I’m reminded of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” 6th symphony (1893) by the recent Prom, a few days after his violin concerto. For audiences and performers alike, both works may seem like old warhorses—you think “Yeah yeah” and then suddenly you find yourself immersed in all this soul-searching intensity.

Among recordings, Mravinsky is a popular choice (see also this typically engaging article by Tom Service). Here’s his vivid 1949 recording with the Leningrad Philharmonic, as the whole society was recovering from the appalling sufferings of war—in mourning, relieved to have survived, yet anxious, and re-internalizing dissimulation:

And here’s the great Rozhdestvensky with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, at the Proms in 1966 (alas, audio only):

I also want to feature Bernstein—mainly because I love him, but also because I’m reminded by my post on Paul Bowles, as well as John Eliot Gardiner’s recent vignette. Here he is in 1974 with the New York Phil on tour in Sydney, his stage presence mesmerizing as ever—as often, conducting from memory:

Far from the myth of the aloof Maestro-Dictator, the adulation for Bernstein is based both on the dynamic passion of his conducting and on his innovative role in the counter-culture. Norman Lebrecht, in his ever-readable The maestro myth (pp.180–205), explores Bernstein’s consecutive relationships with the New York and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras (for their Mahler, see also here, here, and here). Amidst Lebrecht’s signature exposé of the machinations of Big Business, it’s clear that Bernstein’s charisma inspired even hard-bitten musicians (for whom, see here, and here).

Mahler admired and promoted Tchaikovsky’s music, conducting celebrated performances of his operas. But though the dying finale of Mahler’s own 9th symphony echoes that of the Pathétique, it seems he never conducted it.

For Celibidache’s version, see here.

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Whether or not we care to imagine the 1893 premiere, or indeed the lives of Soviet audiences in 1949 (cf. Haydn), the intensity of the Pathétique constantly deserves to be experienced afresh.

In Taco taco taco burrito I’ve mentioned the “limping waltz” of the Scherzo, introducing a range of aksak additive metres in different cultures. In Lexicon of musical invective Slonimsky cites Eduard Hanslick’s impertinent comment:

The oddity [of the symphony] is the Scherzo, which goes throughout in 5/4 time. This disagreeable metre upsets both listener and player. In Tchaikovsky’s Scherzo, this discomfort is quite unnecessary: the movement can without the least inconvenience be arranged in 6/8 time.

The transition from the exhilaration of the third movement to the anguish of the finale, with the abrupt change of mood often interrupted by joyous applause, is one of those moments that continue to excite tedious controversy.

Applause between movements has long been a rallying cry for competing factions, only stimulated by the HIP movement, with conductors like Hogwood and Norrington encouraging it; but it remains a minefield. It’s worth reading this article by Alex Ross, and Chi-chi Nwanoku has revived the debate, eliciting a range of responses here.

Indeed, in the Good Old Days [sic] applause was common not just between movements but (as in jazz) even while the music is going on, as in the much-cited first performance of Mozart’s Paris symphony:

In the middle of the opening Allegro there was a passage that I knew people would like; the whole audience was carried away by it, and there was tremendous applause. But I knew when I wrote it what sort of an effect it would make, and so I introduced it again at the end, with the result that it was encored. […] I was so happy that I went straight to the Palais Royale after the symphony, ate an ice, said the rosary I had vowed…

Anyway, at the 1893 premiere of Tchaikovsky’s symphony the audience applauded after the third movement, and it’s always been common—not so much a tradition, or a superior piece of authenticity-upmanship, as a natural, spontaneous reaction. It seems cruel and pompous to deprive the audience of such a response, when the admission of is so intimidated by “rules”: when the slightest hint that what is going on here might be a dynamic social activity, or any physical response, must be suppressed. At the same time, conductors may not manage to forestall applause entirely, but they may interrupt it promptly by launching into the finale (as Rozhdestvensky did in the Prom).

In defence of the Proms audiences, a popular scapegoat for the puritans, there’s no other venue where silence is so exquisite.

Continuing to zoom out, how about the ullulations of the ahouach in Morocco, or (now I come to think of it) almost any other form of musicking?! For participants in most musical events around the world, the prissy niceties of WAM concert etiquette are mercifully irrelevant.

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BTW, the opening of the finale is a “composite melody”, a kind of trompe l’oreille whereby the tune as we hear it (descending, conjunct motion) is divided between 1st and 2nd violins both playing unlikely, angular lines:

The two parts are demonstrated separately in Simon Broughton’s film Great composers: Tchaikovsky, with profound Russian thoughts from Yuri Temirkanov.

Anyone have other instances of this in WAM? It’s not quite like the hocketing cymbals of north Chinese ritual percussion, but hey.

This is one of many cases where the original antiphonal seating of the violin sections, facing each other on opposite sides of the platform, must enhance the audience’s experience. Indeed, placing them together only became common from the time of Stokowski and Henry Wood; several conductors, from Klemperer onwards, have retained or restored the traditional seating, both in the HIP and “straight” scenes.