Ophelia by John Milais, 1851
I've had quite a bit of fun surfing for Romantic art for the past two diaries. Choosing the right art for this week's diary on Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony was a little more difficult. I finally chose Milais' Ophelia, above. Although the Pathetique is a "grim," "tragic," "dark," or "death-oriented" symphony, it's style is still more in that Romantic tradition epitomized by Milais' painting than the starker imagery of Goya's Perro or the mystical imagery of Gustav Dore's White Rose, two other famous Romantic paintings symbolic of death that might be appropriate for Mahler, but not the Pathetique. Ophelia, driven mad by Hamlet, floats dead, her face open to the sky. Love and life are cruel and that cruelty can evoke human, earthly pity. Or we can be realists, look at Ophelia and say, "How melodramatic, she should have taken some Zoloft." Tchaikovsky's Pathetique takes the first approach.
The name of the symphony, Pathetique, doesn't mean "pathetic." Pathetique is a french word which means passionate and sorrowful, and that describes it quite well. Because it's by Tchaikovsky, whom we know quite well by now from Romeo and Juliet or old chestnuts like The Nutcracker Suite, it will be very emotional, very lyrical, with soaring violins in unison at the apexes, trombones and kettle drums at the nadirs. In fact, it's a great three-hankie tear-jerker. For those who have never heard it, even though they may be unfamiliar with classical music, it is a startling experience. The dirty trick pulled on the audience in the third movement alone makes this symphony unique.
Does the Pathetique have a program, a narrative story attached to it, the way the Romeo and Juliet Overture (last week's diary) did? The consensus answer is, probably, but Tchaikovsky kept it to himself. There is a bit of academic speculation about what Tchaikovsky's intended program was, although it seems to be about death. The final movement (which we won't hear today) is a vision of the agony of human death and failure on Earth, not a spiritual or metaphysical or mystical vision of the next life. If that interpretation sounds fanciful, well, the first movement that we will hear today contains a slyly embedded musical quote from the Russian Orthodox burial hymn, "Repose the Soul." That's blatant. Russian audiences at that time would have recognized it immediately.
Russian choreographer George Balanchine wrote:
And then comes the burial hymn "Repose the Soul." ... Only people from the past, like me, understand what that really means: that "Repose the Soul" is sung only when someone has died. A bier stands in the church, the coffin lid is open, and when the service is coming to an end, everyone kneels and weeps: this man is dead! "Repose the soul of your deceased servant with the saints." It’s more than an Ave Marsh or Ave Verum. This begs the saints up in heaven to grant peace to the soul of the deceased. Tchaikovsky wrote that about himself! There’s a whirlwind flying through it, a whirlwind! And then down, down, the horns with oboes and bassoons. And suddenly: "Repose the soul." Everybody’s crying.
And in the Finale of the Pathétique there is a soft, otherworldly chorale - three trombones and a tuba. The melody goes down, down, dies out: strings, then woodwinds. Everything stops, as if a man is going into the grave. Going . . . going . . . gone. The end. Tchaikovsky had written his own requiem!
What kind of death? Is it suicidal death? Tchaikovsky is known to have been suicidal at times. And suicide is a frequent occurrence in his other programmatic works like Romeo and Juliet (two suicides) or Swan Lake (two more).
A quick treat: the last four minutes of the ballet Swan Lake... And there you go, soaring strings in unison at the climax:
Tchaikovsky conducted the first performance of this, his last symphony, on October 28, 1893. Four days later he died. Naturally, this is a situation ripe for conspiracy theories and apocryphal rumors, and I don't want to waste too much time on them. The music is powerful enough on its own and doesn't need all that additional back story to make it more interesting; I find it distracting. If you want to get your hands dirty, check out StraightDope.com's lurid version.
Tchaikovsky's Sixth is overripe with analysis and commentary on the web, so much so, I should have realized it would make my life harder rather than simpler. I have heard this symphony so many times I could probably whistle it for you, bar by bar, all four movements, without a score, and yet doing research for this week's diary, I've learned so many details I didn't notice that I feel humbled and unclear how much to relate and how much to censor to keep things laser-focused. So as usual, I'll try to focus more on the obvious things, the geography of the music rather than its technical secrets, which you can learn more about on your own time from wonderful analysis-videos like these:
Charles Hazelwood on Tchaikovsky's 6th for BBC Discovering Music
Leonard Bernstein Analyzes Tchaikovsky's 6th
Charles Z. Bornstein, New York Philharmonic Scholar-in-Residence, on Tchaikovsky's 6th
Writer/Producer Joseph Horowitz on Tchaikovsky's 6th for the New York Philharmonic
Tchaikovsky's Pathetique in Films and Pop Music
As you know by now, I love film score music. Here's a partial list of films with music scores that "borrowed" from Tchaikovsky's Pathetique:
As part of my work I have a film music database. Music from Tchaikovsky's Pathétique has been used in the following films:
Anna Karenina (1997)
Break of Hearts (1935)
Conquest (1937)
Hell's Angel's (1930)
The Kid (1921)
Maurice (1987)
Minority Report (2002)
The Music Lovers (1970)
Now, Voyager (1942)
The Outlaw (1943)
Rising to Fame (1931)
Rosalie (1937)
Song of Songs (1933)
Soylent Green (1973)
In particular, the beautiful, lush second theme of the first movement, that we'll hear shortly, has been stolen three times for three different hit songs with different lyrics: Story of a Starry Night(1942) by Glenn Miller, Where(1959) by The Platters, and In Time(1961) by Steve Lawrence. (Details from Jerry Osborne site.)
