Ravenna Festival
Philharmonia Orchestra
direttore Yuri Temirkanov
Pëtr Il’icˇ Cˇajkovskij
Sinfonia n. 5 in mi minore, op 64
Sinfonia n. 6 in si minore, op. 74 “Patetica”
Yuri Temirkanov, one of the great interpreters of the Russian tradition, born in Caucasus and educated in Petersburg, proposes a programme entirely dedicated to Tchaikovsky. If the composer himself was not satisfied with his Symphony No. 5, which he considered to be “too colourful, massive, insincere, drawn out and on the whole very unsympathetic”, No. 6 Pathétique, which had required a careful orchestration, was instead “the most sincere” of his compositions. It premiered in 1893, just a few days before the death of its author, who thus wrote after the first performance: “Something odd happened with this symphony! It’s not that it displeased, but it produced some bewilderment. As far as I myself am concerned – then I am more proud of it than any of my other works”.
