“‘ ... There is no greater pain than to recall a happy time in wretchedness; and this thy teacher knows. But if thou hast such desire to learn the first root of our love, I will do like one who weeps and tells.
“‘One day, for pastime, we read of Lancelot, how love constrained him. We were alone, and without all suspicion. Several times reading urged our eyes to meet, and changed the color of our faces. But one moment alone it was that overcame us. When we read of how the fond smile was kissed by such a lover, he, who shall never be divided from me, kissed my mouth all trembling. The book, and he who wrote it, was a Galeotto. That day we read in it no farther.’
“While the one spirit thus spake, the other wept so that I fainted with pity, as if I had been dying; and fell, as a dead body falls.”
Tschaikowsky used to insist that the following titles be given in the program-book at performances of his fantasia:
| I. | Introduction: The gateway to the Inferno |
| (“Leave all hope behind, all ye who enter here”) | |
| Tortures and agonies of the condemned. | |
| II. | Francesca tells the story of her tragic love for Paolo. |
| III. | The turmoil of Hades. Conclusion. |
The composition starts with a descriptive setting, in which a sinister, gruesome picture is painted of the second circle of Dante’s Inferno. The awesome scene, with its haunting, driving winds, desolate moans, and dread terror, is repeated at the end. In the middle occurs a section featuring a clarinet in a plaintive and tender melody heard against string pizzicati. This instantly evokes the image of Francesca telling her tragic tale, which mounts in fervor and reaches its shattering crisis, before the wailing winds of Dante’s netherworld close in again.
BALLET SUITES
Suite from the Ballet, Swan Lake (Le Lac des Cygnes)
All told, Tschaikowsky wrote three ballets, plus a scattering of incidental dances for operas, beginning with the surviving “Voyevode” fragments. The composition of Swan Lake, first of the trio—the others being The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker—originated in a twofold impulse, the need for ready cash and a fondness for French ballet music, especially the works of Delibes and the Giselle of Adolphe Adam, which Tschaikowsky regarded as archetype.