Pëtr Il'ič Čajkovskij - Symphony No. 1 in G minor, "Winter Dreams"

Symphony No. 1 in G minor, "Winter Dreams". Author: Pëtr Il'ič Čajkovskij (1840-1893).
Conductor: Mariss Jansons & Oslo Philharmonic.

Tchaikovsky wrote his 1st Symphony in 1866, just after he accepted a professorship at the Moscow Conservatory; it is the composer's earliest notable work.
Tchaikovsky freely confessed later in life that he could not write within the proper rules of Western sonata form—those rules of exposition and organic growth and development of themes that Germanic composers such as Haydn and Mozart had invented. Anton Rubinstein was a slavish follower of those rules in his own works. That may in turn have been a handicap for Tchaikovsky in writing Winter Dreams. He could not write a symphony that would please Rubinstein by staying firmly within a classical format while writing music that would stay true to his strengths as a composer.
This does not mean that Tchaikovsky was completely unable to work within musical form. While his natural aptitude for organic symphonic procedures may have certainly been limited, he may have actually done himself less than full justice. This was Tchaikovsky's first large-scale work. Rubinstein and Zaremba's interference did not help: they only added to anxieties Tchaikovsky would have naturally had, in any case. Complicating matters, as would happen throughout the composer's career, his finest asset as a composer actually worked against him—namely, he was simply too successful a melodist, and melodies are extremely unamenable to symphonic development. The First Symphony forced Tchaikovsky to face the facts in one very important way. Before beginning it, he had been content to mould his music as best he could to the practice of previous composers. Winter Dreams forced him to realize he would have to work "around the rules" for him to grow and develop as a composer. This meant adapting sonata form and symphonic structure to accommodate the music he was gifted to write. He would often show tremendous resourcefulness in doing this, even in this symphony.
The symphony is divided into four movements:
1. "Dreams of a Winter Journey". Allegro tranquillo.
2. "Land of Desolation, Land of Mists". Adagio cantabile ma non tanto: this is an essentially monothematic structure, based on subtle gradations and variations on a single melody.
3. Scherzo. Allegro scherzando giocoso: this was the earliest movement to be written. Salvaged from a piano sonata in C-sharp minor that he had written as a student, Tchaikovsky transposed the movement down a semitone to C minor and replaced the trio with the first of a whole line of orchestral waltzes.
4. Finale. Andante lugubre—Allegro maestoso: Tchaikovsky uses the folk-song "Raspashu li ya mlada, mladeshenka" as the basis for both the introduction and the second subject. This song also colors the vigorous first subject.

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