It was composed in Germany in 1784 for use in the Duke of Wirtemburg's catholic chapel. Earth tell it out abroad. Only towards the end of the work is the actual tune given away. In the composer's words, this gives way to a spiritual sort of progression, from doubt thru indecision to acceptance from dimness to brightness. A point underscored by the added construction of the work being one continuous crescendo.
Earth tell it out abroad.
One continuous crescendo leading us forward from darkness into light or from doubt into faith, as the composer suggests. Rachmaninoff wrote this for his own US tour in 1909. The second movement brings one of Tchaikovsky's loveliest and most mournful melodies, played by the french horn. The tune is full of the kind of nostalgia and melancholy that marks much of Tchaikovsky's later works. The third movement temporarily blows away the gloom and brings forth a dance fashioned from a tune he heard once as a boy on the streets in Florence.