Featured Book: Tchaikovsky by David Brown (cont'd)

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Mr. Brown writes about the Symphony no. 6: "Earlier in this book I observed that, for me, Tchaikovsky composed three supreme masterpieces. Two I have identified: the opera Eugene Onegin and the ballet The Sleeping Beauty. The third is this B minor symphony, his Sixth, the Pathétique. The originality and power of this piece are prodigious; it is also one of Tchaikovsky's most consistent and perfectly composed" (p. 417). "Certainly the speed and the assurance with which the Sixth Symphony, as near a perfect masterpiece as music can offer, came into the world is itself prodigious, and the result is not only Tchaikovsky's ultimate masterpiece, but one of the half-dozen greatest symphonies composed since the death of Beethoven" (p. 418). "Tchaikovsky was no doubt conditioned by his own programme in composing the Pathétique, but the symphony that resulted can still have a tremendous impact on the innocent listener simply because, whatever the extramusical prompt of the moment, Tchaikovsky was still devising it above all as a devastating but coherent listening experience" (p. 423).