Piotr Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64

“It has turned out to be too colourful, too massive, too insincere, too long, altogether unappealing. Could it be that I have already written myself out?” In 1888, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, then 48 years old, looked upon his newly completed Fifth Symphony with profound self-doubt – despite the fact that he was already regarded as the foremost Russian composer of his generation. He had been celebrated as a conductor in Europe and the United States; publishers in Paris, Berlin and Leipzig printed his works, and his opera Eugene Onegin had become a staple of international stages. Yet the symphony was still considered the supreme genre in music – the one in which a composer’s genius was meant to shine most clearly. Expectations were accordingly high. For Tchaikovsky, the great challenge lay in reconciling established forms with his own ideas of sound and expression. And so he approached the symphony step by step, through orchestral works in other genres: symphonic poems, orchestral suites, serenades, overtures and instrumental concertos.

Tchaikovsky’s lack of confidence when writing symphonies may also have stemmed from the fact that he came to music on a rather indirect route. After attending the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St Petersburg and working at the Russian Ministry of Justice, he turned to music professionally in his early twenties – a relatively late start for a composer. And yet, if one includes his Manfred Symphony (possibly better classified as a work of programme music), he ultimately completed seven symphonies over the course of his life. The passionate emotional expressivity of his later symphonies at times alienated critics – Theodor W. Adorno, for instance, went so far as to describe the Fifth as “kitsch”. But for Tchaikovsky, it was simply a necessity to convey his innermost feelings, even in this most prestigious genre. In the Fifth Symphony, these emotions emerge above all in a struggle with fate, which acts as a sounding motif woven through all four movements.

This striking musical idea is heard right at the beginning of the symphony: three repeated notes in the clarinets. The pendulum-like melody, first rising then falling, is wrapped in a mysterious string texture. This musical gesture becomes a central element of all the following movements. It passes through different instruments, is transformed, yet the sound always seems familiar. The orchestra remains in constant motion, carefully balancing dynamics, continually regrouping in smaller ensembles to create a wide range of atmospheres: it begins with a sombre tone, resembling a funeral march, then rises dramatically with fanfares and brassy outbursts. The second movement, with its lyrically unfolding and increasingly passionate theme, feels hopeful. The elegant, rhapsodic waltz of the third movement is suddenly broken in its middle section by jittery string figures. Finally, this leads into a swift finale of rich sonority – lively and majestic all at once.

Tchaikovsky, incidentally, eventually grew reconciled with his work. After being celebrated as the conductor of the Fifth Symphony on a European tour in 1889, he wrote to his brother Modest: “The nicest thing is that the symphony has ceased to seem ugly to me; I have grown fond of it again.”