Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 2 in C minor, 'Little Russian'

In the summer of 1872, Tchaikovsky wrote this symphony while staying at his sister's house in Kamenka, Ukraine. It includes as many as three Ukrainian folk songs, so his friend, the critic Kashkin, gave it the nickname 'Little Russian,' after what Ukraine was called at the time. The folk song 'The Crane,' the theme of the finale, was reportedly a song sung by the house's butler.

In early 1873, when he played the finale on the piano at Rimsky-Korsakov's home, he boasted to his brother that 'everyone was so enthusiastic they almost tore me to pieces.' The 1873 Moscow premiere was also a success, but a few years later Tchaikovsky, dissatisfied, nearly rewrote the first movement from scratch and cut about 150 bars from the finale. The revised version is the one mostly played today.