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Hello and welcome to Sticky Notes, the classical music podcast. My name is Joshua Weilerstein. I'm a conductor and I'm the music director of the Orchestra national de Lille and the chief conductor of the Aalborg Symphony. This podcast is for anyone who loves classical music, works in the field, or is just getting ready to dive into this amazing world of incredible music. Before we get started, I want to thank all of my new Patreon sponsors Dorne, Tom K, Stefan Tarash, Ruth Mac, Gidon, Alessio, Jim, Jackie, Richard, Valentin, Anna, and all of my other Patreon sponsors for making season 11 possible. If you'd like to support the show, please head over to patreon.com stickynotespodcast and if you are a fan of the show, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. It is greatly appreciated. I am in the midst of a month of concerts with the Orchestra Nacional Delille. We are doing two different programs that we are kind of mixing and matching throughout the month, centered around Brahms First Symphony, Offenbach's Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld, the Saint Sans Cello Concerto with Nicolas Alstedt, some Ravel Rhapsody Espagnole, the Mother Goose Suite, Lily Boulanger's the Matin de Printemps, Elsa Baren's Second Symphony, and the Barber Violin Concerto with Renaud Capuchon. It's been an incredible joy to work on all of this music. Very tiring, very intense, but really fantastic to work on all this music with that great orchestra. We are also this next week doing a masterclass in conducting with three fantastic conductors. It's the first time we're doing this, so I'm really excited for this week. I've got an episode that I should have put out a very, very long time ago on Tchaikovsky's sixth Symphony. Hope you enjoy it. The great and somewhat controversial conductor Leopold Stokowski said this about Tchaikovsky. His musical utterance comes directly from the heart and is a spontaneous expression of his innermost feeling. It is as sincere as if it were written with his blood. I couldn't agree more with Stokovsky because I think he hits on a word that has made Tchaikovsky's music so powerful to almost every audience member that encounters the word sincere. Tchaikovsky's music is so profoundly moving because you feel as if there is no gap between the music and Tchaikovsky's emotions. It's as if he is earnestly speaking to you through his music. But paradoxically, this ability that Tchaikovsky had made him a punching bag of critics and cynics throughout his career and even into today. Even though Tchaikovsky remains one of the most popular composers in the Western classical canon, his name is still not treated with the respect of a composer like Beethoven or Brahms or other luminaries. I get it. But I also think Tchaikovsky's basic skills as a composer are extremely underrated. Which brings me to Tchaikovsky's sixth and final symphony, nicknamed the Pathetique. Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony essentially rewrites the traditional symphonic form. It is one of the few 19th century symphonies that ends quietly. And that ending is one of the most extraordinary and daring that exists in the entire repertoire. It is a piece of remarkable complexity, brilliant construction, and it packs an emotional wallop that leaves you walking out of the hall slightly changed from the way you walked in. In fact, this piece is so multi layered that I wanted to devote some extra time to it. So I've decided to make this a two part episode. This week we're going to talk about the controversies over Tchaikovsky's emotional state as he composed this symphony and the first two movements of the piece. A massive 17 minute first movement that ingeniously melds multiple different symphonic forms into one long breath and a second movement, waltz with a twist. We'll get into a lot more detail than we usually do, giving us a chance to really give Tchaikovsky that respect he deserves. All of this and more is coming right up on Sticky Notes. Okay, let's get a couple of practical things out of the way right away. Even though I'm going to talk about this more next week, this symphony, as far as we know, is not a suicide note. Tchaikovsky famously died just nine days after the premiere of the symphony from drinking a glass of unboiled water. A reckless decision considering that St. Petersburg was in the throes of a cholera epidemic at the time. Due to the somber and tragic character of the piece, it was natural that rumors and theories would spring up regarding what the piece was actually about. But in 1979, the musicologist Alexandra Orlova theorized that Tchaikovsky was in fact forced to commit suicide by a secret Russian court of honor which had uncovered evidence of his homosexuality. Suddenly, a symphony that was tragic now became the stuff of legend. But the problem with this theory is that there is very, very little evidence for it. And a lot of other musicologists have debunked it pretty convincingly in my opinion. Again, we'll talk a little bit more about this in a couple of weeks. The other practical matter is the title of the piece, Pathetique. In December of 1892, Tchaikovsky was terrified that he had Run out of ideas as a composer. He wrote to his nephew, I think and I think and I know not what to do. I'm played out, dried up. He destroyed an unfinished programmatic symphony in EB major and groped for a solution to his compositional block. It was only two months later that he was suddenly seized with inspiration and began writing the symphony that we are talking