Walton's Symphony No. 1

The tumult and melancholy in William Walton’s first symphony have roots in perhaps the most familiar of all artistic inspirations: unrequited love.  He wrote the first three movements after his girlfriend left him (including markings such as con malizia and con malinconia). Finally, Walton could compose no further, and the work was performed several times in its incomplete state. Luckily for several conductors who were anxiously awaiting a completed symphony, Walton soon was romancing a new lady, and he finished the finale in a tone markedly different from the heartbroken opening.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 7

The premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was perhaps his greatest rock-star moment. Buoyed by the excited troops in whose honor the concert was being performed, Beethoven “tore his arms with a great vehemence asunder ... at the entrance of a forte he jumped in the air” (according to orchestra violinist and composer Louis Spohr).  The work’s explosive energy and Beethoven’s expansion of symphonic structures to emphasize certain key areas make Symphony No. 7 an important stepping stone on his path towards Romanticism.

Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4

Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is a musical diary of his emotional life during a period of intense personal crisis.  “I was down in the dumps last winter when the symphony was in the writing, and it is a faithful echo of what I was going through at that time,” he wrote to the work’s dedicatee, Nadezhda von Meck. Though his external life was not extraordinarily tumultuous, Tchaikovsky’s hypersensitive nature made him feel every event keenly, and this intensity of experience forms his first orchestral masterpiece from beginning to end.