For whatever it’s worth, here’s a six-hour playlist of Tchaikovsky recordings I’d love to hear again, harvested from a listening project with Travis. Among the pieces in it that I haven’t yet written about are:

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 (1870/1880)

Heifetz sure brings the fire, but it’s Julia Fischer—at twenty-two years old—who brings the truest spirit to this happiest of Tchaikovsky’s major works.

Eugene Onegin, Op. 24: “Kuda, kuda vï udalilis” (1879)

Opera is generally not for me. Eugene Onegin one is no exception. But “Kuda, kuda vï udalilis,” Lensky’s famous pre-duel aria sung by Sergei Lemeshev, who made this his stock-in-trade, is the exception to the no exception.

The Year 1812, Solemn Overture, Op. 49 (1880)

Antal Doráti and Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra re-recorded 1812 Overture four years after being the first to release a recording of the piece featuring the sound of actual cannon fire and church bells because to Doráti, the first bells weren’t big enough and to Mercury, it was time to sell some stereophonic vinyl. So this time they recorded the heaviest carillon in the world, panned the vintage cannon fire sounds left-to-right across the newfangled soundstage, and released what became a gold record and an audiophile touchpoint. Evidence that 1812 is best rendered more as feeling than as music. Enough feeling, even, to make this pacifist American march jubilantly across his living room, stick both middle fingers up at any imaginary, retreating army and shout, “Yeah, that’s right, Bonaparte! Fuck off all the way back to Fontainebleau!” Solemn Overture? Hardly. Although my very honorable mention for this piece, a 1996 rendering by Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Leningrad Military Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy and infused with Civilization VI gravitas by St. Petersburg Chamber Choir replacing some of the strings, does manage to bring the solemn along with big (and pleasantly messier) bells and spatial cannon fire.

Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48 (1880)

Tchaikovsky at his most fey (definitions 2b and 3). Either that a synthesizer pad set to “Space Mozart.” The strings here, with no woodwinds or brass to ground them, run the risk of opening a portal to fairyland or to another galaxy, where the people are like us but not—except that they are definitely wearing powdered wigs. Enchanting.

Capriccio italien, Op. 45 (1880)

Pyotr’s failed submission for the score of The Godfather, which he then resubmitted as a potential score of ¡Three Amigos! But seriously, this 15-minute fantasia is the most thoroughly pops piece—other than maybe that subtle one with the cannons—by a composer who’d probably feel some mix of bewilderment, vindication, and embarrassment to find out he churned out at least a half a dozen of them.

Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 (1888)

King Melody finally puts on some muscle that isn’t just for Fourth of July shows or Boston Pops concerts. And the second movement features the horn solo equivalent of slow, hopeful tears. When you listen to it, imagine playing through it while your city is being actively shelled by the Nazis.