The assumed programmatic content of the Fifth Symphony has aroused much speculation. Most analysts are convinced Tschaikowsky had a definite, autobiographical plan in mind. Yet he left no descriptive analysis such as we have of the Fourth Symphony. There he had set out to depict the “inexorableness of fate.” One Russian writer discerned “some dark spiritual experience” in the Fifth. “Only at the close,” he observed, “the clouds lift, the sky clears, and we see the blue stretching pure and clear beyond.” Ernest Newman spoke of the sinister motto theme first announced in the opening movement as “the leaden, deliberate tread of fate.” Many have agreed with Newman in classing the Fifth with the Fourth as another “fate” symphony. SYMPHONY IN B MINOR, NO. 6, OPUS 74 (_Pathetic_) First drafts of a sixth symphony—not the _Pathetic_—were made by Tschaikowsky on his return trip from America in the late spring of 1891. Dissatisfied with the way the new score was shaping up, he tore it up and congratulated himself on his “admirable and irrevocable determination” to do so. It is not till February, 1893, that first mention is made of a fresh start on a sixth symphony. “I am now wholly occupied with the new work,” he writes excitedly to his brother Anatol. “It is hard for me to tear myself from it. I believe it comes into being as the best of my works. I must finish it as soon as possible, for I have to wind up a lot of affairs....” Subsequent events were to give the last sentence of this letter a sinister note of prophesy. Like Mozart writing the _Requiem Mass_ on his deathbed, Tschaikowsky seemed to be defying some unfriendly fate to stop him in the midst of his great symphony. There was to be a program to this symphony, a mysterious, profoundly personal program. But Tschaikowsky would never tell the world what it was. “Let them guess who can,” he challenged. Amid the beautiful natural scenery of Klin, near Moscow, Tschaikowsky worked at his symphony. Curiously enough, his mood was bright and cheerful for a change. Early in October he left for Moscow to attend a funeral. There he met his friend Kashkin and together they talked jovially of life and death. Tschaikowsky was in excellent spirits and Kashkin assured him that he would outlive them all. Tschaikowsky laughed, and talked excitedly about his new symphony, how he was satisfied with the first three movements, how the finale still needed tinkering.