Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 3

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Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 3 Program Notes

While  not  one  of  Tchaikovsky’s  three  final,  fatalistic  and  most  performed  symphonies,  the  Third  is  rightly  popular,  not  least  for  its  use  by  George  Balanchine  in  his  1967  evening-length  ballet  Jewels.    Interestingly,  Tchaikovsky  had  ballet  on  the  mind  when  composing  the  Third  Symphony,  as  he’d  accepted  a  commission  to  write  Swan  Lake  for  the  Bolshoi  Ballet.  (As  he  wrote  to  Rimsky-Korsakoff,  DzI  long  cherished  a  desire  to  try  my  hand  at  this  type  of  music.dz)  In  the  Symphony,  the  first  movement’s  somber  and  mournful  opening  gives  way  to  increasingly  cheerful  music,  becoming  a  grand  (and  even  boisterous)  march.    Its  contrasting  B-minor  melody,  in  the  oboe,  is  not  far  removed  from  the  Swan  Lake theme  (also  in  B-minor  and  played  by  the  oboe).  The  second  movement  is  a  sunny  and  easy- going  ländler  with  a  humorously  off-beat  melody.  (Tedesca  being  an  Italian  word  for  German,  the  ländler  is  a  German/Austrian  folk  dance).  The  movement’s  title,  Tedesca,  is  an  Italian  word  for  German. The  movement’s  central  Trio  section  is  rhythmically  precise  and  robust.  The  third  movement,  also  in  triple  time,  has  mournful  solos  for  bassoon  and  horn,  and  passages  of  achingly  beautiful  melody.  It’s  followed  by  a  glittery  scherzo,  which  many  writers  compare  to  Mendelssohn’s  musical  depictions  of  fairies,  in  A  Midsummer  Night’s  Dream.  The  shortest  of  Tchaikovsky’s  finales,  the  fifth  movement,  seizes  the  listener,  not  letting  go  until  it  has  impressed  with  a  forceful  polonaise,  some  canonic  and  fugal  excursions,  a  reference  to  the  second  movement,  and  a  grand,  anthem-type  melody.    These  episodes  completed,  it  rollicks  onwards  to  an  optimistic  end.    Not  subtle  at  all,  it’s  tremendous  fun.  The  Symphony’s  premiere  in  Moscow,  a  few  months  after  its  completion,  was  a  critical  and  popular  success.    Fourteen  years  later  in  London,  the  symphony  was  mistakenly  billed  The  Polish  when  it  was  assumed  that  a  Polonaise  finale  symbolized  Polish  nationalism.  (After  all,  Frederic  Chopin’s  use  of  the  Polonaise  had been  nationalistic).    This  was  not  the  case  for  Tchaikovsky,  loyal  citizen  of  Tsarist  Russia,  but  the  name  stuck.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Born: May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia
Died: November 6, 1893, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Categories: Program Notes