Tchaikovsky Symphony 6

Sergei Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19
Notes by Dan Qu

Duration: Approximately 10 minutes (1st movement)

Instrumentation: Solo violin, 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, tuba, timpani, snare drum, tambourine, bass drum, harp, and strings.

The year 1917 proved exceptionally prolific for the twenty-six-year-old Sergei Prokofiev. By September, he had finished his opera The Gambler and his first symphony, the “Classical.” That same year, he also completed his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, a work of intimate scale sharing the same key as his first symphony. Originally conceived in 1915 as a modest concertino, the work grew in structural complexity and length as Prokofiev resumed his work on it. Though a premiere was scheduled for November 1917, the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in October forced its cancellation. It finally received its premiere six years later at the Paris Opera. By 1917, Prokofiev was already notorious as the enfant terrible of the music world, famed for his iconoclastic, avant-garde compositions and a “devilish” piano technique. Yet, the Violin Concerto No. 1 stands as a surprising masterpiece of light and surreal beauty, where ethereal, fairy-tale lyricism exists alongside his trademark razor-sharp wit.

The first movement follows a traditional sonata form, but it is rendered with a translucent, modern touch. It begins with the solo violin spinning a dreamy melody over shimmering viola tremolos—an image evocative of morning mist settling on a lake. Soon, a dialogue emerges as the flutes, clarinets, and oboes join the soloist. The violin explores its extremes, from deep, resonant lows to soaring, stratospheric highs, creating a sense of flight through a landscape of shifting light. A contrasting second theme in C major slips in almost seamlessly. Rhythmic and playful, it features the unexpected, “spiky” intervals that define Prokofiev’s melodic voice. The development section begins with the soloist playing pizzicato, gradually transforming the principal theme into a flurry of tension fueled by rapid-fire scales, trills, and biting double-stops. In a stroke of orchestral genius, the recapitulation restates the primary theme not through the soloist, but via the principal flute. The violin provides an elaborate, cascading accompaniment of scales, creating a soundscape that mirrors sunlight bursting through clouds to dance upon water. As the movement concludes, the violin climbs into its highest register, eventually vanishing into the air like a fading memory.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74
Notes by Dan Qu

Duration: Approximately 45–50 minutes

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets (in A), 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, and strings.

In the summer of 1893, Tchaikovsky wrote to his nephew, Vladimir (Bob) Davydov, declaring that he had composed a work into which he had poured his “whole soul.” “I believe it to be the best and especially the most sincere of all my works. I love it as I have never loved any of my other musical offspring.” That work was his Symphony No. 6. The subtitle, “pathétique,” was suggested by the composer’s brother, Modest. In Russian, the word Patetichesky conveys a sense of “passionate suffering,” signaling a work of profound emotional intensity. Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere on October 28, 1893, in Saint Petersburg; he would die just nine days later. While the official cause of death was cholera, the symphony’s haunting, mournful character has fueled over a century of speculation that Tchaikovsky composed it as his own personal requiem.

The first movement is in sonata form. Characterized by its dramatic shifts in volume and tempo, it is a massive architectural feat. It opens with a low, brooding bassoon solo—a dark, four-note motif in B minor—over divided double basses. This somber Adagio introduction is followed by an Allegro section, where the initial four-note motif is transformed into a restless first theme. After the initial agitation, the music gives way to the famous D major second theme. Marked teneramente (tenderly), it represents a pinnacle of lyrical beauty. As the melody fades into a staggering pppppp (six-fold piano), the silence is shattered by a fortissimo orchestral explosion that ignites the development section. Towards the end of it, amidst the ensuing chaos, the brass section intones a solemn chorale based on the Russian Orthodox “Mass for the Dead.”  The second theme then returns in a soaring recapitulation, pouring out a final surge of emotion before the movement descends into a pizzicato scale—a retreating heartbeat that fades into nothingness.

The two inner movements serve as interludes, temporarily diverting our attention from the work’s tragic core. The second movement, an Allegro con grazia, is often called a “limping waltz.”  Written in 5/4 meter, it feels slightly off-balance, but even more graceful. This ternary-form movement sandwiches a melancholic B-minor middle section between two elegant D-major bookends. The elegant dance provides a brief respite from the gloom.

The third movement begins as a light, scurrying scherzo but gradually hardens into a ferocious march. By its conclusion, the brass and percussion reach such a triumphant peak that audiences are frequently deceived into breaking into premature applause. However, this triumph is a hollow irony—a fleeting burst of worldly glory that makes the final descent all the more devastating.

In a radical departure from symphonic tradition, Tchaikovsky chose to end the symphony not with triumph, but with a nihilistic descent into darkness—a precedent Gustav Mahler would follow seventeen years later in his Ninth Symphony. Labeled Adagio lamentoso, the movement adopts a slow, six-part sonata rondo form (A-B-A-C-A-B). Theme A is a fragmented, weeping melody in B minor. An orchestration trick is employed in the opening where the first and second violins alternate notes of the melody. Theme B is first introduced in D major. Solemn and stoic, it is a broad, pleading chant over a relentless, throbbing pulse in the horns and woodwinds. It represents a desperate, formal dignity in the face of the inevitable. The short development section (the C theme) erupts from the first return of Theme A, where the music builds to a catastrophic climax—an outcry of sheer agony. Following the collapse of the climax, a single, quiet stroke of the tam-tam (gong) rings out. This is the “death knell,” a chilling sonic signal that stops the momentum of the living. When Theme B returns for the final time, its D-major dignity is stripped away. Transposed to B minor and marked by heavy, dragging rhythms, it eventually sinks into the lower register. The music dies away over a low, fading pulse in the cellos and double basses—a literal musical expiration. There is no resolution, only the profound stillness of the end.

Was this a conscious requiem? Did Tchaikovsky sense his imminent end? Perhaps it is as the musicologist David Brown suggests: the work deals with the inexorable power of Fate in both life and death. Regardless of his intent, Tchaikovsky succeeded in putting his “whole soul” into the score, and the vibrations of that soul continue to resonate deeply today.

.