Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony

Join the MSO and conductor Anja Bihlmaier in exploring the musical introspection of two of classical music’s most profoundly talented and intensely emotional composers.

Lord Byron’s poem Manfred follows a man tortured by guilt, who summons supernatural beings before dying from madness. The story presents devastating parallels to Schumann’s own mental health decline, and this Overture – written to accompany the poem – captures its emotional intensity with great beauty and striking intimacy.

Tchaikovsky considered his Sixth Symphony as ‘the best thing I ever composed or shall compose’. Full of nostalgic warmth, passion, and heart, the Sixth is a musical meditation on the joys of a life remembered, tempered by the inevitability of death. It ends, not in jubilant celebration as was the symphonic tradition at the time, but in a supremely effective fade out to silence.