Music for Orchestra

Program Note

“Never in my life have I felt so flattered, never have I been so proud of my creative powers as when Leo Tolstoy sat in the chair next to mine listening to my Andante, and the tears ran down his cheeks,” wrote Tchaikovsky in 1876 during a special concert organized for the famed writer at the Moscow Conservatory. Originally the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet, Op. 11, the Andante Cantabile has enjoyed a second life in many versions, including versions for full string orchestra, for cello solo and orchestra accompaniment, and various other instrumental combinations. The main theme is based on a Russian folksong, well known during the 1870s, which Tchaikovsky heard at Kamenka in the summer of 1869 from a carpenter who was a native of the Kalush province.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, Russia, on 7 May 1840. Musically gifted from an early age, the young Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at five, and studied composition with Anton Rubenstein, the director and founder of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Among his most popular compositions are his final three symphonies (4, 5, and 6), the Romeo and Juliet and 1812 overtures, and the ballets Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky died on 6 November 1893, and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St Petersburg. The cause of death remains in dispute to this day, with some historians claiming it was a suicide, while most contend it was caused by a bout of cholera.

This edition utilizes some of the more commonly heard stylistic interpretations of the Andante, clarifies dynamics and articulations, and adds the contrabass part, where appropriate, to the original composition.