Four Centuries of Great Music November 6, 2022 The Symphony Through the Centuries Episode 12

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music we are continuing our series of Symphonies Through the Centuries with episode 12.  On this episode we have Tchaikovsky: Symphony #6 In B Flat, Op. 67, "Pathétique" and Sir Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 in A-Flat, Op. 55.

We open with Tchaikovsky: Symphony #6 In B Flat, Op. 67, “Pathétique”.  Composed in the spring and summer of 1893 and was premiered  with Tchaikovsky conducting in Saint Petersburg on October 28 nine days before his death.  It is in 4 movements:
1. Adagio — Allegro Non Troppo — Andante — Adagio Vivo — Andante Mosso
2. Allegro Con Grazia
3. Allegro Molto Vivace
4. Adagio Lamentoso — Andante

Let’s close this first hour of todays Four Centuries of Great Music with a short tone poem.  Alexander Borodin’s “In the Steppes of Central Asia”.  Written in1880 and dedicated to Franz Liszt, it portrays the interaction between Russians and Asians on the great plains of eastern Russia.

We are opening the second hour of today’s Four Centuries of Great Music with our first foray into the 20th Century with Sir Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 in A-Flat, Op. 55.

Edward Elgar completed his first symphony in 1908.  It was well received with over 100 performances in the first year following publication.

The first movement opens quietly with a theme marked Andante. Nobilmente e Semplice which is repeated by the full orchestra fortissimo. It gently subsides back to woodwind and violas and abruptly switches to D minor, an extraordinary choice of key for the first allegro of a Symphony in A flat.   The movement is in traditional sonata form with two main themes, a development and a recapitulation. It ends quietly, "an effect of magical stillness”.

The second movement marked Allegro Molto begins briskly. Elgar did not call it a scherzo, many reviewers called it “vivacious”.  Elgar asked orchestras to play it "like something you hear down by the river.” As the movement draws to a close it slows down, and its first theme is transformed into the main theme of third movement. This adagio movement is characterized by it’s “benedictory tranquillity” rather than the anguished yearning usually to be found in his quieter, shower passages.

The finale begins with a slow repeat of one of the subsidiary themes of the first movement marked Lento.  After the introduction there is a restless allegro, with a succession of themes including an "impulsive march-rhythm”. The movement builds to a climax and ends with the nobilmente opening theme of the symphony returning "orchestrated with glittering splendour" to bring the work to a "triumphant and confident" conclusion.