The symphony starts at 10:35.
Excerpt from Introductory speech by the conductor Evgeny Svetlanov:
There are thousands of beautiful works in world music. In order to listen to them, a few human lives would not be enough. Among them there are less known works, but there are well-known works. There are favorite works. Among these favorite works are outstanding works. Among outstanding works there are great works. Among the great works there are the greatest works. Symphony No. 6 of Pyotr Tchaikovsky is such the greatest work.
The fate of this symphony was very interesting. The composer created it at the very end of his life. And for the first time he conducted on this symphony 10 days before his death. Only 10 days ago, the Perterburg public saw Tchaikovsky, but he looked rather bad, like too old for his age… I would not like to talk about it today.
Another thing is important. This symphony at its first performance was not accepted at all by the public. People in the hall are numb, they did not know how to react to this music. It was so new to them and was so unheard of new and unlike anything they just got confused. Or they were under such a strong impression from the symphony that they did not want to applaud. This happens sometimes too.
And now we, too, often listen and perform this symphony and, as a rule, after it we don’t want to show any emotions. And as listeners, we want to sit in a chair, immerse ourselves in our thoughts, and soon as soon as we can be alone. And for the manifestation of turbulent enthusiasm, we have no internal reasons. Although the shock from the symphony is so great that it would be possible to express it all externally, but we do not want to express it.
However, contemporaries show that the symphony was not understood by the public. And indeed, even now, every time rehearsing this work, which is well known to every musician, and even more so to the orchestral musician, it still causes great difficulties at rehearsals. I can not even understand what is the reason of this phenomenon.
It is always painfully difficult to prepare it for performance. Therefore, getting great gratification from working on this opus at the same time you experience tremendous performing difficulties every time. This stimulates the constant search for. And this is correct because in such bottomless opuses, the depth of which is equal to an artesian well, and maybe even exceeds it, as in oil wells in our North. Such a bottomless opus requires total commitment. This is directly related to conductors and musicians.
Let's return to the history of the symphony. For the first time, this symphony did not receive the special attention of public. However, soon after Tchaikovsky’s death, when the conductor was Edward Napravnik, the symphony was immediately classified by the public as a great opus. Such a metamorphosis occurred with the symphony. It began to be regarded as an unattainable masterpiece.
Let's try to figure it out. The symphony of course was autobiographical. There are times when the great creator reflects in his works those phenomena that are not yet realized by him. And probably the premonition of death, the unawareness of death, some fluids that were born in the human body and psyche (I don’t want to go into mysticism), but still we cannot close our eyes to the fact that Tchaikovsky wrote a symphony before his death. So there were some grounds that still could not was fully revealed, because this symphony shocks me with its tragic elements.
I believe that the symphony is the most characteristic work by Tchaikovsky. This specificity lies in the struggle between two principles: light and dark, good and evil. All of Tchaikovsky’s music about this dialectic, about this his operas, poems, ballets, symphonies, sonatas and romances. Good and Evil going along in the course of life and forever colliding with each other. This is the dialectic of life, this is what we are born with and what we die with……..
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