From childhood, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was drawn to the music of Mozart. The four-year-old Tchaikovsky was moved to tears when he heard a St. Petersburg orchestra play excerpts from Don Giovanni. Later, he recalled the experience as “a pure revelation…During several weeks I did nothing but play this opera through from the piano score; even as I fell asleep I could not part with this divine music, which pursued me long into my happy dreams.”
It is seemingly through this Mozartian frame that Polish conductor Krzysztof Urbański approaches Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 in the performance below. Free from weight and bombast, the music inhabits a magical, dreamy space in which every voice comes into sharper focus. It unfolds with a sense of grace and motion befitting a ballet composer. At times, downbeats melt away as the voices play their intricate rhythmic games.
In a previous post we explored this incredible Symphony, haunted by a recurring “fate” motif. This performance from November, 2023, featuring Urbański and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, allows us to hear a familiar work with new ears:
A Russian Folk Song: “In the Field Stood a Birch Tree”
In the final movement of the Fourth Symphony, the Russian folk song, In the Field Stood a Birch Tree, forms the second theme. Here is the original song in all of its rustic exuberance:
English translation:
A birch was standing in a field. A leafy one was standing in a field. Lyuli-lyuli (play-on-words), was standing! There is chit-chat and idle talk White snow flurries were falling, The hunters rode out, All their dogs were unleashed, They frightened the beautiful girl. “You girl, wait a minute! Sing, sing, sing a song with us, gorgeous!” Chuvil, my Chuvil (city on the Volga river) Another wonder, the first wonder, my homeland is a wonder! There is no one to snap the birch tree. There is no one to begin to nip the leafy one. I will go to the forest, I will go for a walk And I will snap the white birch tree. I will cut three branches I will make myself three violins “Don’t be loud, violins! Don’t wake up my darling!”
Featured Image: “Portrait of the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky” (1893), Nikolai Kuznetsov