about today. He wrote to his nephew, the program itself will be suffused with subjectivity. And not infrequently. During my travels while composing it in my head, I wept a great deal. Upon my return, I sat down to write the sketches. And the work went so furiously and quickly that in less than four days the first movement was completely ready. And the remaining movements already clearly outlined in my head. Yes, that's right. The first movement of this huge symphony was written in just four days. As we go through the movement in a few minutes, you'll see just how remarkable that accomplishment was. Tchaikovsky was absolutely thrilled with what came out. He wrote, I think it will be successful. It is rare for me to write anything with such love and enthrallment. I can honestly say that never in my life have I been so pleased with myself, so proud or felt so fortunate to have created something as good as this. Okay, but what about that title? Tchaikovsky originally wanted to call the symphony program Symphony, meaning that the symphony would have a story behind it. But he was resolved to keep that program, that story a secret. He wrote, during my journey, I had the idea for another symphony, this time with a program. But such a program that will remain an enigma to everyone. Let them guess. The symphony shall be entitled a program. Symphony 6. Tchaikovsky, I think, wisely removed this title, and the piece was premiered as simply Symphony no. 6. No pathetique. The next day, Tchaikovsky told his brother that he. He did think the symphony needed a title. His brother suggested tragic. And then pathetique, which does not mean pathetic in the English translation of the word. In fact, I did a little bit of a deep dive on the word pathetique, which is consistently mistranslated in English as meaning something a little bit contemptible, that is pathetic. But the French word never had that connotation. It actually means something like emotionally moving or arousing great emotion. In fact, the Russian word that Tchaikovsky's brother suggested is much better translated as passionate rather than anything else. Certainly better than pathetic. This mistranslation has dogged the piece at times. And even though most English speakers understand the nuance of the misleading translation, it also has led to confusion on Tchaikovsky's side. He agreed to the title, but apparently had misgivings just after the decision was sent to the publishers. Of course, we will never know if Tchaikovsky would have ended up keeping that title, as he was to pass away just a few days later. But it's important to emphasize that Tchaikovsky's meaning for the title here was passionate or impassioned, which is exactly the impression we get from this symphony. There's nothing pathetic about it. Let's begin tackling the first movement now, a movement that lasts nearly 17 minutes and is the most formally advanced movement Tchaikovsky ever wrote for symphonic orchestra. In theory, this movement is in sonata form, meaning that it has an exposition with two themes, a development where those two themes are turned over upside down and reimagined, a recapitulation where the two themes come back in their original form, and a coda where everything is summed up. So why is it so formally advanced? It's because in many ways, you don't really notice the form as it's happening, because everything is written so seamless, seamlessly. The movement begins with a slow introduction played by the bassoon. The basses begin this movement alone, setting up the carpet of sound for the bassoon. But often the bass sound is so soft that you can barely hear it in a concert hall, let alone on a recording. Turn up your volume quite a bit, and then I'll leave some time at the end of the clip to turn it back down.
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This bassoon solo is legendary for its difficulty, not the notes themselves as much as the extremely soft dynamic that Tchaikovsky instructs the bassoonist to play them at. Often you will get a feeling of the bassoonist reaching down to the bottom of the instrument and scooping out those low notes, especially the very first note. It's on every single bassoon audition. Because it's so difficult to get this kind of brooding sound that Tchaikovsky is asking for, while also playing the notes accurately and in tune.
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Tchaikovsky makes use of long silences like the one you just heard to heighten the tension and further engage the ears of the audience. In the 21st century, this opening doesn't seem so radical. Mahler started a lot of symphonies quietly. So did Shostakovich, and so did Many, many other 20th and 21st century symphonies and pieces. But if you look backwards, there's really no symphony before this one that begins in such a way. Beethoven's fourth Symphony might be the closest to analog, but the beginning of that symphony is shrouded in mystery, not despair. Again, Tchaikovsky's symphony doesn't sound so unusual to our ears now, but it certainly would have made an impact on the audiences of the time, and it inspired composers into the future. The violas continue the progression of the introduction, making for two rather unusual instruments to lead a melodic line at the beginning of the symphony. The bassoon and the violas more often play accompanimental roles. And so Tchaikovsky is further muddying the waters here, creating not only an unusual introduction in its somber nature, but also in its color as well. This is how Tchaikovsky has set the stage for the main body of the first move.
