- Tchaikovsky wrote this symphony in only about 24 days, during February-March 1893.
- Tchaikovsky dedicated this symphony to his nephew, Vladimir (usually called “Bob”) Davïdov.
- Tchaikovsky and his nephew were very close. When Davïdov was seven years old, Tchaikovsky had dedicated his book of children’s piano pieces, Album pour enfants op.39, to him.
- Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of the Sixth Symphony, which took place in St. Petersburg on October 28, 1893. Tchaikovsky died nine days later, a circumstance which has led to some rather morbid legends about the Sixth Symphony somehow predicting Tchaikovsky’s death.
- Musicologists are not sure what Tchaikovsky died of, though speculation is rife. His brother said that he contracted cholera from drinking unboiled water. In 1980, musicologist Aleksandra Orlova suggested he died by suicide before a homosexual encounter could be made public. Whatever happened, it is unlikely that the symphony had anything to do with it, though the coincidence is certainly poignant.1
Sources
- Roland John Wiley, “Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il′yich,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed May 20, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051766.
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