PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)

 

 “The Unknown Tchaikovsky”

 

Symphony of Life (No.7?) (reconstructed Semyon Bogatyryev)

1. Allegro

2. Andante ma non troppo

3. Scherzo 

4. Finale: Maestoso 

   

5. Elegy for Strings in Memory of Ivan Samarin

6. Overture in C minor

7. Overture in F major

 

Russian State Cinematographic Orchestra / Sergei SKŘIPKA

 

1987 Moscow

 

“Tchaikovsky had completed his Fifth Symphony in 1888 and spent much of the following year on concert tours.  He finished his ballet The Sleeping Beauty but otherwise composed little, whilst 1890 was largely taken up with his opera The Queen of Spades.  He fretted that he had not composed an orchestral piece for a while and began to sketch out ideas on a new symphony in the spring of 1891 whilst in Paris en route for the USA where he was to conduct.  In his programme for a new symphony he wrote ‘The ultimate essence is Life.  The first part is all impulse, passion, confidence, activity… Second part is love: third disappointment; fourth ends dying away’. (James Murray)                                                                                                            

 

Musical Concepts MC116