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The main theme of the movement is a sped up version of the introduction, and it is again led by the violas. In this iteration, it sounds hesitant, like it's trying to find its feet. Tchaikovsky has the violas played much higher up in their registers now, which often creates a slightly hoarse string quality to the sound. The expansion on the theme is a series of 16th notes that add a bit of elegance to the music, especially when the theme is taken over by the flute. But soon we descend with a series of scales to the second iteration of the main theme, now accompanied by agitated and tense 16th notes. What we are seeing here is Tchaikovsky already beginning to develop the this opening theme. We had the brooding version, the hesitant version, and now a driven and agitated version. This is much more in line with the kind of development someone like Brahms would do, and it belies the idea that Tchaikovsky was just a composer of pretty melodies. The intricacy of the construction of this theme is remarkable here, and Tchaikovsky is by no means done with developing, As is often the case with Tchaikovsky and with Mahler. By the way, Tchaikovsky mixes together the lightest and most elegant music with his darkest and most dramatic. The way that Tchaikovsky continues this development of the opening theme is with bouncing in light music in the accompaniment and a theme made up of descending scales in the melodic line. It's a moment of relief from all of the darkness we have heard so far. This leads us though, to more contrasts, more, more finding our feet. The 16th notes that were an important part of the main theme are now dominant, as Tchaikovsky writes a series of harmonic progressions that alternate between profound agitation and music of equally compelling elegance. All of this is extremely difficult to play well, and a lot of great orchestras come to grief during this section. For the winds, articulating is really difficult. And for the strings, playing all of these entrances accurately and then not rushing the 16ths on the way down is really challenging. And of course, it's not just playing accurately that is necessary here. The orchestra has to portray these shifting, shorter, more insistent notes in the dramatic sections, and longer and more suave 16th notes in the elegant sections. Tchaikovsky then tells the orchestra to begin to speed up while the brass make their voices heard for the first time time with yet another development of the main theme. While the winds and strings keep battling their way through piles of 16th notes, the brass interject with the main theme, now played as a fanfare. So let's just recap. Brooding, hesitant, and now powerful. And like a fanfare, this theme is showing itself to be extremely versatile. This leads to an outburst of intensity that brings the first theme section to an end. One thing that I haven't mentioned yet is that Tchaikovsky writes this movement in B minor, which is an unusual key for a symphonic movement. He has to find a way to get to D major for his second theme, since D major is the relative major of B minor, and that's how to follow the rules of sonata form. But have we really been doing that? Tchaikovsky has now spent minutes on his first theme, and it's barely recognizable anymore. This is why I say that the movement is written in sonata form, but is not really understood. Stood that way. As the music recedes from this first climax, the cellos and then, of course, the violas lead us up to yet another silence. And then emerges that second theme, one of Tchaikovsky's greatest and most famous.
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This theme sounds simple, but it isn't. First of all, it's a reworking of something that we thought was just transitionary material in the first theme. The descending scales of that idea. Become the beginning of this wonderful theme. Second of all, Tchaikovsky clearly had a lot to say about it. He tells the musicians to play with their mutes on, tenderly, very singing and with expansion or elasticity. That's a lot of information for a simple little tune. And the conductor also has to grapple with Tchaikovsky's metronome marking. But we'll get to the tempo question in a minute. Before any of that, the first violins and cellos have to play this music with all of Tchaikovsky's detailed instructions and all of it in a very soft dynamic. This theme feels like a dream, a moment of heavenly contemplation amidst the drama of the first part of the piece. But Tchaikovsky is not going to allow this theme to sit still. And with surges of passion, we hear the kind of music that made Tchaikovsky such a beloved composer and someone who still pulls on our heartstrings today. But it's not all so straightforward. Tchaikovsky writes four tempo changes in just eight bars. He tells the orchestra to speed up, to slow down, to speed up again and to slow down again. I get a little driven up the wall when conductors ignore these markings. I think these surges of energy, where Tchaikovsky writes in calzando, literally to heat up, are vital to making the emotional intensity of this piece come across. As a conductor myself, this can be a tough theme to work with, because most orchestras have done this piece hundreds of times with their music director, meaning that the freedom or the time taking that that conductor does is almost baked into the group. And if that orchestra isn't used to the flexibility that Tchaikovsky writes, it can be hard work to get things going. Tchaikovsky will then develop this second theme as well, once again lightening it considerably as the scales now don't go down, but go up. As we ascend to a place of gentle movement. I want to point out one place where Tchaikovsky's genius is really underrated. We have three things going on. A melodic line in the winds, a secondary line in the trumpets and trombones, and quick comments by the violins. Listen to them separately. These three ideas all have one thing in they're just scales. But Tchaikovsky finds a way to make them compelling through the combination of all three and through the harmony that continues to remind us of the