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

arranged for piano by Samuel Feinberg (1890–1962)

The major problem with writing a piano arrangement of the Allegro molto vivace – often described as the “Scherzo” although Tchaikovsky himself does not use the word – from the Pathétique Symphony must be in matching the dynamic range available to the orchestra. There is no shortage of other problems, such as reconciling the 12/8 scherzo material with the 4/4 march, which are often heard together, and registering the fine details of instrumental colour which occur even in a piece with as pronounced a juggernaut tendency as this one. The Russian virtuoso Samuel Feinberg succeeds by remaining faithful to Tchaikovsky’s text in just about every respect except his dyanamic markings. The occasional fff has to be cut back to leave room for expansion and give at least an illusion of a piano range nuanced from pp to an unrelenting fff and beyond to ffff. Where he needs still more pressure, as at the super-climactic end of the movement, he introduces a not entirely authentic but effectively glittering glissando.

“The programme will be an enigma,” Tchaikovsky wrote to his favourite nephew Bob Davidov as he was at work on his Sixth Symphony, “let people guess it for themselves… It is so intensely personal that as I was mentally composing it on my travels I frequently wept copiously.” At that time he intended to call it “Programme Symphony” but then he asked himself, “Why ‘Programme’ when I don’t want to give the programme?” Having rejected “Tragic” as an alternative, he was glad to accept his brother Modest’s suggestion of “Pathétique,” with its respectably classical associations, as a suitable compromise. The day after he conducted the first performance of the work , in St Petersburg in December 1893, he inscribed that title on the manuscript, together with a dedication to his nephew, and sent it off to his publisher.

Eight days later Tchaikovsky was dead - officially from cholera but possibly, according to informed but unconfirmed conjecture, after being given the choice between suicide and bringing shame on himself and his associates by having his homosexuality made public. However, that may be, even though the symphony was completed before Tchaikovsky is though to have been presented with the fatal ultimatum, it is difficult not to hear the work as the composer’s Requiem for himself. There is the evidence offered by the work itself, which ends unconventionally, as Tchaikovsky announced to Davidov, “not with a loud Allegro but, on the contrary, with a very slow-moving Adagio” and which even he compared to a Requiem. There are important clues also in programme sketches found among the composer’s posthumous papers, where “love” and “life” are contradicted by “disappointment” and “death.”

Disappointment, for example, is already there in the Adagio introduction, where the upward inflections of the low bassoon phrases are eventually negated by a descending scale on the violas. At the start of the Allegro non troppo the bassoon phrases are adopted as the basis of the first subject and “love,” in the form of one of Tchaikovsky’s finest melodic inspirations, makes an early entry, Andante, on violins and cellos as the second subject in D major. But the descending scale is present here too, suggesting that even love is an agent of negative forces. In the struggle of the Allegro vivo development the fateful scale theme becomes a powerful threat, and death - represented by an allusion in the brass to a Russian funeral hymn - makes a premature appearance.

Both central movements are, for the most part, diversions from the essential issues. The outer sections of the Allegro con brio are based on a highly ingenious and irresistible D major waltz in 5/4 time. If fate makes an entry here it is in the tearful descending phrases on strings and woodwind in the middle section and at the very end of the movement. As for the Allegro molto vivace, it is a masterful combination of 12/8 scherzo and 4/4 march in G major. At what point the one ends and the other begins it is impossible to decide, although there is no mistaking the climax of the march or, indeed, its manic disposition.

If there is no “love” in the second movement or “disappointment” in the third, there are echoes of the descending fate motif in both. The last movement consists of little else but repetitions, in different chromatic shapes, of the same descending phrase which has echoed through the symphony since the violas first introduced it. There are two main themes - one of them Adagio lamentoso on the strings at the beginning, the other Andante in D major on violins and violas. The latter consolation is developed with considerable fervour. A brief confrontation shows how nearly the two themes are related, however, and - after climactic struggle, with an upward movement in the brass against downward scales in the strings - life ends on a soft stroke of the gong. Before the symphony finally dies away, the D major melody is recalled in B minor and there is no consolation.

Bob Davidov, incidentally, committed suicide in 1906.

Gerald Larner©

“It is so intensely personal,” Tchaikovsky wrote of his Sixth Symphony, “that as I was mentally composing it on my travels I frequently wept copiously.” He also told his favourite nephew Bob Davidov that the story behind the work would be a secret: “The programme will be an enigma. Let people guess it for themselves…” He had thought of calling it “Programme Symphony” but then he asked himself, “Why ‘Programme’ when I don’t want to give the programme?” Having rejected “Tragic” as an alternative, he was glad to accept his brother Modest’s suggestion of “Pathétique,” with its respectably classical associations, as a suitable compromise. The day after he conducted the first performance of the work, in St Petersburg in December 1893, he inscribed that title on the manuscript, together with a dedication to his nephew, and sent it off to his publisher.

Eight days later Tchaikovsky was dead - officially from cholera but possibly, according to informed but unconfirmed conjecture, after being given the choice between suicide and bringing shame on himself and his associates by having his homosexuality made public. However, that may be, even though the symphony was completed before Tchaikovsky is thought to have been presented with the fatal ultimatum, it is difficult not to hear the work as the composer’s Requiem for himself. There is the evidence offered by the work itself, which ends, as Tchaikovsky announced to Davidov, “not with a loud Allegro but, on the contrary, with a very slow-moving Adagio” and which even he compared to a Requiem. There are important clues also in programme sketches found among the composer’s posthumous papers, where “love” and “life” are contradicted by “disappointment” and “death.”

Disappointment, for example, is already present in the Adagio introduction, where the upward inflections of the low bassoon phrases are eventually negated by a descending scale on the violas. At the start of the Allegro non troppo the bassoon phrases are adopted as the basis of the main theme and “love,” in the form of one of Tchaikovsky’s finest melodic inspirations, makes an early entry, Andante, on violins and cellos as the second subject in D major. But the descending scale is present here too, suggesting that even love is an agent of negative forces. In the struggle of the Allegro vivo development the fateful scale theme becomes a powerful threat, and death - represented by an allusion in the brass to a Russian funeral hymn - makes a premature appearance.

Both central movements are, for the most part, diversions from the essential issues. The outer sections of the Allegro con brio are based on a highly ingenious and irresistible D major waltz in 5/4 time. If fate makes an entry here it is in the tearful descending phrases on strings and woodwind in the middle section and at the very end of the movement. As for the Allegro molto vivace, it is a masterful combination of 12/8 scherzo and 4/4 march in G major. At what point the one ends and the other begins it is impossible to decide, although there is no mistaking the climax of the march or, indeed, its manic disposition.

If there is no “love” in the second movement or “disappointment” in the third, there are echoes of the descending fate motif in both. The last movement consists of little else but repetitions, in different chromatic shapes, of the same descending phrase which has echoed through the symphony since the violas first introduced it. There are two main themes - one of them Adagio lamentoso on the strings at the beginning, the other Andante in D major on violins and violas. The latter consolation is developed with considerable fervour. A brief confrontation shows how nearly the two themes are related, however, and - after climactic struggle, with an upward movement in the brass against downward scales in the strings - life ends on a soft stroke of the gong. Before the symphony finally dies away, the D major melody is recalled in B minor and there is no consolation.

Bob Davidov, incidentally, committed suicide in 1906.