About this Piece

Little could he have known it, but December 1876 was to be a turning point in Tchaikovsky’s life. In that month, Nikolai Rubinstein, director of the Moscow Conservatory, where Tchaikovsky was a professor, went on another of his many money-seeking missions, this time to the extremely wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck. Seeking to impress her with the quality of the Conservatory and its need for her largesse, Rubinstein had in hand the piano score of an orchestral work by Tchaikovsky, The Tempest, which he proceeded to play. The financial die was cast, but not in the direction Rubinstein had intended. Not the Conservatory, but Tchaikovsky’s music became von Meck’s great enthusiasm. Writing to the composer, she said, “For several days after hearing your Tempest, I was in a delirium from which I could not emerge.”

That was the beginning of a rare relationship. For 13 years, Nadezhda von Meck contributed generously to Tchaikovsky’s meager coffers, but, although his gratitude was enormous and their correspondence copious, the two never met.

In 1878, he wrote to her about his Symphony No. 4 with an elaborate explanation of his composing process and then a discussion of “our” symphony, as he referred to the work, which he dedicated “to my best friend.”

“In ‘our’ symphony there is a program, that is, it is possible for me to outline in words what it attempts to express, and to you, to you alone, I am able to communicate the meaning of the whole, as well as separate sections. The introduction contains the germ of the entire symphony—Fate, the fatal force that prevents our striving for happiness from succeeding.”

In the second movement, Tchaikovsky withdraws to one of his most touching introspections. A solo oboe sings mournfully—“A melancholy feeling suffuses you. You are sad because so much is already past.” The subsequent return of this theme in bassoon with figurations in the strings is a breathless, magical moment.

For one of the most ingratiating episodes in the Tchaikovsky canon, one need look no further than the Scherzo, which “expresses no definite sensation.” The pizzicato material is one of the splendors of the orchestral literature, and later, the combining of the contrasting middle section with the pizzicato theme adds huge charm to the exhilarating dazzle.

In the Finale, in which he includes a return of the Fate motif, Tchaikovsky pulls out all the emotional stops, with all the overstatement and excesses that implies. “If you cannot discover reasons for happiness in yourself, look to others. Get out among the people. Look what a good time they have surrendering themselves to joy.” In conveying the spirit of “the people,” Tchaikovsky introduces a Russian folk melody, and it adds another dimension to the score’s already broad boundaries. It is worth noting that the words of the folk tune are anything but joyous and reflect the dour Tchaikovsky temperament rather than the people “surrendering themselves to joy.” —Orrin Howard