
Marches, Overtures, Fantasias, Etc.
Marche Slave, Opus 31
The Marche Slave stands foremost among Tschaikowsky’s marches, of which he wrote numerous, including several incorporated in his operas and suites. Most of them were composed for special purposes or occasions. There is the Marche Solennelle, written “for the Law Students,” which figured on the housewarming program at the opening of Carnegie Hall in May, 1891, besides a Marche Militaire, which he wrote for the band of the Czar’s 98th Infantry Regiment. In 1883 the city of Moscow requisitioned a Coronation March from him. Earlier, Tschaikowsky had written a march in honor of the famous General Skobelev. But he held it in such low esteem that he allowed it to circulate as the work of a non-existent composer named Sinopov.
The composer at the age of twenty-three, during his early years at the Moscow Conservatory.
Désirée Artôt, the French soprano who, in jilting Tschaikowsky, helped to inspire his Romeo and Juliet overture-fantasy.
The Marche Slave was written in 1876 for a benefit concert to raise funds for soldiers wounded in the Turko-Serbian war, which presently merged into a greater war between Turkey and Russia. It is based largely on the old Russian anthem, “God Save the Emperor,” and some South Slavonic and Serbian tunes. The main theme has been traced to the Serbian folk song, Sunce varko ne fijas jednako (“Come, my dearest, why so sad this morning?”). Divided into three sections, the march features fragments of the old Czarist hymn in the middle portion. How the hymn itself came to be written is told by its author, Alexis Feodorovich Lvov: