6 Songs

Now the sun is departed Op.73 No.4 (1893)

Cradle Song Op.16 No.1 (1872)

Why? Op.6, No.5 (1869)

Ah, once again alone Op.73 No.6 (1893)

So soon forgotten (1870)

None but the lonely heart Op.6 No.6 (1869)

The nearest Tchaikovsky came to writing a song cycle was in his very last completed work, the 6 Songs Op.73 to words sent to him Daniil Rathaus who, though no great poet, clearly shared the composer’s dread of loneliness. The one expression of unmixed happiness in the set is Now the sun is departed in which Tchaikovsky recaptures something of the spirit of the not yet disillusioned Tatyana in Eugene Onegin. Written more than twenty years earlier and dedicated to Nadezhda Rimsky-Korsakov before the birth of her first child in 1873, Cradle Song is accompanied by one of the most beautifully written of all Tchaikovsky’s piano parts. If Why?, from his first set of songs, is less successful in that respect, Ah, once again alone, the last and loneliest of the Rathaus set, with its two-note sighing motif in the right, is all the more effective for its economy. So soon forgotten is remarkable for its dramatic change of tempo in the last stanza and the despairing intrusion of the voice in the piano postlude. The great inspiration of the early Op.6 set, None but the lonely heart is Tchaikovsky’s version of Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt and as passionate as any.

Now the sun is departed Op.73 No.4 (1893)

Cradle Song Op.16 No.1 (1872)

Why? Op.6, No.5 (1869)

Ah, once again alone Op.73 No.6 (1893)

So soon forgotten (1870)

None but the lonely heart Op.6 No.6 (1869)

The nearest Tchaikovsky came to writing a song cycle was in his very last completed work, the 6 Songs Op.73 to words sent to him by an unknown young poet called Daniil Rathaus in 1892. Though not great poetry, it clearly appealed to the composer of the Pathétique for the theme of loneliness that recurs in most of them. The one expression of unmixed happiness is Now the sun is departed in which Tchaikovsky recaptures something of the spirit of the not yet disillusioned Tatyana in Eugene Onegin.

Written more than twenty years earlier and dedicated to Nadezhda Rimsky-Korsakov before the birth of her first child in 1873, Cradle Song is accompanied by one of the most beautifully written of all Tchaikovsky’s piano parts. If Why?, from his first set of songs, is less successful in that respect it at lest reserves the big effect for a well calculated emotional climax. Ah, once again alone, the last and loneliest of the Rathaus set, with its persistently even rhythms in the left hand and its two-note sighing motif in the right, is all the more effective for its economy. So soon forgotten is remarkable for its dramatic change of tempo in the last stanza and the despairing intrusion of the voice in the piano postlude. The great inspiration of the early Op.6 set, None but the lonely heart is Tchaikovsky’s version of Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt and as passionate as any.