Saturday Symphony (Page 3)

There are times when the circumstances of a given work’s creation almost inexorably lead to conclusions about its nature that probably aren’t quite true. Such is the case with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B minor, which concluded his symphonic output. Tchaikovsky’s life was not easy — neither his creative life nor his personal life. He struggled with his works, occasionally destroying them and many times revising them years later. He also struggled with his sexuality in a time when to be a gay man was perhaps the worst thing you could be. Tchaikovsky was famously prone to bouts ofDown the rabbit hole….

In researching a little for this post, I discovered that Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor is not universally beloved. Shocking, but true: some critics find the finale “insincere and crude”. Well, really. While I’ve had issues with a number of Tchaikovsky’s works over the years, I’ve never had any issue with the Symphony No. 5. I’ve loved it since I first heard it, in a televised New York Philharmonic performance sometime in the late 1980s. Tchaikovsky’s Fifth is one of my “signpost” works: it hits home for me on nearly every level, touching nearly all the emotions alongDown the rabbit hole….

OK, last week didn’t happen (we were out of town and I just didn’t get the post written), and this week’s supposed to be Tchaikovsky’s Fifth but I still didn’t get the post written (because it’s one of my favorite pieces ever and I want to do it right), so this week, a placeholder, and a particularly fascinating one. Years ago — we’re talking, when I was in high school — I checked this record out from the library. It’s a performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 in C Major. Mozart wrote this piece in four days, when he wasDown the rabbit hole….

Tchaikovsky wrote one symphony that he did not give a number. This work is quite different from his other symphonies, in that not only is it not numbered, but it is a programmatic work that carries a title: Manfred. In terms of order of composition, Manfred falls between the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, which is why it’s featured in this spot, this week. I had never heard the Manfred Symphony until just a couple of weeks ago. It is a strange work, to be sure — it has moments of absolute brilliance, and it also has moments that make clearDown the rabbit hole….

We now reach the later period of Tchaikovsky’s career as a symphonist, which is where things go from “good”, “solid”, and “promising” to “great”. This is the Symphony No. 4 in F minor. I have to confess that I didn’t always like this symphony all that much, but I have warmed substantially to it over the last few years. Tchaikovsky’s music is, in a lot of cases, best understood in the light of the events of his life at the time he was composing. This symphony, which has some of the most anguished passages I know, sprang from Tchaikovsky’s suicidalDown the rabbit hole….

Sorry for missing last week, but here we are again. Tchaikovsky’s third symphony, the Symphony No. 3 in D Major, is an interesting work, almost experimental in its form. The symphony is in five movements instead of four, and in it Tchaikovsky makes use of Polish dance rhythms, which led to the work initially being dubbed the “Polish” Symphony. The symphony is kind of an odd work. It has a sense of optimism that seems, frankly, a little out of place for the famously brooding Tchaikovsky; this is the only one of his symphonies to be written in a majorDown the rabbit hole….

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor is very, very new to me: I first heard it a week ago, after I posted about the Symphony No. 1! I don’t really have a great deal to say about this symphony, actually. It’s a very nice work, and it would undoubtedly be a lot better known if it hadn’t been so overshadowed — along with the First and Third — by the back half of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic output. The Symphony No. 2 abounds with the feel of Eastern European folk music (he actually used Ukrainian folk songs in the work), andDown the rabbit hole….

Sorry to miss this feature the last couple of weeks! There’s a reason for that, though: I was finally going to address the symphonies of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, but just the last three, which are among the greatest symphonies ever written. But then I figured, I’ve never actually heard his first three symphonies, so I wanted to hear them first before I blogged about them. So starting next week, six weeks of Tchaikovsky! In the meantime, we’ll back up a hundred years. Here’s Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G minor. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

This work may not even actually be a symphony, but I’m featuring it nonetheless, because for a time Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov actually did consider it a symphony (his Symphony No. 2), before redubbing it a “symphonic suite”, called Antar. His inspiration here was an Arabian story about a man named Antar who saves a gazelle from a bird of prey, and when the gazelle turns out to be a magical Queen, she decides to reward him by showing him the three greatest joys of life (vengeance, power, and love). Rimsky-Korsakov had a love of Asian and Eastern European myths and tales,Down the rabbit hole….