Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36
by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Composed between 1877 and 1878 during the crisis of Tchaikovsky's disastrous marriage to Antonina Miliukova, and dedicated 'To my best friend' — his patroness Nadezhda von Meck — the Fourth Symphony is the first of his three great late symphonies and the work that established the characteristic large-scale Tchaikovskian symphonic style. In a famous letter to von Meck, Tchaikovsky described the menacing brass fanfare that opens the work as 'Fate — that fateful force which prevents our hopes of happiness from being realised.' The symphony's four movements — the vast, turbulent Andante sostenuto–Moderato con anima, the elegiac Andantino in modo di canzona, the pizzicato Scherzo, and the brilliant finale based on the Russian folk song 'In the field stood a birch tree' — together constitute one of the most dramatic and emotionally direct of all symphonic works.
Editions
Jurgenson
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1880
Original Russian edition; the primary historical source and the composer's own text.
Eulenburg
Ernst Praetorius, 1935
Miniature study score long used by conductors and students; the most accessible format for analytical study.
Muzgiz
Pavel Lamm, 1961
Critical edition from the Soviet Tchaikovsky complete works; the preferred scholarly text incorporating all known sources.