Not to mention all those ice skating long programs. Even if I may disagree with people who hate Tchaikovsky, I can understand how they got that way and why they feel the way they do. The success and popularity of Tchaikovsky's music has made it cheap, and ubiquitous.
... So we begin.
We haven't got space to do the whole Pathetique symphony in one diary, so we'll only do the first movement today, the rest in the next or next two diaries. Lucky us, the first movement is in... Sonata-allegro form! Remember this from our first diary?
And it's all based on this:
Just as Beethoven's Fifth was based on his famous da-da-da-DAH motif, Tchaikovsky's first movement is based almost entirely on a single four-note motif, shown above, that you will hear straight off played by the bassoons.
Tchaikovsky's Symphony #6 in B minor, "Pathetique", First movement The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
Introduction (0:00 to 2:01)
Over the deeper strings, the bassoon announces three times the dark little four note motif that the whole first movement is built upon, just as Beethoven's Fifth is built upon da-da-da-DAAAH.
Exposition -- First theme (2:01)
The violins softly launch into a fast, agitated melody based on the four note motif. It is passed back and forth with the woodwinds, gradually increasing in complexity, until, at 3:49, angry trumpets in D sharp minor pick up the theme, bringing it to a small climax that then settles down, modulating to the more cheerful key of D major. The music slows, calms, slows some more, almost halts, in preparation for the gorgeous second theme.
Exposition -- Second theme group (4:47)
The gorgeous second theme (4:47 to 5:45). This is the theme that was stolen for songs like Glenn Miller's Starry night. The strings, especially the middle strings (violas), and soft brass play this very famous and much stolen and abused melody.
After the first, gentle performance of the Starry Night theme, a companion theme is introduced (5:45), played first by the flute with a horse-trotting accompaniment in the strings..
The Starry Night theme returns at 7:26. Soaring strings in unison, the volume swells up passionately, with brass lending support. At 9:16, a solo clarinet repeats the theme one last time, allowing it to fade to peaceful extinction, just before the development begins with a crash.
-----Time to switch to the second video with the second half of the movement! -----
Development (0:00 to 2:32 of second vid)
Crash! Three great crashes announce the beginning of a very turbulent development. The four note motif is back. Events unfold very quickly now. At 0:20, it becomes a fugato (a small fugue: multiple layers of the same melody out of sync). At 0:50, the trumpets and timpani loudly seize control. They fade away, leaving a turbulent rumbling in the lower strings, and it is into this (at 1:13) that we hear the trombones softly play the first seven notes of the Orthodox hymn, "Repose the soul."
At 2:05, the strings struggle with the brass to bring back the four note motif, returning us to B minor, which SHOULD be the beginning of the recapitulation.
Recapitulation -- Return of the first theme (2:32)
The first theme, based on the four-note motif makes its return to B minor, but where the first time it was played softly, now we hear it with full orchestra, punctuated by kettle drums. Recapitulation or not, the key becomes unsettled again, as the brass instruments tear the melody to shreds, moving from the home key of B minor to D# minor then F# minor then A minor diminished seventh chords. We are quickly approaching the dramatic climax of the movement.
At 3:30, with the drums in the background working themselves into a deep roar, a series of descending chords, first in the strings and then the brass, take us down, down, down into a maelstrom. At 4:17, the kettle drums crash us down with finality, giving this downward descent a hard landing. The drums and the orchestra fade away, as if it's all over, and there is bizarre moment of silence, here in the middle of the recapitulation.
Recapitulation -- Return of the second theme (4:40)
Out of the silence, the second theme, the "Starry Night" melody, makes its return, although it is changed, at first, not as confident or strong, at first just woodwinds, then some soft brass, and then the rest of the orchestra gradually rejoining it, playing upward scales in the background. At 5:20, with full orchestra, it makes its last appeal. At 6:30, the clarinet plays it one last time as it fades away.
Coda (7:37)
The brass play a final B major melody based on the four-note motif as the strings play pizzicato (strings plucked by the fingers instead of played by the bow) to gently escort us to the end.
NEXT WEEK: We will finish the rest of the symphony over the next installment or two (more likely two).