David Bernard & Park Avenue Chamber Symphony - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, TH 30 "Pathétique" (2018)

Tchaikovsky toyed with the public on the meaning of his final symphony, proclaiming an underlying program existed, but refusing to disclose it. His death shortly after its premiere brought a perfect storm of mystery and intrigue, leaving an imaginative public to proclaim this work was his suicide note.

In this new Recursive Classics release, David Bernard brings a fresh look at Tchaikovsky s Pathétique . The circumstantial drama that surrounds the Pathétique can be an incentive for performers to see each and every phrase as an opportunity to express mournful longing a practice that isn t especially helpful to the work, says Bernard. And when considering the work as a whole, the suicide note theory that is used as the basis for this thinking is somewhat questionable. The Pathétique s immense scale and relentless passion demands a life force in the composer that simply could not exist inside a person resigned to take his own life.

Bernard sees the Pathétique as Tchaikovsky recalling his earlier works in a new-found artistic voice. You hear Tchaikovsky reimagining his life s work through a more mature and effective lens, says Bernard. The first movement s narrative shape is unmistakably linked to his Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture , requiring a balance between emotional depth and penetrating line in the well-known lyrical second theme, suddenly launching relentlessly driven episodes that bring us to a gut-wrenching largamente and a final retelling of the lyrical theme with an epilogue through which the energy of the movement is released. The second movement reimagines Tchaikovsky s ballet waltzes, requiring a flow that enables a light half note lifted pulse at the ends of each 5/4 measure, gliding the listener from beginning to end. The Third Movement s reconstitution of Tchaikovsky s symphonic finales requires an unceasing energy that drives relentlessly to an ending that is as inevitable as it is exciting. While the first three movements offer a look back, the Finale looks inward to the present, conveying Tchaikovsky s growing awareness of his fate portraying Tchaikovsky s emotional transformation through progressively more expansive pacing. It is here where the entire program of the Pathétique comes into focus gradually, note-by-note, until the work winds down to silence, with us and Tchaikovsky achieving closure in the silence that follows.

Tracklist:
01. Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, TH 30 "Pathétique": I. Adagio-Allegro non troppo
02. Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, TH 30 "Pathétique": II. Allegro con gracia
03. Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, TH 30 "Pathétique": III. Allegro molto vivace
04. Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, TH 30 "Pathétique": IV. Finale: Adagio lamentoso