Tchaikovsky Symphonies Nos. 1 and 6

Spanning his entire career, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s six numbered symphonies are a cosmopolitan hybrid of regional influences from Russia, Ukraine, and Poland within the Germanic symphonic tradition of predecessors including Mozart, Beethoven, and Berlioz. Tchaikovsky had a natural gift for melody and an unparalleled ear for orchestral color, traits found in his popular ballet scores and concertos, his operas and tone poems, and in these ambitious symphonies.