Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, ‘Pathétique’

Program notes

About the Work

Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the ‘Pathétique,’ is his final masterpiece and one of the most emotionally devastating works in the entire orchestral repertoire, a symphony that seems to stare death in the face. He completed it in 1893 and conducted its premiere in St Petersburg on 28 October that year; just nine days later he was dead, at fifty-three, in circumstances still debated (the official cause was cholera). This terrible coincidence has forever coloured the way the symphony is heard: as a kind of musical suicide note or premonition of death. Tchaikovsky himself spoke of a secret programme behind the work that he would never reveal, saying he had wept while composing it. The title ‘Pathétique’ (better understood as ‘passionate’ or ‘impassioned’ than merely ‘pathetic’) was suggested by his brother Modest after the premiere.

Whatever its hidden meaning, the symphony is an astonishing emotional journey and a structural masterstroke. Most radically, Tchaikovsky overturns symphonic convention by ending not with a triumphant fast finale but with a slow, despairing Adagio that sinks into darkness and silence. It was a shocking and unprecedented conclusion that leaves audiences shattered. Between heart-stopping lyricism, a limping waltz, a blazing march and that final descent into the void, it is Tchaikovsky’s most personal and shattering testament, and an overwhelming close to a programme steeped in grief, anxiety and the search for peace.

What to Listen For

The first movement opens in gloom, with a solo bassoon over dark low strings, before the main Allegro erupts with nervous, agitated energy. Listen for the famous, soaring second theme, one of Tchaikovsky’s most ravishing melodies, and for the shattering central development, where a violent eruption (with a quotation of the Russian Orthodox requiem) tears the music apart before the great tune returns, transfigured and consoling.

The second movement is a wistful, bittersweet waltz, but in an off-balance five beats to a bar, so it never quite settles: a dance with a limp. The third movement is a brilliant, driving march-scherzo that builds to such a triumphant, blazing climax that audiences often (mistakenly) burst into applause, thinking the symphony has ended in victory. But then comes the devastating finale: an Adagio lamentoso of utter despair. Listen for the wrenching, sobbing main theme (ingeniously split between the two violin sections), the brief surge of protest, the stroke of the tam-tam, and the way the music sinks, lower and lower, into the depths of the cellos and basses, fading to nothing, a heartbeat stopping. It is one of the most powerful endings in all music.