Tchaikovsky sketched out the bulk of this symphony in 1892 and orchestrated part of it, but by the end of that year he deemed it to contain "nothing interesting or appealing." He began to refashion its slow movement and two fast outer movements into a piano concerto, but had resolved to jettison everything but the first movement shortly before his sudden death in 1893. The one approved movement was published as his Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 75. Composer Sergei Taneyev orchestrated the other two movements, which were published as the Andante and Finale, Op. 79. Occasionally, these are appended to Op. 75 to form a traditional three-movement piano concerto.

In the 1950s, Soviet composer Semyon Bogatyryev set about restoring the work to its original symphonic form. Tchaikovsky had orchestrated the first half of the first movement before switching to concerto mode, so this and the concerto treatment gave Bogatyryev clear guidance. The slow movement created greater problems; only 81 of its 204 bars were found in the composer's own hand, so there may be more Taneyev than Tchaikovsky in the Op. 79 piano-and-orchestra version-and, consequently, in the symphony. Whatever Tchaikovsky intended as the scherzo seems to have been lost, so Bogatyryev drew mainly from the Scherzo-Fantasie from Tchaikovsky's 18 Morceaux for piano, Op. 72. The finale, like the slow movement, is derived largely from the Taneyev orchestration of Op. 79. Bogatyryev completed his reconstruction in 1956, and it was premiered the following year by the Moscow Philharmonic under M. Terian.

The first movement, Allegro brillante, is a sonata form revolving around three principal themes: a fanfare full of anticipatory excitement, a broad and expressive melody, and a gallop that recalls a bit of the finale of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. The second movement, Andante, is an extended set of variations (with an especially ardent outburst at the midpoint) on a long, prayerful theme. The scherzo, Vivace assai, swirls and burbles much in the manner of its counterpart movements from Tchaikovsky's first three symphonies and Manfred.; the trio section is more hymnlike, but continues to surge ahead. The finale, Allegro maestoso, is a swaggering, festive march stepping out first in the lower woodwinds and ultimately parading through the entire orchestra. Up to this point Bogatyryev has imitated Tchaikovsky's style of orchestration splendidly, but his use of an expanded percussion battery seems unidiomatic, and is likely to annoy those listeners who object to the xylophone in Schoenberg's orchestration of the Brahms Piano Quintet.



© All Music Guide