Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique): Symphony No. 6 (Pathetique) (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Cambridge University Press, 10/7/1999
EAN 9780521641111, ISBN10: 052164111X
Hardcover, 168 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 1.3 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Tchaikovsky's final symphony has fascinated generations of music lovers, amateur and specialist alike, since its first performance just over a century ago. Timothy L. Jackson explores sensitively and without prejudice the question of the Pathétique's program and its relation to Tchaikovsky's homosexuality and death. The book covers the work's conception, genesis, and reception, and presents an in-depth analysis of its remarkable formal structure. The reception chapter investigates the Pathétique's impact on Tchaikovsky's younger contemporaries, most notably Mahler and Rachmaninov, and on more recent Russian composers like Shostakovich and Schnittke. Also explored is the dark side of the symphony's political interpretation in the twentieth century, especially its transformation into a cultural icon of the Third Reich.
Introduction
1. 'Pathetic' metaphors for sexuality and race, gambling and destiny
2. Background and early reception
3. Form and large-scale harmony
4. The 'not-so-secret' program - a hypothesis
5. Compositional genesis
the Six Romances Op. 73 and the Pathétique
6. Deconstructing homosexual Grand Passion Pathétique
7. Platonic postlude.