Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 6 “Pathetique” was compared to Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique by Hugo Riemann, a German music theorist. His thematic analysis of the symphony describes it as having “striking resemblance”to the work of the German composer. This conjecture could be derived from both compositions sharing the word “Pathetique” in their respective titles. However, we know, from his brother, that this was not the case. And Riemann was not just some music theorist; through his important publications, he coined the terms such as “tonic”, “subdominant”, “dominant” and “parallel”.

In the book Life and Letters of Tchaikovsky his brother Modeste recalls one early morning before Tchaikovksy had to send his 6th symphony to his publisher. Tchaikovsky was not able to decide upon a name for his symphony as he had no intention to “expound any meaning” on the symphony, and he did not want to give it just a number. Modeste, out of the blue, suggested the word “Pathetic”, to which Tchaikovsky saw very fitting for his new symphony (the exact word suggested was Патетическая; Pathetique or other variants are translations in other languages).

Collection of letters from composers often serve as invaluable first-hand resources, giving us insight into the mindset behind the creation of many important works. Luckily for us, Tchaikovsky shared his method of composition with Nadezhda von Meck in a letter dated to March 5th, 1878 letter, shortly before he began writing his violin concerto (letter 778), and again, in letters from June 24th and 25th, 1878, a few months after the violin concerto was finished (letter 862 and 863).

From these three letters, we can conclude that when he composed:

• The idea and the instrumentation came together: in his 2nd symphony, the pizzicato in the 3rd movement was exactly how he thought of it (778).

• The folk-melody, harmonies, or other elements most of the time came by themselves; he did not have any ulterior nationalistic motives to his works. This could be attributed to his childhood having been spent in the country and “having in the earliest years, been impregnated with the characteristic beauty of Russian folk-music… In a word, I am Russian in the fullest sense of the word” (778).

• Works that stemmed from his own initiative, not commissioned, or requested by friends, such as the concerto, flowed naturally from the brain to the pen, without need contexts or program. On the contrary, commissioned works are necessary for him to “get in the mood” (862).

• Harmonies are dependent on melodic lines and rhythm (862).

• He did not confine himself to following traditional forms other than separating them into several movements.

• His works were examined, rewritten, shortened, lengthened many times before their final form (863).

Another instance where he talked about his method of composition can be found in a letter to Frau von Meck from February 17th, 1878, though he was responding to her question about his motivation behind his 4th symphony that he dedicated to her, not his method of composition per se (letter 763).

In it, he was asked whether he had a special program in view, and his reply was that he usually had no motives other than his inner musical voice for symphonic and instrumental music. Such music was to him, his means of expressing his inner thoughts where words do not suffice; when main ideas manifest, everything flows naturally, surroundings and time become forgotten. The entire process was comparable to verses from poets, in that they are in the final form, and any attempt at translating it to words could be no more than futile metaphors (763).

In our first journey, we begin with a slightly modified motif and reharmonized orchestral accompaniment of the Ukrainian folk song Moonlit Night. Tchaikovsky, when composing, often plays around with the idea of thematic development and reharmonization which adhere to the strict rules of western music theory.

As mentioned in the analysis section, Tchaikovsky, when composing, often play around with the idea of thematic development and strict, western reharmonization. However, traditional western music was not his sole source inspiration, much of it came from contemporary influences, both local and international.

Following his lead, this arrangement will serve as a prologue to other journeys that will follow, introducing both the style of Tchaikovsky’s music, and the 21st century’s approach to harmony, which will be a recurring trick that is used in later movements as well.

We then move to a developed version of the main melody, a common approach employed by Tchaikovsky. He often created variations of traditional melodies and their accompanying parts to counteract repetitions found in folk music. The approach of other prominent Russian composers of that time was much more conservative. The melody is left intact, while the background changes. Despite the background changing every now and then, the top melody does become repetitive and the development of the piece stagnate.

Inspired by his musical aesthetics -- classical voicings, harmonies, and other western music elements like, tension and resolution, extensions, passing tones, 4-part harmony rules are brought into the arrangement.

This eventual amalgamation of different folk and classical styles, as mentioned in the analysis section, is also prevalent in Tchaikovsky's music. In the two snippets below, we have the famous trepak dance from the Nutcracker Suite, which features a dance rhythm from the traditional Russian dance of the same name, and a waltz from his 5th symphony, which uses the melody he discovered by accident as he was touring Italy (more in the Italy section in the analysis page).

Eventually, the ending takes us to the harmonic landscape more familiar to our 21st century ears. Instead of adhering strictly to the rules and conventions of western harmony, the music, the first snippet below, wanders off into another realm for a brief moment.

Then, in the last part of the arrangement, the style shifts again. This time, we have a running viola line accompanying a soft and mellow piano solo. These are borrowed directly from some of Tchaikovsky’s compositions.

Finally, in the third snippet, with a simplified harmony and a simple string arrangement, the first movement concludes with a more 21st-century sounding string orchestra whose theme reminds us a bit of one of the themes from the Nutcracker.

In the second part of our journey, we will take a musical stroll through the Eastern European landscape with, again, a sprinkle of the 21st Century personality. This time, the contemporary elements manifests not only in the music’s harmony, but also in its texture. Modern sound design plays an important role in the following arrangement, pulling the listeners into a more surreal and harsh landscape of the made up 17th-century.

Similar to the previous arrangement, here, the melody from the famous folk tune Korobeiniki is also constantly developed and as the music progresses.

The violin-and-viola-only style of this arrangement means more room to play with the color of the instruments as any distinct sound has more chance of being noticed and not drowned out by the voice of other different-sounding instruments or their combined texture. This textural play, although not common in Tchaikvosky’s music, was very common in folk music from many cultures. Sometimes, when technical limitations prevailed, the unique colors are found instead, in the sound of the instrument itself.

In our fictional scenario, Tchaikovsky not only has access to acoustic instruments, but He also has access to the amazing production tools that are made available by our current Digital Audio Workstations. These tools allow us access to a very broad range of sounds not able to produce in the past, and are unique only to the present. And it is these tools that will help add in a flavor of 21st Century to our arrangement.

In this movement, the role of modern sound production will still be subtle, it is only used to add the feeling of space through delays, eq, and reverb. More complex sound design methods will be introduced later.

As the arrangement goes on, both the harmony and the melody develop hand-in-hand. As the violin introduces a new phrase, a new set of pads come in and introduce a more classical harmony to help create tensions before resolving again to the same key.

Eventually, as the melody and the harmony morph into new textures taking the listeners to unexpected places, the arrangement concludes with a melody from the first movement of the violin concerto, followed by a virtuoso cadenza. This cadenza is accompanied by long drones from the violins, though not with the standard western harmony, emphasizing that it is not exactly Tchaikovsky, nor is it all 21st century; a curious amalgam of the traditional and the modern.

After the calm ending of the previous movement, we are greeted with a resonant broken chord from the open strings open-string of a violin tuned to an alternate tuning. In this tuning, the pitch of the E string remains standard while all the other strings are altered.

As the sonorous sound of the E string rings, and the lower strings hum, the music pulls and wriggles itself into a position that lingers between two worlds: past (alternate tuning) and present (E string and the accompanying viola). The non standardised tuning, which varies drastically from the more standardized modern tuning we are used to, though not exactly this, was very much a part of the aesthetic Tchaikovsky, especially people from remote regions in the past had to adhere to.

Then, the music introduces the main theme of the second movement from Tchaikovsky's concerto, but with a different texture altogether.

Similar things can be observed in some of Tchaikovsky’s music. In the first example below, the melody of the original folk music remains intact with no transformations while the accompaniment part changes dramatically. Detailed analysis of this can be found here.

Compare that to this second example, an excerpt from Glinka’s Karaminskaya. Notice how the repetition of the melody results in a rather non developmental musical progression. . True, the texture does change, but in very subtle ways, more analogous to just moving from one orchestral texture to another, like moving from a darker shade of blue to a lighter one. This is clearly quite dramatically different to Tchaikovsky’s approach where far more drastic changes can be heard as different sections of the arrangement quickly change from one color to the other one on the end of the spectrum. Notice how with Tchaikovsky’s music, within a few seconds, the music builds up, develops harmonically, and then resolves, telling multiple events in a short amount of time. With Glinka’s example, I’d be violating copyright laws if I were to post a full version, but this short snippet essentially represents the full piece: the music grows and grows and never goes anywhere.

In a later section of the symphony, the entire texture changes, the melody now repeats, each time transposed to fit the new chord it’s in. The harmony also works hand-in-hand with the orchestration to help push the music forward by building up tension and resolution. This is also reflected in the arrangement.

The rest of this arrangement focuses on the aspect of sound design, while still playing around with the idea of motivic and textural transformation. A part of the main theme, background, and even the performance style take turn weaving in and out of different styles.

This section is the direct result of my personal infatuation with Irish music. There is, as far as I know, no information regarding Tchaikovsky’s interaction with the Irish culture but . Like myself, he was inspired by the many different musical traditions he heard,so it seems perfectly reasonable in the context of this fictional re-interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s music to venture into those other musical terrains. After all, wouldn’t have Tchaikovsky done the same thing ?

The form of this movement is based on the traditional structure of celtic music, where the main melody often repeats many times, introducing with each new cycle different improvisatory elements like ornaments, counter phrases, or even a slightly modified version of the melody, like some phrases in different octaves, or some parts completely improvised.

At the beginning of the movement, we are greeted with a drone and a melody played on a tin whistle, a melody that was newly composed just for this movement. Late in the piece, the melody will act as a counter melody to another one. This is a trick often deployed by Tchaikovsky himself.

The exposition of the concerto's melody comes with a constant foot tapping sound, very common in Irish music. When there are accompaniments available, Irish traditional musicians often resort to tapping their own foot in a constant beat. This tapping is found also in American and Québécois fiddle (the latter also have an even more sophisticated version of tapping while playing).

Other than tapping, folk music puts a lot of emphasis on the Perfect 5th sound of the open strings. This entire arrangement is built on top of the chord that all the open strings on a violin naturally form together: G6/9omit3. This means that any open string can be played any time without sounding dissonant or out of place.

The B part of this movement is a short interlude with a slightly altered melody, accompanied by a long violin pad treated through artificial reverb. In the first movement,there were also many layers of dry drones and the melody did not deviate from the original source materials. Then, as the journey continued, we saw that the narrative slowly shifted from stop to stop, with each stop boasting more and more emphasis on the 21st-century elements until eventually, it became the dominating voice in the entire musical structure while still retaining some of the properties we saw at the beginning as well.

This is also the type of journey Tchaikovsky went through throughout his life. During his early years as a composer, though not entirely, he was heavily influenced by the voices and presence of his colleagues like the Mighty Five and Anton Rubinstein. However, as years passed, his own voice eventually triumphed, and he matured into the composer we know today: a composer, whose voice neither nationalistic nor traditional, a composer, whose music boasts its own unique and captivating narrative.

I will not be giving examples in this regard, as one can easily find out by listening to any of his music from his early days and compare them to ones composed later in his life, for example, the first and last symphonies, or early operas like Oprichnik and later ones like Nutcracker. Picking out only a few examples won’t do his musical development’s justice.

At the end of the movement, the main melody on the tin whistle we heard at the beginning returns as a counter melody to the concerto's main motif. This is common in all of classical music, but it is different in Tchaikovsky's music in that all the parts in a polyphony are used some time earlier in the piece before they come together for a melodically climactic duet.

Our journey concludes with an orchestral arrangement. This section requires the least explanation as it is the most free in terms of form and structure. The epilogue is meant to be like the end credit of a movie, just a nice music accompanying the afterthoughts of the audience. The main motif is, like the Irish stop, borrowed from the first movement of the concerto. The idea transforms like previous sections, but the interaction between it and the accompaniment part is more free and is less restricted. This means that the music here quotes freely any elements of previous sections. This movement concludes with a 1-1 copy of the main theme, followed by a melody that sounds like a mix between classical and modern and ends with an echo of the theme on a tin whistle, bringing our series of dream-like journeys to an end.

This movement concludes with a 1-1 copy of the main theme, followed by a melody that sounds half-classical half-disney and ends with an echo of the theme on a tin whistle, bringing our series of dream-like journeys to an end.

As promised, here's the entire arrangement.