Pattaya Classical Music - Concert Saturday, April 8
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Gaybutton
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fountainhall
Re: Pattaya Classical Music - Concert Saturday, April 8
I love this particular symphony. As many know, Tchaikovsky was the composer of the music for three of the most popular and joyful ballets - Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. But he was also a tragic soul being gay in a country and a time when being gay was illegal and not spoken about. He tried marriage but it was a disaster. He walked out traumatised after only 10 weeks. Years later, just 9 days after he conducted the premiere of this symphony he died aged only 53. Officially his death has always been ascribed to cholera. More recently another theory has gained credence.
Tchaikovsky was originally trained as a lawyer at the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence. After switching to composition and finally accepting that he was gay he found a number of sexual partners but never a long-term lover. After his death rumours spread that he had had a brief affair with a student at the very School at which he had studied. Allegedly a group of other students convened a "Court of Honour" and went to visit him accusing him of bringing the reputation of the School into disrepute and threatening to "out" him unless he took his own life. This was despite the fact that the School had a reputation as a hotbed of debauchery! Being "outed" would have killed his access to the Imperial Court and society. His career would have ended.
Tchaikovsky's own letters illustrate the degree of self-loathing he felt about being gay. And it is in the 6th Symphony that this deeply felt angst is made very clear. Not that you notice this is the first three movements which are all marked "Allegro" meaning brisk tempo, the third being a rousing march. But the agony of the final movement - a devastating lament illustrating the depths of depression - is like a condemned man finally given a chance at life which he grabs, only to be consigned back to hell as freedom is within his grasp. As a gong sounds, the brass play a snatch of a sombre Russian holy chorale, part of the Russian Orthodox Requiem, before slow beats suggest a dying heart. It is highly moving.
Here is the march-like third movement conducted by the superb Korean conductor Myung-Whun Chung with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Incidentally the word Pathétique in the title translates as Passionate and not Pathetic!
Tchaikovsky was originally trained as a lawyer at the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence. After switching to composition and finally accepting that he was gay he found a number of sexual partners but never a long-term lover. After his death rumours spread that he had had a brief affair with a student at the very School at which he had studied. Allegedly a group of other students convened a "Court of Honour" and went to visit him accusing him of bringing the reputation of the School into disrepute and threatening to "out" him unless he took his own life. This was despite the fact that the School had a reputation as a hotbed of debauchery! Being "outed" would have killed his access to the Imperial Court and society. His career would have ended.
Tchaikovsky's own letters illustrate the degree of self-loathing he felt about being gay. And it is in the 6th Symphony that this deeply felt angst is made very clear. Not that you notice this is the first three movements which are all marked "Allegro" meaning brisk tempo, the third being a rousing march. But the agony of the final movement - a devastating lament illustrating the depths of depression - is like a condemned man finally given a chance at life which he grabs, only to be consigned back to hell as freedom is within his grasp. As a gong sounds, the brass play a snatch of a sombre Russian holy chorale, part of the Russian Orthodox Requiem, before slow beats suggest a dying heart. It is highly moving.
Here is the march-like third movement conducted by the superb Korean conductor Myung-Whun Chung with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Incidentally the word Pathétique in the title translates as Passionate and not Pathetic!