Emotional Romanticism in Musical Form
Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, was written in 1877, a momentous year for the composer. Tchaikovsky dedicated his Symphony No. 4 to his patroness, the heiress Nadezhda von Meck. He had begun composing the symphony not long after Meck had entered his life. He would complete it in the aftermath of his catastrophic marriage and claimed in a letter she would find in it "an echo of your most intimate thoughts and emotions."