There are countless versions of
Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 ("Pathétique"), including several by conductor
Valery Gergiev, who seems to keep worrying about the work. This one is a live performance from 2010 recorded in Paris, but not released until 2019 in the growing catalog of the
Mariinsky Orchestra's own label. It has to be very near the top of the heap. Sometimes it has been stated that
Gergiev's
Tchaikovsky features fast tempos, and that's telling; in fact, this "Pathétique" is on the slow side.
Gergiev takes more than 21 minutes for the opening movement, far less than
Yannick Nézet-Séguin or
Thomas Dausgaard or the fearsome
Teodor Currentzis. The thing is, it feels fast. This is because
Gergiev, quite remarkably, strikes a tone of deep anxiety right at the beginning of the work and sustains it until the final murk of despair. In so doing, he forges quite an original approach that stripes the second-movement "Allegro con grazia" of its sugar-plum-like grace and even the third movement of its martial energy. This third movement, "Allegro molto vivace," will still draw applause in
Gergiev's version (although none is retained on the recording), for he broadens the tempo a bit for a slam-bang conclusion. But all this does is deepen the impact of the finale, which attempts a hard-won calm around four minutes in, and then, in steps masterfully controlled by
Gergiev, falls back into the pit. The symphony is, in
Gergiev's hands perhaps more than in those of any other conductor, the work of a composer who would be dead a week and a half after its premiere, and this is, in the end, a profoundly moving recording.