Pathétique starts out in the bass clef. This excerpt, which is from Tchaikovsky's sixth and final symphony, is the Andante portion of the text and is as understated as a theme. It's not the main theme, but it has that ephemeral aura, that ghost of a melody which infuses a larger work—a thing to be absorbed and then interpreted rather than a thing itself. I could justifiably describe it as the work's thing-in-itself, the way the philosophers usually use that term: it is the noumenal rather than the phenomenal piece! Though maybe that distinction ought to be reserved for the main theme. (I knew reading Kant would come in handy someday...). At first I was concerned about being able to sustain my improved ability to read through songs while tackling this one. I needn't have worried: reading through it wasn't simple, by any means, but it proved tenable enough to support my doing it several times throughout the session. (I have had less fluid times with reading since... but that's another post.) The picture above shows a walk down from F that terminates in a diminished D chord and soon resolves into what I think is a Bdim7. I had to do some research to name that chord because its one of those interesting ones that are the same interval all round and can therefore be shuffled at will. 
The repeated group above (left) is itself repeated throughout the piece, as is evident in the variation that accompanies it (above right). At first, no pedalling is indicated to make up for the lack of legato (i.e. to attenuate the clanginess), but its other incarnations indicate varying degrees of pedalling. To the right, the pedal is sustained for the duration of the five semiquavers. Later we'll see a group that receives the pedal about half the time.
This middle section is interesting because of the D that repeats over and over in the left hand. It looks pretty easy, and it is, but there is a certain amount of awkwardness involved in learning it. This awkwardness was a surprise at first, and in fact, as soon as I started playing I got the feeling I'd made an awful error in judgement about how well my practice session was going to go that day. Suddenly it seemed like playing this simple passage was going to be difficult, but soon enough my fingers kind of figured it out. I don't know why they needed time to get used to pressing the same key at intervals like that, but they did. (Actually, something similar occurs in Boccherini's Minuet for String Quartet, J.T.'s transcription of which I'm working on right now. Lot's of repeated notes, but executed non-uniformly and in both hands. Tricky...)
This is how the repeating D passage begins, and it forms the bridge between that and one of the repeated dyad passages mentioned above. This is the one with medial pedalling. Soon the text lifts the right hand out of the bass clef, to which it has been consigned since the piece's beginning, and messes with the key a bit. What interests me, here, is the shape of the chord created. It's basically a variation on C minor, but with the 5th (G) raised to a 6th (A). Kinda turns it into an A diminished actually, and it's instructive: since a C major chord with 6th replacing a 5th is A minor, it makes sense that doing the same to C minor would result in Adim. Cool!
The final walk down to the ending chord is pretty interesting. A-F#-D-B is the path (shared between hands) leading to what seems like a B minor chord (without the 5th) and with an added 7th. This chord doesn't really sound like it's leading to anything, even though in relation to B that 7th is a dominant 7th. But maybe the minor key tempers all that so we don't feel as though we're left hanging—or is it that with a minor chord you always feel that way? I don't know. Either way, I like the ending. I've been playing a lot of songs lately that seem to end with a progression of related notes leading into a chord: The Skaters, Tarantella, and now this one. Coincidence probably. Alan Chan's Rendition
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