World Premiere: November 19, 1875
Last HSO Performance: December 15, 2013
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings
Duration: 45 minutes
Tchaikovsky composed his Third Symphony in the astonishingly short period of only eight weeks during the summer of 1875 — astonishing not just because of the speed with which such a large work was written, but also because it was composed soon after the episode of Nikolai Rubinstein berating his First Piano Concerto (recounted above). Tchaikovsky’s always-delicate nerves gave way, and his doctors advised him to travel abroad, forbidding him to compose or touch a piano, which counsel he ignored to stay in winter-bound Moscow to continue his teaching duties at the Conservatory.
Tchaikovsky’s gloom of the winter of 1875 lifted when the weather improved. He reported to his brother Anatoli on March 21st, “Now, with the approach of spring, these attacks of melancholia have completely stopped, but,” he added pessimistically, “I know that each year — or rather, each winter — they will return more strongly.” His mood was further improved in May, when he received the commission for Swan Lake from the Imperial Directorate of the Moscow Theaters. As soon as classes at the Conservatory finished in June, he accepted an invitation to visit the country estate of his friend Vladimir Shilovsky at Ussovo, where he began the Third Symphony. The sketches were completed by the end of the month, when he moved to the estate of N.D. Kondratiev at Nizi; he orchestrated the fourth and fifth movements in just five days after his arrival on July 10th. His final stop of the summer was at his sister Alexandra’s home in Verbovka, where the three remaining movements were orchestrated in about a week. Tchaikovsky was refreshed at Verbovka not just by completing the Symphony and having begun Swan Lake, but also by the loving attention of his sister, her children and his father. He returned to Moscow in the fall stronger both physically and mentally.
The sobriquet “Polish” attached to the D major Symphony (the only one of Tchaikovsky’s six symphonies in a major key) did not originate with the composer, but seems to have first been appended by Sir August Friedrich Manns when he conducted the work at a London Crystal Palace concert in 1899. Manns’ inspiration was the stylized polonaise used as the finale, though there is no question that the Symphony is thoroughly Russian in spirit and thoroughly Tchaikovskian in manner.
The Symphony opens with a doleful introduction based on a fragmented idea passed between the strings and the horns. The sonata form proper begins with the change to a brighter key and the presentation of the sweeping main theme; the subsidiary theme is a sad, little melody intoned by the solo oboe. A buoyant tune initiated by the clarinets closes the exposition. All three themes are elaborated in the development section. The recapitulation recalls the melodies in their original forms before one of Tchaikovsky’s most exciting codas closes the movement. The second movement, Alla Tedesca (“In the German Manner”), traces its waltz heritage to Glinka’s Valse-Fantasie, Weber’s Invitation to the Dance and, ultimately, the Austrian peasant dance, the Ländler. The movement’s central trio is built on quick, chattering woodwind figures, which continue as accompaniment when the waltz theme returns. The elegiac Andante takes as its principal subject a plangent melody intoned by the woodwinds; a passionate strain for full orchestra provides formal and expressive balance. The Scherzo is indebted to Mendelssohn for its mercurial grace and to Tchaikovsky’s own 1872 cantata celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great for the theme of its trio. The finale (Tempo di Polacca) is a majestic polonaise which encompasses episodes based on a broad complementary theme and an imposing amount of fugal development.
©2024 Dr. Richard E. Rodda