Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died just nine days after the premiere of his Sixth Symphony in October 1893. While speculation continues to swirl over the cause of death—theories include suicide (motivated either by feelings of guilt or the decree of a secret judicial panel), poisoning, cholera, or other misfortune—scholars have perpetually sought for clues in this, his last great masterpiece. Does the Symphony portend the composer’s tragic end? If so, how? If not, why not?
What is certain is that when Tchaikovsky sketched the Sixth Symphony in early 1893, he had no idea he would be dead before the year was out. This makes the work’s origins, its pervasive melancholy, and intimations of death (even if not the composer’s own) more difficult to account for, but in the end provide a wider range of interpretive possibilities.
Admitting that all his symphonies were loosely programmatic, Tchaikovsky once observed, “I should be sorry if symphonies that mean nothing should flow from my pen.” The Sixth does indeed have a hidden message in it, but one that the composer never revealed. He told his nephew Vladimir Davidov, whom he called Bob, that the program to the Sixth Symphony would remain “an enigma.” “Let them try and guess it!” he teased, and that challenge has proven both compelling and formidable. Tchaikovsky scholar R. John Wiley suggests that rather than prophesying the composer’s death, the Sixth Symphony is part of a grand cycle, beginning with the ballet The Sleeping Beauty, in which the composer alternated between works that explore a quality of fantasy and ones that address the sadder realities of life in the late 19th century. This Symphony just happened to be the next in this series, he proposes.
But the Sixth Symphony’s private program was obviously close to Tchaikovsky’s heart. He felt the work so personally that he frequently shed tears as he thought about the main themes. And as the orchestration neared completion in August 1893, he informed Davidov, “I can tell you in all sincerity that I consider this symphony the best thing I have done. … And I love it as I have never loved any of my compositions.”
Despite quoting from the Orthodox Requiem at the climax of the despairing first movement, and composing a gradual diminishing of light at the work’s conclusion, Tchaikovsky was as robust and high-spirited during the Symphony’s genesis as he had been at any time in his life. In the week between the premiere and his death, he even remarked casually to his brother, “I feel I shall live a long time.”
The first movement’s ominous Adagio introduction establishes the prevailing mood. The melodic contour of a rising phrase that then collapses downward has led many to interpret this theme, and the entire Symphony, as a symbol of struggle and failure. The popular second theme (Allegro non troppo) is a broad, lyrical melody of the intensely Romantic variety heard so often in Tchaikovsky’s ballets, but this brief moment of consolation does little to soothe the pervasive mood of despair. The exposition is unusually long, taking up half of the first movement in performance time, and ends with a dynamic marking of pppppp—the quietest of the whole Symphony. The compression of the sometimes frightening development section and recapitulation boldly intensifies the drama.
The second movement (Allegro con grazia) is a waltz: a genre in which Tchaikovsky excelled when writing for the Imperial Theatre. But the unusual 5/4 meter makes it a waltz like no other he had ever composed. It is meant to be played gracefully, and the movement proceeds with surprising elegance despite the metric quirk. Critics have responded to it as either delightful and childlike or intentionally distorted and macabre, depending on the interpretation of the work as a whole.
Instead of a scherzo, Tchaikovsky wrote a lighthearted, rollicking march for the third movement (Allegro molto vivace), cast in a sonata form without a development section. Wholly within the sound world of The Nutcracker, the verve and grandeur of the string writing is exceptional, and the joy it expresses is real, not illusory or ironic (as so many commentators are eager to make it).
The long, slow finale (Adagio lamentoso) is a significant departure from the standard model. The poignant opening theme and the more consolatory second theme are both fashioned from downward scales, which through repetition and development reach a painful emotional climax. Tchaikovsky harmonizes the themes in parallel triads, mostly voiced in inversion without a stabilizing root in the bass. In the recapitulation the second theme is restated in a slow and gradual diminuendo, with a reference at the end to the Symphony’s disconsolate introductory motif.
—Luke Howard
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