Peter Tchaikovsky, The Sixth Symfony Review

Overall Rating

The Sixth Symfony by Peter Tchaikowsky is - among other reasons - important as a human document. The symfony was the last music he composed before he died. Tchaikowsky was never a happy man. According to some he was homosexual (inadmissible in the 19th century) according to others he searched in vain for Platonic love. His music is not really happy or frolicsome either: even 'Capriccio Italiano' has an undertone of tragedy played by cello and contrabas. Only at the end of his compositions there is always an outburst of energy and optimism. Not so in his sixth and last symfony. At the end of the fourth movement - the Adagio Lamentoso - the music gradually becomes pianissimo (as if Tchaikowsky meant to say: this time I give up) until the music is only a faint whisper of grief.
A few weeks later Tchaikowsky commits suicide.