It is undoubtedly the motif of Fatum (Fate) that unites Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies, prey to the heartbreak of a tormented personal life and seeking in religious faith a vain consolation. The Fourth deploys this dialectic between destiny and idealism, offering fleeting respites in dreamy intoxication or the echoes of a popular festival; the Fifth, with its matrix theme of a fateful march, deals with the conflict between existential anguish and the aspiration to salvation through religion; the Sixth, known as "The Pathetic," only came to prominence after the composer's suicide. In this work, the most moving effusion rubs shoulders with abysses of revolt and pain. Lyrical and prodigiously expressive, Tchaikovsky sweeps his audience along in the sincerity of his approach: a lesson in commitment for posterity. 

Each of these three symphonies is preceded by a section of the triptych (Hedera helix) composed by the young composer Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber, served by the finest conductors crowned by the La Maestra competition: a tribute of contemporary renewal to a 19th century giant.