second theme, which itself began with a scale. This builds to a stopping point where it seems as if the second theme has fulfilled its purpose. But Tchaikovsky isn't finished with it. Instead of moving on to the development, Tchaikovsky overwhelms us with a passionate version of the second theme. It's exactly the same in terms of melodic content, but Tchaikovsky adds a pulsing accompaniment that infuses the theme with more intensity and leaves us breathless. And now Tchaikovsky begins to truly wind down this theme over the course of a long distance. Diminuendo. The exposition begins to come to an end in peace and a kind of resigned contentment. At the end of this wind down, a solo clarinet sings out the second theme, marked to be played as sweetly as possible and PP.1 level softer than the normal pianissimo, as soft as possible marking. It's an impossibly delicate moment that is enhanced by one orchestration change that most conductors make this symphony. At the end of the phrase, Tchaikovsky writes pppppppp. The normal as softest possible marking, as I said, is pianissimo. Two P's. But here, clearly, Tchaikovsky wants true extremes. The problem is he takes the clarinet line, which is capable of playing incredibly softly, and finishes it below the range of the clarinet. So he hands it off to the bassoon, but for the bassoon. It's very hard to play as softly as the clarinet. So most conductors, if not all, have these final four notes played by a bass clarinet, which allows the line to finish with the extremes that Tchaikovsky was looking for. But suddenly, all hell breaks. Lo, This is a moment that should make every audience member jump out of their seats. Tchaikovsky wrenches us out of our reverie with some of the most violent music he would ever write. What Tchaikovsky has done is to take his main theme and to create a fugue out of it. A fugue is a formal device where a theme is introduced, called a subject. When the theme is complete, another voice enters with the same theme while the original voice continues on. The most famous fugues were written by Bach, but already, by the time of Beethoven, fugues were being written to create drama and build up intensity over time. Tchaikovsky takes the Beethoven approach. He writes for the orchestra to play fortissimo as loudly as possible and to play ferociously. He also has 16th notes rushing around underneath the fugue theme, as well as syncopations in the winds. What Tchaikovsky has done is to create extreme intensity and agitation with the simplest of materials. At the climax of this first section, Tchaikovsky does something extraordinary. Listen first to the trumpet line that blares over the top of the whirlwind of 16th notes. This line is actually the second part of the second theme of the movement. Isn't that amazing? Tchaikovsky is sometimes accused of just writing scales, but when you can transform a scale from a moment of passionate expression to something this terrifying, then go for it. Tchaikovsky. We then get the first true portent of death in the symphony. As this first spasm of rage fades, we hear the brass enter with a quotation from the Russian Orthodox Requiem, which certainly piqued the ears of those looking for deeper meanings behind the piece. Tchaikovsky adds to the anxiety here by now having the orchestra play almost exclusively off the beat. The music starts to disintegrate, losing any semblance of stability. Even though orchestras play this piece all the time, this is still a dangerous moment in terms of ensemble. The strings are playing syncopations off the beat, while the horns are playing these triplets that constantly come after the beat as well. It's not easy to keep this all coordinated when players are playing at a great distance from each other. And again, playing together is obviously not the only goal here. We have to somehow portray that anxiety as well in the articulation of the horns and the presence of the string sound. Wisps of the main theme return now, like passing shadows, And this bubbling Tension will build to the first major chord climax of the development, a terrifying shriek of the main theme by the brass over a wildly agitated accompaniment. Tchaikovsky briefly brings things down in a moment that I've always found difficult as a conductor in the sense of interpretation. The music, for a moment, seems to stop moving forward after building up so much momentum. The winds and strings pass back and forth a part of the main theme, and it seems like things could become stagnant. But actually, this moment of pause is vital to making the final buildup work. We're already breathless, so there's no harm in taking a moment to put our hands on our knees for a moment before taking off again. And when we take off, Tchaikovsky brings the main theme back, except that it is accompanied by a battering ram of triplets played by the brass, a reminder of the instability of the moments before. We also hear cries of the second half of the second theme. Things are coming to a head now. And finally we arrive at the true center of the movement. Tchaikovsky well and truly rips our hearts at with one of the most emotionally staggering moments in all of music. We feel like the music is boiling over until Tchaikovsky reaches up for one of those unforgettable moments that makes it, as a musician, feel like there's nothing else in the world other than this. In another sign of Tchaikovsky's remarkable compositional genius, he finds a way to take the same raw material and create one theme that is tender and expansive and one that strains at the bounds of the maximum possible amount of emotion. It is a perfect transition, then, to the recapitulation, which skips the first theme entirely and brings us into a broken, glassy version of the second theme. And as the movement now begins to come to a close, we realize that the recapitulation itself is extremely short. Tchaikovsky has put so much into the exposition and development that a full recapitulation would threaten to make the piece impossibly top heavy. And so, before his coda, Tchaikovsky has the clarinet play one more version of the second theme, becoming softer and softer and more and more distant.
