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The final symphony by Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, and the final premiere he attended before his death, SYMPHONY NO. 6 "PATHETIQUE" is a bit enigmatic.  In the original Russian, the title would translate to "The Passionate Symphony," or perhaps "The Emotional Symphony."  When translated to French, it was called "pathetique," which more narrowly suggests that the passion or emotion is solemnity, though this is not necessarily the composer's intention.  Tchaikovsky himself asserted when asked by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov that the symphony was programmatic, but he refused to divulge the program.  And the quiet, fading end of the final movement, so unlike the more rousing finish common to symphonies at the time, plus the brief quotation from the Russian Orthodox requiem at the end of the first movement, piqued interest and speculation about the intent of the music.  That Tchaikovsky died (generally ascribed to cholera) so soon after the premiere, with unique features of the music and unnamed program mentioned above, has led to numerous theories over the years regarding any hidden intent or message in this beautiful work.  Instrumentation in set: 3(3dPicc).2.2.2: 4.2.3.1: Timp.Perc(2). Str (9-8-7-6-5 in set).  (Note: It has become tradition, though it is not mentioned in the score, to emply a bass clarinet doubled by the 2nd clarinetist to replace the solo bassoon for the four notes immediately preceding the Allegro vivo section of the first movement due to the near impossibility for a bassoonist to execute the passage at the indicated dynamic of pppppp.

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