Czech Philharmonic • Seoul

Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest wrote that in the course of 1888, the composer’s “boldest dreams of fame were realised”. He had attained prosperity and universal esteem such as few composers enjoy in their lifetimes. “In his distrustfulness and modesty, he never stops being amazed and delighted that both abroad and in Russia, he receives more recognition than he could have expected. [...] He makes the impression of worldly happiness, and yet he his unhappier than ever before.” Tchaikovsky tried to escape his soul’s inner turmoil by busying himself with conducting engagements that were taking him from city to city and from one country to the next. “The thrill a composer feels when conducting an excellent orchestra playing his music with love and devotion was a new joy for me”, the composer confided. Prague was one of the cities where he received a real ovation: “From the first moment of my arrival, there were countless celebrations, visits, rehearsals, sightseeing etc. They were welcoming me as if I were a representative not of Russian music, but of all of Russia.” Tchaikovsky spent that summer working on his Fifth Symphony. Self-doubt never left him, however. “I want to work diligently to prove to myself and others that I have not yet completely written myself out. Doubts often come to me, and I wonder: is it not time for me to quit? Have I not yet exhausted my imagination?”, he wrote to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck.

There is no doubt that Tchaikovsky’s last three symphonies are works with programmatic subtexts, although there is no specific “plot” to speak of. The Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64, is built on the principle employed by Hector Berlioz in his pioneering Symphonie fantastique. Berlioz lets a single musical idea (idée fixe) run through the entire composition in various transformations, symbolising the composer’s beloved, his future wife Harriet Smithson. At the same time that Tchaikovsky was writing his Fifth Symphony, César Franck employed this same principle in his only symphonic work, the Symphony in D minor, likewise without assigning any concrete meaning to the unifying theme. The clarinet presents the central idea of Tchaikovsky’s penultimate symphony, a gloomy “fate” motif, in the introduction to the first movement. The composer merely hinted at the symphony’s programmatic content. About the first movement, he wrote: “Introduction – complete submission to fate. Allegro – dissatisfaction, doubts, complaints, reproaches”. In the second movement, fate yields to brighter tones, but it is not defeated, and its ominous presence makes itself felt even in the third movement, a light-hearted waltz. The fourth movement again opens with the “fate” motif, this time more distinctively structured, evoking a ceremonial atmosphere. This leads to conciliation expressed by the music of a majestic march, and in its ponderous strides, the burden of fate becomes an inherent part of existence. The struggle is not over, however; it leads to a new surge of energy as the symphony concludes at a fast tempo.

Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 5 on 17 November 1888 in Saint Petersburg. It was a familiar scene for the composer: the audience responded with thunderous applause, while the critics remained divided, some calling the work a routine composition calculated for effect, while others hailed it as one of the most accomplished works of its era.