The Rockbridge Symphony’s Spring concert on May 4th will celebrate Tchaikovsky and Grieg, and aspects of their music which reaffirm the “lifeforce of music.”
Tchaikovsky, being gay, never felt accepted in 19th century society, and he contemplated suicide around the time he wrote the Fourth Symphony. He revealed later that it was the support of “my best friend,” Nadezhda von Meck, that got him through this trying time. Tchaikovsky told her: “I should like to dedicate it [4th symphony] to you, because I believe you would find in it an echo of your most intimate thoughts and emotions.” The symphony is also auto-biographical in that it describes Tchaikovsky’s struggle against his fate.
Today, Tchaikovsky’s difficult life gives us an emotionally exciting composition. It begins in sadness, but ends in exuberance. Tchaikovsky’s own words resonate in this theme and the music of this program: “Rejoice in the happiness of others – and you can still live.”
Preceding the symphony will be Grieg’s Funeral March, composed in memory of his friend and fellow composer Rikard Nordraak, who died young of tuberculosis.
Tickets are $10 for adults; $5 for students; and children 12 and under are free.
