Tchaikovsky Dies: Music Loses Its Most Emotional Voice
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died on November 6, 1893, nine days after conducting the premiere of his Sixth Symphony — the Pathétique — in St. Petersburg. He was 53. The officially given cause was cholera, from drinking unboiled water during an outbreak. The theory that he was forced to commit suicide by a court of honor at the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence — to cover up a relationship with a male member of the aristocracy — has circulated since 1978 and remains unproven. Whatever the cause, the Pathétique's final movement, an Adagio lamentoso that fades into silence, sounds in retrospect like a farewell. He'd had a lifetime of suppressed misery about his sexuality under Russia's laws and his own tortured conscience. The symphony ends, and then it's very quiet.
November 6, 1893
133 years ago
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