Symphony No. 6 Pathétique

The Sixth Symphony's final movement is titled "Pathétique" by Tchaikovsky himself, a Greek word meaning "passionate" or "emotional" rather than merely "sad" — but the music has long since absorbed the modern English meaning, and the last Adagio lamentoso earns it. Unlike nearly every other symphony in the canon, the Sixth ends slowly, without triumph or resolution, the strings descending into silence over eight minutes of diminishing intensity. Tchaikovsky composed it in 1893, just nine days before his death — whether by cholera or suicide remains disputed — and the symphony's trajectory from stormy first movement through waltzing second to march-like third before the devastating finale has an air of deliberate summation. The slow second movement is in five-four time — an unusual asymmetrical meter that Tchaikovsky uses naturally, without strain — giving the waltz an elegant limp that distinguishes it from any ordinary dance. The third movement's march is so energetic and complete that audiences at the premiere applauded between movements, not realizing the symphony had not yet ended. Then the finale arrives: a melody of profound sadness in the strings, passed downward in register, growing softer and lower until the final pages are almost inaudible. This is music that has no consolation to offer, which is its specific honesty.