ABSTRACT

The contents and the tone of the letter indicate its high importance. The reasons for such secrecy remain unknown and could range from the most trivial to the most serious. The paradox is that in the letter Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky does in fact give the symphony a title and, just to be sure, he gives it three times: in Russian, in French and in German. Tchaikovsky's relationship with programme music was one of lovehate. Positively established after the success of his Overture-Fantasy Romeo and Juliet and his symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini, it reached its peak and crisis in the mid-1880s, triggered by his unwilling creation of Manfred. The addressee's response seems to have had a healing effect. Tchaikovsky was probably now ready to accept that he understood, from his own life experience, how this protagonist might feel and at the same time how he, the composer Tchaikovsky, personally felt toward the protagonist.