Run Time: Approx. 50 Minutes

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony has become so universally beloved and frequently performed that it feels almost impossible to say something new about it. The work has been analyzed countless times, and most audience members have likely heard it—perhaps even studied it—before. So, for this final masterwork of our ASO season, allow me to step away from my usual academic lens and take a more personal approach.

As a horn player, this symphony holds a special place for me—it features one of the great horn solos in the entire orchestral repertoire. When coaching students on the excerpt, I often joke that “Tchaikovsky had a lot of big feelings.” As reductive as that may sound, I believe it’s the very reason this symphony has resonated so deeply with audiences for 137 years, and likely will for many more.

When listening to or playing this work, I’m always struck by the profound sense that Tchaikovsky had something he was urgently trying to express. We know from his own writings that he felt conflicted between the form-driven discipline of Western conservatory training, and his instinctive pull toward more dramatic, emotionally driven melody—more in line with the Russian tradition. As musicologist Leon Plantinga observed, “He struggled ceaselessly with the opposed demands of formal traditions he had learned in the conservatory and his own predilection for an emotional and expressive progression of events corresponding to an unspoken program.”

When we speak of an “unspoken program,” we’re referring to an underlying story or narrative arc, something traditional symphonies typically avoid. Indeed, when Tchaikovsky set about composing the Fifth Symphony, he began with the idea of “Complete resignation before Fate–or what is the same thing, the inscrutable designs of Providence.” Though the published work bears no written evidence of this conceptualization, the music practically demands such an interpretation.

The symphony opens with a somber clarinet theme that has come to be known as the “fate motif.” Introduced at the start of the first movement, it reappears throughout the work and ultimately becomes the main theme of the finale. Over the course of the final movement, this motif undergoes a remarkable evolution—heard as a stately march, a fiery and menacing outburst, flustered, bubbling turmoil, moments of unrestrained joy, and, finally, a resolute and victorious conclusion. The emotional journey is vast, and each transformation of the theme feels like a chapter in a story Tchaikovsky was determined to tell—even if only in music.

The second movement, which opens with the aforementioned horn solo, embarks on a similarly turbulent journey, full of longing, passion, and deep sadness. At the height of its drama, the orchestra erupts in a powerful and frustrated return of the fate motif, as if voicing the helplessness Tchaikovsky may have felt at the hands of destiny.

All of this, of course, is conjecture—Tchaikovsky never truly revealed the dramatic arc he may have intended. Yet the emotions evoked by this powerful work are undeniable. He achieves the remarkable feat of allowing us to feel what he felt–even if we’re not sure of the cause–offering a visceral window into his inner life and connecting us to another world, 137 years away. That kind of emotional power is timeless—and I doubt it will ever stop being celebrated.