On October 28, 1893, the Sixth Symphony of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky was performed for the first time, in St. Petersburg, Russia. A performance by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, conducted by Yuri Temirkanov, is available for streaming or download; Herbert von Karajan conducts the Berlin Philharmonic on CD.

Tchaikovsky gave the piece the Russian title Pateticheskaya; that word has overtones of sadness and suffering, but is usually translated into English as "emotional" or "passionate." When the symphony was first published in Western Europe, the French publisher translated that title as Pathétique – "evoking or arousing pity" – and the mis-translation stuck.

Tchaikovsky died only nine days after the premiere of the symphony. St. Petersburg was undergoing an outbreak of cholera at the time, and Tchaikovsky's official cause of death was cholera, probably caused by drinking tainted water. But even at the time, there was skepticism about that explanation, and music historians have long speculated and theorized about whether the official version of events is the full story. Some have speculated that Tchaikovsky committed suicide; in the 1980s, there was a briefly popular theory that he was ordered to kill himself by a "court of honor" of his friends and colleagues, as punishment for his homosexuality.

By the time of the second performance of the Sixth Symphony, at a memorial concert a week after Tchaikovsky's death, the factors surrounding the performance, and elements of the piece itself – its subtitle, the mystery of the composer's death, the generally sorrowful mood of the piece, and a conspicuous musical quotation from the Russian Orthodox funeral service – caused many to interpret it as a sort of musical suicide note, perhaps not literally but at least metaphorically.

The symphony is certainly filled with sadness and melancholy, most notably in its final movement. Symphonies often end in rousing fashion; the finale of the Pathétique is unusually quiet and subdued, featuring the lowest-pitched instruments of the orchestra, and slowly fading into silence.

There are livelier and happier moments. The second movement is a gracefully lopsided dance; it's almost a waltz, except that it has five beats to a measure instead of the waltz's three. The third movement features a brassy march; at the height of the socialist era in the Soviet Union, it was reported that Soviet orchestras switched the third and fourth movements in order to give the symphony a more cheerful and uplifting ending.

In the first movement, we find one of Tchaikovsky's loveliest melodies, a tune so irresistibly melodramatic that it's been borrowed for at least three different popular songs – "The Story of a Starry Night," popularized by Glenn Miller and later recorded by a wide variety of singers; "Where," recorded in 1959 by The Platters; and "John O'Dreams," often mistakenly believed to be a traditional Irish folk song, and recorded by many folk singers.

The Sixth Symphony was the last of Tchaikovsky's works to be premiered during his lifetime, and it remains one of his most popular and frequently performed compositions.

Robert Greenberg's Great Courses class, Tchaikovsky: His Life and Music, offers an overview of the composer's career and most important works; it's available in e-audio.