This movement and the first movement of the Pathetique and the fourth movements of Symphonies #s 1 and 5 are my favorite movements written by Tchaikovsky. Is it played too fast? Not in my book; the tempo sounds right to me. This music was not written for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Audio balance and video work are superb. Thanks for posting such a wonderful performance of this movement.
...by the way, it's funny how old good Pyotr Ilich trolled all of us since 1893, with that unusal order in movements! Great idea! We would expect the last movment to be between what today are 1st and 2nd, right? Awesome masterpiece forever.
@exhornnerd i think there's a reason for "Allegro Molto Vivace" (vivace is about 140.. and molto makes it +). this interpretation would seem too slow in my opinion if it went slower. Don't criticize it too if you don't even like orchestra. Lots of classic movies would be bad without this kind of music. i dont think and i dont hope the symphony orchestra will go extinct.
Sounds great, not that fast... score marks 152 the quarter, this is around 160 maybe less, I don't think that would be "way too fast". Like it... it gives a nice and brilliant contrast to the next movement and the whole symphony.
man this should have been 1st, 4th, 2nd, then 3rd. I. Adagio - Allegro non troppo - Andante - Allegro vivo - Andante II. Allegro con grazia III. Scherzo. Allegro molto vivace IV. Finale. Adagio lamentoso - Andante grave also, make the 3rd movement in B major how would that be? :D
@ViolaClarinetti158 By awesome conducting style do you mean doing whatever the hell he wants because his orchestra is good enough that he could stand there and pee on the front row seats and even between the giggles, the performers would still sound fantastic?
This is exciting and really well played by the orchestra. It's too bad about the vulgar tempo changes by the conductor, such as the ritard around 7:09. To me, the main tempo is a little too fast. A slower tempo can work extremely well in this movement, giving it a real power and swagger. An example would be the great recording James Levine and the Chicago Symphony made for RCA in the mid '80s. If you don't like brass, you should probably avoid that one though....
Much too unyielding and overall too fast - though that 'rit' at 7:09 was very welcome!!! I'll refer people here to Bernstein and Martinon for where you can hear the reprise of the section that here is 7:09 to 7:41 being a bit slower than the rest of the movement, gradually speeding back up up to 7:55 (at which point it would be "Tempo I"). When somebody like those two do that, it really adds not a little bit to the piece!!! As it stands, this performance gets 3/5 here... [It wouldn't hurt to think of those metronome-speeds as maxima rather than average...]
I hate to be negative because this is probably my favourite symphony but this movement is too fast. At 8:33 the trombones and tuba downward scales are lost completely. I actually likke the braoder tempo taken at 7:09 (I know this is a matter of personal taste and I respect alternate views) but when the details of the music can't be heard it's bad. When the notes can't be heard, it's awful. Thise who love this version but only know this version will find so much better elsewhere.
![Tchaikovsky - Symphony n.6 "Pathétique" [4/5, Allegro molto vivace] - Temirkanov](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
