Musical thunk

[avevale_intelligencer]

Watched a performance of Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony last night. I love this work, and it was a very nice performance, but I find I think of it as mainly the first movement. Being a storyteller, I mostly think in terms of what often gets disparagingly called "programme music", music that tells a story or describes a scene, and to me the first movement does exactly that (I haven't firmed up the story in my head yet, but I'm fairly sure there's a vampire in there), and the other three movements (the dance, the march and the extended mope), while very nice and all, seem tacked on to make up the numbers. It's like Ommadawn. Ommadawn part one is an astounding technicolour musicgasm, still one of the best things Oldfield has ever done, and part two (to me) is "oh god, there's another side, isn't there, let's see what I can cobble together." I'm obviously wrong about this, but it just seems to be the way I'm wired.