Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 'Pathétique'; Souvenir de Florence
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Domingo Hindoyan
Onyx ONYX4259 81:54 mins
In 1890, Tchaikovsky returned home from a spell in Italy with the sketch of what would become his much-loved sextet Souvenir de Florence.
There’s naturally much more heft in transplanting this to orchestra, and it’s given impassioned thrust by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Domingo Hindoyan – who has an ear for drama – in this weighty all-Tchaikovsky recording, from the opening movement to the swirl of the final Allegro Vivace. But it retains, too, the sense of its six individual parts, not least with fine work from the musicians, whether in the emotive solo cello in the Adagio or the ensuing duet with the solo violin. The RLPO give fine rugged attack to the Allegretto Moderato before segueing into a nimble orchestral chase-me-charlie through the strings and a ravishing Allegro Vivace.
There is the same sense of impassioned commitment in Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the ‘Pathétique’, Hindoyan exploiting all the melancholy of the opening bars, the approach deeply sombre, lingering, the orchestra effectively doing everything to lay bare the extremes of drama – evoking the composer’s ballet music – with which Tchaikovsky constructs the stormy first movement.
The rhythms of the second movement are given a dance-like lightness, while the third is played with incisive, powerful thrust – and always a tight rein on tempo – whilst still maintaining a sense of tempered exhilaration. The final movement plumbs all the depths of drama, the rubato judicious as elsewhere, the strings intense, the brass plangent, finely tuned to Tchaikovsky’s enthralling, guttural, intense and ultimately bleak vision.
