The morning after, Modeste found Peter at the tea-table with the score of the symphony in his hand. He regretted that, inasmuch as he had to send it that day to the publisher, he had not yet given it a title. He wished something more than “No. 6,” and did not like “Programme symphony.” “What does Programme symphony mean when I will give it no programme?” Modeste suggested “Tragic,” but Peter said that would not do. “I left the room before he had come to a decision. Suddenly I thought, ‘Pathetic.’ I went back to the room,—I remember it as though it were yesterday,—and I said the word to Peter. ‘Splendid, Modi, bravo, “Pathetic”!’ and he wrote in my presence the title that will forever remain.”
On November 1, Tchaikovsky was in perfect health. He dined with an old friend and went to the theater. In the cloakroom there was talk about spiritualism. Varlamov objected to all talk about ghosts and anything that reminded one of death. Tchaikovsky laughed at Varlamov’s manner of expression and said: “There is still time enough to become acquainted with this detestable snub-nosed one. At any rate, he will not have us soon. I know that I shall live for a long time.” He then went with friends to a restaurant, where he ate macaroni and drank white wine with mineral water. When he walked home about 2 A.M., Peter was well in body and in mind.
There are some who find pleasure in the thought that the death of a great man was in some way mysterious or melodramatic. For years some insisted that Salieri caused Mozart to be poisoned. There was a rumor after Tchaikovsky’s death that he took poison or sought deliberately the cholera. When Mr. Alexander Siloti, a pupil of Tchaikovsky, first visited Boston, in 1898, he did not hesitate to say that there might be truth in the report, and, asked as to his own belief, he shook his head with a portentous gravity that Burleigh might have envied. We have been assured by other Russians who knew Tchaikovsky that he killed himself, nor was the reason for his so doing withheld. Peter’s brother Modeste gives a circumstantial account of Peter’s death from natural causes. Peter awoke November 2 after a restless night, but he went out about noon to make a call; he returned to luncheon, ate nothing, and drank a glass of water that had not been boiled. Modeste and others were alarmed, but Peter was not disturbed, for he was less afraid of the cholera than of other diseases. Not until night was there any thought of serious illness, and then Peter said to his brother: “I think this is death. Good-bye, Modi.” At eleven o’clock that night it was determined that his sickness was cholera.
Modeste tells at length the story of Peter’s ending. Their mother had died of cholera in 1854, at the very moment that she was put into a bath. The physicians recommended as a last resort a warm bath for Peter, who, when asked if he would take one, answered: “I shall be glad to have a bath, but I shall probably die as soon as I am in the tub—as my mother died.” The bath was not given that night, the second night after the disease had been determined, for Peter was too weak. He was at times delirious, and he often repeated the name of Mme von Meck in reproach or in anger, for he had been sorely hurt by her sudden and capricious neglect after her years of interest and devotion. The next day the bath was given. A priest was called, but it was not possible to administer the Communion, and he spoke words that the dying man could no longer understand. “Peter Ilitch suddenly opened his eyes. There was an indescribable expression of unclouded consciousness. Passing over the others standing in the room, he looked at the three nearest him, and then toward heaven. There was a certain light for a moment in his eyes, which was soon extinguished, at the same time with his breath. It was about three o’clock in the morning.”
What was the programme in Tchaikovsky’s mind? Kashkin says that, 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; that 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 Tchaikovsky, in which we hear ‘the ground whirl of the perished leaves of hope, still remains the most profoundly stirring of his works.’ ...”
“ROMEO AND JULIET,” OVERTURE FANTASIA (AFTER SHAKESPEARE)
The Romeo and Juliet overture would be worth a journey if only to hear Tchaikovsky’s love music. Here is the incomparable expression in tones of the Southern passion of Juliet, and it is strangely Shakespearean. The remainder of the overture is rather rank Russian, with the exception of the music of Friar Laurence and the noble requiem at the end.
This overture fantasia was begun and completed in 1869. The first performance was at a concert of the Musical Society, Moscow, on March 16, 1870; Nicholas Rubinstein conducted. The work was revised in the summer of 1870 during a sojourn in Switzerland; it was published in 1871. Tchaikovsky, not satisfied with it, made other changes, and, it is said, shortened the overture. The second edition, published in 1881, contains these alterations.
The first performance in the United States was in New York, by the Philharmonic Society, George Matzka, conductor, on April 22, 1876.