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Tchaikovsky then finds his way to the coda, marked to be played with a walking tempo and with motion. Tchaikovsky isn't looking for a Mahler like funeral dirge here, but a flowing tempo as we perhaps memorialize those who have suffered during this movement. Whether this is Tchaikovsky or a more kind of universal human suffering, this coda is noble and somber, with the brass leading the way over pizzicato that echoes the scales of the second theme.
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This movement, depending on your tempo is around 18 minutes long, making it one of the longest movements ever composed up to this time in a symphony. It is a movement of remarkable emotional breadth and I really think it's the greatest single movement Tchaikovsky ever composed. Now, in the 20th century, composers became more interested in retaining one single mood across an entire piece, not, not conceding that the audience might want to take a breath. But in Tchaikovsky's time, it was still very much a part of convention to now give the audience a breather after such an intense first movement. And we get one in the second movement, a waltz, but as I said, with a twist. The twist is that this is not a typical waltz in three, but a waltz in five, making it essentially undanceable in the traditional sense. Why, Tchaikovsky had written a gorgeous waltz in three with his fifth Symphony, so it certainly wasn't out of a desire to avoid a traditional dance form. Instead, I get the sense that after a first movement of such incredible drama that Tchaikovsky is starting to lean towards the 20th century idea of continuing the character from the first movement, while also retaining the tradition of a breather for the audience. In essence, he writes a kind of fatalistic nostalgia into this beautiful limping waltz. Quite a feat for a composer who is often just talked about as a writer of great melodies and nothing more. It's also worth mentioning that a 54 meter, while again normal for our modern era, was completely unheard of in Tchaikovsky's time. In fact, the world famous at the time, critic Edward Hanslick said that there was something wrong with this movement and that it should be changed to a 6,8 meter in order for it to be more enjoyable. As Sibelius once said, no one ever built a statue for a critic. This brings me to the reception that this piece got at its first performance. After the first performance, Tchaikovsky said, something strange is happening with this symphony. It's not that it displeased, but it has caused some bewilderment. So far as I myself am concerned, I am more proud of it than any of my other works. Musicians were nonplussed the first rehearsals and the audience reaction was respectful but a bit tepid. This music doesn't sound radical to us now, but at the time, a dramatic first movement which reached such extremes of emotion and a waltz scherzo in the wrong meter might not have been what the audience was expecting.
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It's in the middle section of this movement that Tchaikovsky's mastery becomes even more clear. Over an ostinato, repeated single notes played by the timpani, bassoons and basses Tchaikovsky brings the character back to that of the first movement with a line that seems to be trembling. And in the second part of the middle section, Tchaikovsky will reach back and actually take the second theme in the first movement itself and transform it into this nostalgic and wistful waltz. The development of the first movement continues throughout the piece, and this place is perhaps the most clear of all.
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In the coda of the waltz, Tchaikovsky actually writes a little preview of the third movement, a descending line that innocently takes us to the end of this elegant but slightly sad movement. So we've had that epic first movement and an unusual amalgam of dance and sorrow and nostalgia in the second movement. Typically at this point we would have the traditional slow movement, leading to a rousing finale that often ended in triumph. In fact, in Tchaikovsky's 4th and 5th symphonies, he used the triumphant ending model to such a degree that many people complain that the triumph in the last movements of those two symphonies sounds almost empty. Well, for his sixth Symphony, Tchaikovsky would turn this model on its head and write again two of the most fascinating movements he would ever a thrilling march and then a passionate, almost uncomfortably raw final movement that probably accounted for the unsettled reaction of the audience at the time and the inevitable theories and myths about Tchaikovsky's death. We're going to get into all of that, but you'll have to wait for a couple of weeks. Thanks so much for listening to Sticky Notes today. We'll have parts Part two of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony in a couple of weeks, so don't miss our next episode. If you like what you heard today, please feel free to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps the show gain more visibility. And please send any questions to stickynotespodcastmail.com and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. And if you'd like to support the podcast monetarily, just head over to patreon.com stickynotespodcast thanks and I'll talk to you again after a while.