The problem of tempo has always been a challenge for conductors, particularly in late Romantic symphonic music, in which the individuality, beliefs, and personal issues of the composers imbued the scores with narratives that do not match the conventional tempos established in Eighteenth century music. A challenging score in this respect is Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony, op. 74.

This paper focuses on a passage of this symphony: the development climax of the first movement (closely from bar 277 to 304). The lack of tempo indications (except for a largamente forte possibile in the strings) makes the formal interpretation of these bars puzzling. The harmony is stable on a F sharp in the bass before the beginning of this section, which formally results in a huge "standing on the dominant", the trombones and tuba play an ascending Orthodox hymn based on a fifth and, later, fourth up motion while the strings respond with a descending B minor harmonic scale. This passage represents the emotional climax (Ji Yeon Lee, Climax Building in Verismo Opera: Archetype and Variant) of the development, but it is also a parenthetical insertion: for a conductor the choice of the tempo is crucial. For this passage David Epstein's approach in Shaping Time cannot apply: there is no proportion among the parts but interrelation between stability and unsteadiness as equal parts of a larger unity.

Considering it as a non-structural emphasis (Epstein) I argue that this passage is in a state of suspended motion, in which the lack of metrical and rhythmic regularity paradoxically increases the tension leading to the recapitulation.