Pathétique

Derived from the Greek Pathos, which is rooted in the Greek path meaning experience, suffer.

That makes sense.

After all, we suffer through other people's pathos.

Pathos, a mode of persuasion appealing to the audience's feelings, is the prime modus operandi on Social Media and even media more generally these days.

We're not the first to disdain that.

Already in the early 19th century, Kierkegaard observed in the Concept of Irony:

"Our Age demands more, it demands, if not lofty pathos, then at least loud pathos, if not speculation, then at least conclusions, if not truth, then at least persuasion, if not integrity, then at least protestations of integrity..."

What else are modern-day elections... if not truth, then at least persuasion?

Anyway, pathetique, pathetic, it's one of those words we often throw around.

But not to mean we're convinced. Quite the opposite.

Conveniently, the word denotes something pitiful, inferior, or even absurd and laughable.

You don't need to look far to find pathetic actions in crypto. Just today, the Solend founder tried to bring 20,000 condoms into Singapore and got caught in the process. Guess he wanted to visit the Solana Villa...

Even closer to home, one of our bridges collapsed last week. Pathetic performance for a country supposedly full of engineers.

It doesn't help that this coincides with the start of flooding season.

The good thing is we gained a new touristic sight.

And all of that depressing weather, is the perfect backdrop to listen to tragic music.

Going back to the first meaning Pathetique was derived from: suffering.

The first piece my Google Search returns when looking for Pathetique is Beethoven's Piano Sonata. The German pianist Igor Levit said about it that "Beethoven hurts you, he hurts the Piano".

It also ends in minor key. No happy ends.

But that wasn't even the piece I spent most of my weekend wallowing in.

It was:

The authors of Symphonies for the Soul recommend this symphony for wallowing in heartbreak. Unfortunately, I have no heartbreak to wallow in. All I have is common Weltschmerz.

Tchaikovsky composed this Symphony after a patron had cut him off support simultaneously ending a long-lasting friendship. In a letter to the Russian Composer Glazunow in 1890 he wrote:

Something is happening inside me, which I don't understand: some sort of weariness from life, a sense of disappointment. At times, I'm madly homesick but even in those depths, I can look forward to a new relish for life; instead it's something hopeless, final and even, as finales often are, banal.

Foreshadowing the end of his symphony...

Yet other sources like his nephew suggest, in the days of creating this work, the composer was in a rather good mood.

We can't ask him.

All we know is that a few days after the premiere, he died.

The circumstances of his death remain unclear and contested.

The official cause of Death was Cholera. The composer, supposedly drank an unboiled cup of water.

Cholera being a lower class disease - and Tchaikovsky was part of the high society - seems to have given rise to theories of him committing suicide, by drinking such water on purpose.

Others believe he might have been forced to, by a "court of honor" threatening to expose his homosexuality which would have meant his ruin.

We might never find out.

But it does make listening to his last symphony seem all the more tragic.

Tchaikovsky considered this symphony "the best thing I've ever composed or shall compose."

"It was mature. It was the mountain climber at the peak of his climb."

D.H. Gutzman in Debauched Genius on the 6th Symphony

It's him at it best, yet straying from the expectations people had.

His works and ballets were always bombastic, full of exuberance, even real cannons.

And then a symphony that's described as an ode to sadness.

Picking up on the theme of Fate again as in previous works, in this piece the life force seems to be fighting with an ultimately stronger force of oblivion.

The movements very loosely follow the sketches he made for a different then discarded symphony:

1. Impulse, passion

2. Love

3. Disappointment

4. Death

Some also have interpreted it as the portrait of a tragic homosexual courtship.

After a first movement where calm and raging passion intertwine, a Valse follows. Usually, when you get Tchaikovsky Valse you know you're in for a treat.

This one though seems a little off, for its unusual use of 5/4 insteadof 3/4 bars for a Valtz. It still has a stunning melody.

The third starts frantically, with a march. Eventually, hope?

But by the fourth we're at the reason why this is recommended as a heartbreak accompaniment. The strings wallowing...

Tchaikovsky, known for grandiose finalse, does the opposite in his last symphony.

It ends with a mood closer to a requiem.

"There were no cannons and no victory marches, rather a quiet acceptance of what? The void. And horror of horrors, it began and ended in a minor key."

D.H. Gutzman in Debauched Genius on the 6th Symphony

A self-parody by the artist who knew about his reputation?

Or, as he commented just a his most sincere work.

The Russian soul in art isn't known for an abundance of optimism after all.

It doesn't really matter in the end what exactly he thought when composing it.

Every listener brings their own narrative to the work.

And maybe, even those without heartbreak, find something in it.

For me it's the comfort knowing that I'm not alone in wondering whether it's all worth it, when at the end, there's nothing. Feeling like someone went through similar emotions before, that's what it's about.

Words can't really describe music well. In the end, it's about what we feel listening to it.

And that's different for each one of us.

It's not an easy one to listen to. But it's so worth it.

Pathetique might even be a mistranslation of the work's name.

Another suggested one would have been passionate.

Still I believe if we go back to the very root of the word, it fits perfectly.

Finding meaning in the suffering.

Maybe supplement with reading Dostoyevsky and Camus.

Thanks for reading. 💚

The version linked above is the one I've liked the most so far.

For a performance closer to 2024, this recording with Abado conducting the Wiener Philharmonics is immaculate.

If you end up listening to it, or already have, and want to talk about it, you know where to find me :))