Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6 - Pathtique

Tchaikovsky's later life was riddled with turmoil. The 6th Symphony is devoted to
his nephew, Vladimir Davidov, who was Tchaikovsky's lover from the late 1880s 1.
During this time, Tchaikovsky has a fascination with death, and his compositional
style was 'rooted in the philosophical distinction between of this world and not
of this world.'2
The symphony is split fairly traditionally into four movements, and is tonally
centred around B minor. Tchaikovsky tried in this symphony to increase the
dynamic range of the orchestral sound he created, including dynamic markings
ranging from pppppp to ffffff. The first is the longest by far, being twice the
length of any of the successive movements. It begins with an Adagio section,
characterised by a low drone in the strings that accompany a haunting bassoon
solo. This, like so many of Tchaikovsky's melodies is based on scalic movement,
which at times seems to anticipate the harmonic movement of the underlying
string bed, increasing its intensity. This emotionally charged opening is
interrupted by the beginning of the Allegro non troppo section, where
counterpoint between the strings, wind, and later the brass is important.
Tchaikovsky's use of material 'not of this world' is obvious in this movement,
where the violence that began the Allegro transforms into an idyllic sweeping
string melody that dominates for a significant portion of the movement,
returning to its violent predecessor eventually and competing until the sublime
end to the movement.
The Allegro Con Grazia second movement is in essence, a 5/4 waltz. Completely
charming and yet not predictable, the bass strings pulse underneath the surging
tutti sections, and pizzicato string scales are used to great effect at several
points.
The third and fourth movements are where Tchaikovsky breaks tradition.
Whereas Beethoven favoured the idea of light championing dark in his
symphonies, here Tchaikovsky challenges this traditional model, having the
frenetic Allegro molto vivace as his third movement, jubilant, major, full of pomp
and circumstance and reserves some of the darkest material of his compositional
output for the Adagio Lamentoso - Andante Finale of the symphony, where the
heart rending string melody surely hints of valediction, and the ending of which
is a B minor chord that is left to fade into silence.
Tchaikovsky died shortly after conducting the premiere of the Sixth Symphony,
debatably, he committed suicide as a more noble alternative to the disgrace he
would suffer on the dissemination of news he had made sexual advances on a
'young man of high birth'3.

1 Norton, 'Gay Love-Letters from Tchaikovsky to his Nephew Bob Davidov', online
2 Roland John Wiley, 'Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich, 6: Years of valediction, 188993'
3 Roland John Wiley, 'Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich, 6: Years of valediction, 188993,
(ii) The Last Symphony'

Resource List
Gay History and Lectures, ' Gay Love-Letters from Tchaikovsky to his Nephew Bob
Davidov' <http://rictornorton.co.uk/tchaikov.htm> (on 13 April 2015)
Roland John Wiley. 'Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich, 6: Years of valediction, 188993',
in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., ed. Stanley Sadie
and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan, 2001. Accessed at Grove Music Online, ed.
Laura Macy.
<
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/51766pg6#S5
1766.6> (on 13 April 2015)