San Francisco Symphony / Michael Tilson Thomas TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6, Pathétique

Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony announce the release of Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6, Pathétique, on June 29. Recorded during live performances at Davies Symphony Hall in March 2017, this latest release from the SF Symphony’s eight-time Grammy Award-winning in-house recording label, SFS Media, will be available for streaming and download in stereo, 5.1 surround, Mastered for iTunes quality, and 24-bit/192kHz Studio Master. “Returning to world of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony is a profound experience for me at this point in my life,” explains Michael Tilson Thomas. “There were a number of years where I had to distance myself from the symphony as I could not come to a peaceful solution as to how to give it the delicacy and vulnerability, as well as the enormous power that it so often requires. This recording represents a stage in my thinking that is based in the world of elegance and of what I believe the word Pathétique means. To me, Tchaikovsky is saying, ‘Here is my simple story. Please listen to me and hear me.’ This Symphony, an amazingly constructed piece, is an outpouring of elegant melodic invention.” This release joins an impassioned MTT-led disc of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 and Romeo and Juliet, also on SFS Media (2015), and the acclaimed inaugural episode of the Keeping Score documentary series which explored Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 (2004).