BBC Scottish Orchestra
(Leader, J. Mouland Begbie )
Conductor, Ian Whyte
From his childhood days, when he first heard parts of Don Giovanni performed in the family circle, Tchaikovsky had an intense admiration for Mozart and once declared that it was because of him that he had devoted his life to music. The ' Jupiter ' Symphony he described (justly enough) as ' one of the wonders of symphonic music.' This love of Mozart is reflected in Tchaikovsky's work by his fondness for lyrical, rather Italianate melody; and both composers have the power to suggest the ' tears at the heart of things,' though Mozart does so with a classical restraint that is even more moving than the Russian composer's romantic, and sometimes flamboyant manner. But this manner has its own appeal, which is very much in evidence in the Fourth Symphony. Written at a particularly critical time in Tchaikovsky's life, the Symphony possesses an astonishingly vivid and compelling quality. He himself said that there was not a single bar in the work which he had not truly felt, and which was not an echo of his most intimate spiritual life.
Harold Rutland