In this essay, I talk about Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, presenting my narrative interpretation of the work as it progresses.
Follow along with this iconic recording featuring Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.
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Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony: a legendary testament to the tremendous power an orchestra and composer can wield over everyone caught in their path.
In the first movement, Tchaikovsky delivers indomitable fate in its boldest and most powerful form. The motive, presented in the brass, has developed its mythical association with fate in part due to Tchaikovsky's use of Beethoven's fate motive from the latter's fifth: an incessant stream of four well-articulated notes. As that opening brass fate motive gives way the lilting, waltz-like primary theme and merry-go-round-like secondary theme of the first movement, Tchaikovsky takes the listener on a near-torturous journey through the battleground between himself and that very same fate. (0:35)
The development of the first movement screams and swells with just about the most painful and desperate agony that one can imagine music could ever communicate. These swells of a tortured and isolated spirit are only egged on as three quotations of the fate motive perforate the development, each sequenced up in pitch to a more feverish and unrelenting shriek. (11:27)
But as this agony elides into the recap, the secondary theme is heard again, in the same numb, merry-go-round fashion, suggesting that maybe the key to winning the battle against fate is to just close one's eyes. Unfortunately, the listener's eyes are slowly forced open by the coda. All hope is lost as the opening F minor from the fate motive triumphantly and devilishly stomps its way through a terrible victory. (17:46)
In the second movement, we hear the plaintive lament of the solo oboe in the aftermath of the first movement’s loss. As the melody is passed to the cello section, and as the sections come together in taking stock of this new forsaken chapter, all of humanity unites in lamenting the desolation it is universally doomed to. It seems that the option of numbing oneself to pain, the ability to just close one's eyes, is no longer available. Tchaikovsky depicts what it feels like to be hurt so deeply that the pain bubbles from within. No remedy exists for this pain. That is, except for time. (19:37)
And after that time has passed, the third movement, freshened by amnesia, is able to move onward with a guileless excitement, playfully careening this way and that way and stumbling into itself with the dumb ignorance of an F major scherzo. As the different sections of the orchestra paint their different characters, we begin to understand that this movement, to Tchaikovsky, is not open for business with fate. Here, hearts flutter and birds proclaim excitedly. (Don't believe me? Here's an infamously difficult piccolo solo from the movement, and here's a cockatiel literally singing it. Compare to this piccolo player whose acoustic is extremely birdlike.) (30:14)
All this more properly sets the stage for the fourth movement, beginning with an exclamation of unbridled euphoria like none other. With ecstatic screams and laughs overflowing, this is clearly the triumph over fate that we've all been waiting for. (35:28)
As the second theme begins, however, with a somewhat ominous five-note descending scalar pattern repeated over and over again, we get the sense that this is an unsolicited voice over Tchaikovsky’s shoulder rudely trying to bring him back to reality. The fate motive is, as of yet, nowhere to be found, but the omen nonetheless foreshadows the worst. We rotate through these two materials—ecstasy and crude realism—once again, before the worst possible thing happens. (37:04)
In full fortissimo force, the brass declaim the terrible fate theme from the opening of the first movement—not a subtle reference, not something embedded in the material of the fourth movement, but a stomach-churning, isolated quote of the very music and the very force of evil that compelled the symphony into its tortured existence. (40:51 - the build to the first movement quote, which crashes through in brass at 41:13)
After this, everything has been lost. Everything accomplished in the second movement and third movement in the way of catharsis and of healing these wounds has been for nothing. Any ounce of progress made toward the full achievement of the fourth movement’s opening ecstasy is now empty and void.
But as the fate motive, thus far copied from the first movement, decrescendos amid foreboding tension, there is a tiny—almost imperceptible—alteration of the music. There is a small harmonic loophole. It's hard to catch if you're not very familiar with the piece and don't have a score in front of you, but this small change is utterly critical. The new harmony—a German augmented sixth chord, for those who are keeping score—leaves the quote of the fate motive ambiguous. And in this state of limbo, Tchaikovsky takes control—takes advantage of fate’s slip-up—and carefully winds the music down to silence within the new state of ambiguity. (41:47, with the harmonic loophole at 42:07)
Then timpani: a pianissimo rolled C, sustaining the dominant. The chance to rebuild is at hand (42:51; Bernstein's portrayal of this is perfection and a must-see.) It's tedious work at first, and slow to be sure. But over this sustained dominant pedal in the timpani, as each section regains consciousness with snippets of their elated music from the movement’s beginning, the texture thickens, and the dynamic rises along with our hopes.
Finally, the recap is at hand, belligerently and defiantly ecstatic in its now rightly-owned F major. But just as the laughs and screams of ecstasy reach a new height not heard in the in the exposition, one final gasp of fate blares in the brass. Now the second theme of this fourth movement—that ominous voice in Tchaikovsky's ear—returns in an angry stretto, each voice entering before the last has even finished, forming an awesome, multiplying, and blood-curdling wave of villain. I believe it is impossible to listen to this last assault of everything that is evil without feeling its myriad scalding knives shred your soul to pieces. (43:56)
But, despite its strength, fate has a much bigger battle to fight this time. Seemingly through sheer power and strength of will, Tchaikovsky rejects this evil. It is as though we are privy to the inner thoughts and inner battle that Tchaikovsky is experiencing. This time, Tchaikovsky has assembled the right troops, the right resolve, and the right ends. In what must be one of the most glorious moments in all of music history, fate is no more. (44:09) In its place, F major can take its rightful victory lap—and one's heart pours over with relieved, emotional, tearful laughter as Tchaikovsky shakes his fists in the air at the defunct ghost of what was once his demon.
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Follow along with this iconic recording featuring Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.
Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic