Tchaikovsky: Sextet in D minor, Op.70 Souvenir de Florence (1890-2)
Allegro con spirito – Prestissimo
Adagio cantabile e con moto – Moderato – Tempo I
Allegretto moderato
Allegro vivace
Of all the greatest composers Tchaikovsky must be one of the least comprehensively known and understood: from his enormous output one could list about fifteen works – virtually all of them orchestral – which have since achieved a popularity which this tragically self-doubting man could only dream about. Thereafter comes an inexplicable gulf dividing fame from obscurity. Amongst all this relatively unknown music are the five full scale chamber works; only five, it is true, which suggests that Tchaikovsky felt far less at home in such constrained surroundings. He himself admitted as much, but in this sense he is no different from the majority of later nineteenth century composers. Indeed, his friend Laroche writes of Tchaikovsky’s musical likes and dislikes – not only with regard to composers past and present but also to instrumental combinations: it would appear that he sported a particular contempt for solo piano with orchestra, and for chamber works with strings! And even though the piano trio must be regarded as one of his finest and most deeply personal creations, yet he himself declared on more than one occasion that he found this particular combination of instruments “torture to listen to”! However, the established string quartet repertoire is a particularly exclusive company, and the quartets of Tchaikovsky – as with so many of his contemporaries – are only reluctantly admitted. But unlike most of those contemporaries Tchaikovsky is usually prepared to accept the strictures imposed by the medium, and does not normally strive for orchestral sonorities. Inevitably one can detect the occasional passage, particularly in the F major quartet – not to mention the present sextet! – where his exuberance led him to overstep the boundaries of idiomatic chamber music writing; yet at the same time he is perfectly capable of a lightness and elegance of touch, which at times recalls the assurance and effortless skill of Mozart or Mendelssohn.
The city of Florence remained a magnet for artists and musicians long after its own creative contributions had slipped out of the premier league: the fourteen year old Mozart himself played in the Villa Poggio Imperiale on 2 April 1770, at the invitation of the Grand Duke of Tuscany; and 120 years later Tchaikovsky stayed some weeks in another villa just around the corner – where his last chamber work was conceived. It is well known that the great Russian revered Mozart as his favourite composer, but his time in Florence during the early part of 1890 appears to have been rather less pleasurable: on arrival in January he wrote to his brother Modest, “Italy – Florence – nothing gives me any pleasure. All I want is to run away.” But his feeling for the place gradually changed, he finished his magnificent tragic opera The Queen of Spades, then immediately started work on this sextet with – as Edward Garden aptly puts it – “a joyful heart”. No music of his is filled with such exuberance, energy, and passion for the best things in life, and no piece – by him or anyone else – begins in quite such an outrageous manner as this! Its huge vitality barely lets up for over 35 minutes, and so should provide a suitably rousing conclusion to any happy occasion!
© Alan George
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