Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 | Mikhail Pletnev & the Verbier Festival Orchestra

Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 with its “fate motif” is regarded as a reflection of the Russian composer's state of mind when he wrote it. In this recording of the symphony that was inspired by dramatic autobiographical events, Mikhail Pletnev conducts the Verbier Festival Orchestra. The concert took place on August 6, 2017 at the Verbier Festival.

(00:00) Applause
(00:30) I. Andante sostenuto – Moderato con anima
(20:12) II. Andantino in modo di Canzone
(30:23) III. Scherzo. Pizzicato ostinato. Allegro
(36:01) IV. Finale. Allegro con fuoco

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893) composed Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 largely in 1877, his ‘crisis year’. Within just a few months, the Russian composer had experienced dramatic life-changing emotional events: Early in the year, he began a long and unusual pen friendship with Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy widow who from then on supported the often cash-strapped composer financially. There was also an unhappy clandestine love affair with a former pupil, Iosif Kotek, who was employed as a private musician in Meck's house. On top of all this in the summer, Tchaikovsky married his pupil Antonina Ivanovna - who he idolized but did not love. The marriage failed after only a few months. The eminent composer fell into a severe depression after a failed suicide attempt.

In the 4th Symphony, which is often called the ‘fate symphony’, Tchaikovsky seems to have expressed his turbulent emotional states in music. At least that is how he described it in a letter to Nadezhda von Meck, to whom he had also dedicated the grand orchestral work. Here he talks about the symphony's programmatic concept, in which the struggle with his sorrowful and implacable fate takes center stage:

According to Tchaikovsky, the first horn motif in the first movement, represents a fate which one is at the mercy of. The cheerful passages in the music of the first movement express daydreams through which one can fleetingly escape one's hard fate and experience happy moments. This juxtaposition of melancholy and more cheerful music can also be found in the second movement. It expresses reflections and various memories. Regarding the third movement, the Scherzo, the Russian Romantic composer spoke of a state of intoxication, drunken peasants and a military procession passing in the distance. The final movement is about an imagined folk festival. If you no longer have any joy yourself, you should at least enjoy the cheerfulness of others. But trying to distract yourself from your own sadness is not the cure. Your own hard fate always gains the upper hand. Accordingly, the fate theme from the first movement appears again in the fourth movement. The message of the symphony could be summarized as follows: No one can escape their own fate.
In a postscript, Tchaikovsky later qualified his gloomy remarks about the program of Symphony No. 4, stating that they were merely an echo of his emotional state at the time of the Romantic symphony's composition.

Fun fact: The British rock band Pink Floyd used a phrase from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 on their acclaimed album Wish You Were Here (1975). Before the title track begins with its famous guitar solo, you hear a station search on a radio. After a few voices, two bars from the beginning of the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky's symphony can be heard.

© 2017 Idéale Audience

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