Concert Review: ‘Tchaikovsky Festival, Part 2'

Beauty, Sadness, Mozart, And Baseball

The Buffalo Philharmonic concluded its annual Tchaikovsky Festival with a performance of the “Pathétique”Symphony, cellist Martin Zdunik as soloist in “Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra,” and the “Suite From Sleeping Beauty.”

The Concert Repeats tonight, Saturday February 22, 7:30PM at Kleinhans Music Hall.

A draft of the Pathétique. Miami University Digital collections.

Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique”

The Pathétique was the great Russian composer’s final symphony, and he conducted the St. Petersburg premiere nine days before his death in 1893.

Tchaikovsky’s was a sensitive, anxious soul. In a letter he said, “[t]he programme of this symphony is completely saturated with myself and quite often during my journey I cried profusely.”

Indeed, some theories suggest the Pathétique was actually a cryptic suicide note. Proponents of this specious theory cite the music’s sadness, the implausibility of “cholera” as a cause of Tchaikovsky’s death, and rumors that …