In Tchaikovsky's symphonic output, his Symphony No. 4 was a pivotal work. It announced the composer as a major symphonist of his time, overshadowing his previous, less-than-distinguished efforts in this form, and opened the way to his last, major, works: the haunting Fifth Symphony and the biographical Sixth, the profound "Path tique."
Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony -- written in 1877 at the age of thirty-seven -- offers itself as an intensely personal...