Leader, Philip Whiteway
Conductor, B. Walton O'Donnell
The genesis of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony is romantic to a degree. It was composed during the year of Tchaikovsky's unhappy marrifge, which within three months resulted in a final separation and in Tchaikovsky's nearly losing his reason.
Through the financial help of his strange friend, Nadejda von Meek (whom he never met), he was enabled to go to Italy where at Venice he completed the F minor Symphony, which is based on an elaborate programme. The central idea of the whole work is Fate which is represented by a recurring theme that is heard on the bassoons and horns at the outset.
The main body of the first movement, in particular, expresses this over-powering force and man's submission and his grief. The sense of despair grows in strength and poignancy until the writer turns from reality to lose himself in dreams. But the theme of Fate from the beginning is heard again, and the music means that life is, after all, but a continual struggle between the bitterness of truth and the fugitive dreams of happiness.