At A Glance
“I certainly regard it as easily the best—and especially the most ‘sincere’—of all my works” Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky said to a friend of his Sixth Symphony. He wrote another, “Without exaggeration, I have put my whole soul into this work.” However the premiere, led by the composer, was met with some puzzlement. The music seemed, somehow, “unfinal.” Yet the second performance, just three weeks later, made a powerful impression. Why? Between the two first performances, Tchaikovsky died unexpectedly. What a bewildering experience it must have been for early listeners of this astonishingly soulful piece, which ends with music that simply passes beyond our hearing.
—After notes by James M. Keller and Michael Steinberg