# Analysis HELP! Tchaikovsky Symphony no. 4



## ChewyLewis (Dec 2, 2015)

Hi everyone, first time poster. I was wondering if anyone could help me out. I'm looking for an an lysis of Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony, specifically the first movement. Even a breakdown on when the development and recap start. 

Thank you very much, any help would be appreciated.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

The development begins with the first return of the opening brass fanfare ("Fate") theme. 

The recap begins with the return of the second theme group. (Waltz) Some claim that it begins with the truncated version of the principal theme before this, but this is clearly wrong, as it is in the wrong key, and indeed a remote one, D minor. This is actually the end of the development. 

It is significant, however, that toward the end of the recap, Tchaikovksy brings back his first two themes in their original order, thus eliminating the first half of the traditional recap in favor of a more dynamic treatment of the principal material, dovetailed into the development. This pattern became a significant and original variant of sonata form, which I would call the Russian or Eastern European Variant. It was used by Rachmaninoff (2nd symphony), Shostakovich (10th symphony) and others, along with Chopin (sonatas 2 and 3) and Bartok (Concerto for Orchestra). Daniel Zhitomirsky discusses this form in some detail in a book called Russian Symphony: Thoughts about Tchaikovsky. (Shostakovich(!) is listed as the author, although in fact he is just one contributor.) 

The overall key scheme of Tchaikovsky's opening movement moves by minor 3rds, with Ab, B, and D being important secondary tonal centers.


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## ChewyLewis (Dec 2, 2015)

Thank you so much, this is extremely helpful and very insightful. I was aware of the variant sonata form but not that other Russian composers did the same, that's given me some food for thought. Thank you very much, any and all help into this piece is very much welcome.


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## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> The development begins with the first return of the opening brass fanfare ("Fate") theme.
> 
> The recap begins with the return of the second theme group. (Waltz) Some claim that it begins with the truncated version of the principal theme before this, but this is clearly wrong, as it is in the wrong key, and indeed a remote one, D minor. This is actually the end of the development.
> 
> ...


Thank you for sharing the information about the book "Russian Symphony". I need to get it. Any information on the aesthetic purpose behind the variant?

Moore and Heger, in their book "The Symphony and the Symphonic Poem" see the first 21 measures as an introduction. They define the beginning of the development as bar 161 and the beginning of the recapitulation as bar 284 with the forceful statement of the main theme in A minor (why not F minor?)

I personally am confused by the structure. I admire the 4th greatly, but I wish Tchaikovsky had used a more traditional structure. Wouldn't it be great to be able to sit down with him and ask him about his aesthetic reasons for his choices. With his facility for mediant modulations he could easily have returned to F minor for the recapitulation. Why didn't he? A mystery to me.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Truckload,

About the recap, Moore and Heger are wrong on both counts: That passage is not the recapitulation and it is not in A minor. The recapitulation begins later, with the second theme group, just as it does in the first movement of the Pathetique. 

Tchaikovsky didn't recapitulate the main theme because, for two related reasons, it can't bear literal repetition. First, it is too dramatic, with its big internal climaxes; and dramatic scenes, in music just as on the stage, can happen only once. More important, the big build ups in the development are based exclusively on this theme (until the motto theme enters), and to go through something like the original version after all of this even more intense drama would be hopelessly lame and anticlimactic. 

Historically speaking, Tchaikovsky was just exaggerating tendencies apparent in Beethoven's most dramatic sonata-from movements. In the first movement of the Appassionata, for example, the recapitulation of the principal theme occurs over a dominant pedal point and a driving ostinato rhythm because a literal recap would have been even more absurd and lame than in the Tchaikovsky. The Appassionata's first theme too is a dramatic scene that cannot bear literal repetition and, as in the Tchaikovksy, the first resolution on a root position tonic harmony is with the return of the second theme. Likewise, in the first movement of the Quartet Op. 95, the recap of the first theme is drastically altered almost to the point of disappearing — just the very first bit — because all of its internal contrasts can only work when they are unpredictable, that is, when it is only heard once. There are numerous other cases of this kind. 

The reason for the trend as a whole is because these composers, in pursuit of dramatic tensions that would persist beyond the boundaries of the individual movements, sought more unstable first movement structures. Because the tensions associated with the principal themes aren't resolved in the first movements through recapitulation, they persist, forcing the reconsideration of first movement material later in the cycle. This is why the main theme of the finale in the Appassionata is motivically related to that of the first movement, and why Tchaikovsky's motto theme returns in the finale. Tchaikovsky knew what he was about. Every departure from traditional sonata form in the first movement of the Fourth Symphony was an astute response to the nature of his themes and the demands of the drama of the symphony as a whole.


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