Nutcracker Fest

[Alain Maréchal]

surely this must be the worst of Tchaikovsky's ballet music. Admittedly, there are some magnificent moments, but as a whole I was glad when the curtain came down.

Runs for cover

Pleased you have taken cover, as I am going to fire sweets at you from my toy cannon. I adore Nutcracker, I have probably attended a performance at least every every other year, sometimes making huge efforts to do so. (The music is not technically as good as Belle au Bois, but that is rarely performed uncut, and I think it needs to be to make an effect). I think the Act 1 pas de deux (Klara and her newly human prince, following the battle) contains some of the most stirring music Tchaikovsky wrote, and certainly one of his best tunes. May I recommend a recording of an extended suite by Mravinsky, who plays that scene to the hilt and may convince you? It appears in several manifestations.

https://www.amazon.fr/Casse-Noisette-Nutcracker-Romeo-Juliette-Tchaikovsky/dp/B00000E3JZ/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1482757974&sr=1-4&keywords=Casse-noisette+mravinsky

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think the Act 1 pas de deux (Klara and her newly human prince, following the battle) contains some of the most stirring music Tchaikovsky wrote, and certainly one of his best tunes.

Have you noticed the strong similarity between the earlier transformation scene and the one on Strauss's Death and Transfiguration?

[richardfinegold]

I've always loved the VPO/Karajan suites on Decca. We all have favourite single moments on record and one of those for me is the marvellous stroke on the tam tam in Sleeping Beauty.

I have Previn, Ansermet, Dorati and Mackerras in complete versions of Nutcracker, all good but it's the Previn I usually return to. What magic Tchaikovsky can weave with a simple downward scale in the pas de deux.

The Waltz of The Flowers followed by the Pas de Deux was a seminal piece of music when became a Classical Music enthusiast. They still work their magic

[richardfinegold]

That's my 'go to' Nutcracker as well. I've also got BPO/Rattle and LPO/Jansons on my shelves for the complete ballet and many others of the Suite. To be honest, I find Act 1 is nowhere near as inspired as Act 2 which is a joy from start to finish and I'm more likely play that on its own. I attended a 1981 Prom in which Gennady Rozhdestvensky (now on an ICA DVD) in a complete Act 2 and it was unforgettable.

That is how most people feel, and most of the Suites are from Act II. The music not contained in the Suites has been getting my attention lately. I love the scale of the battle scene, where the Composer manages to both achieve a sense of drama yet still manages to covey that this is a child's play scene (foreshadowing Ravel's Mother Goose music?). And the extended Waltz Music that opens Act II is gorgeous.

[richardfinegold]

Pleased you have taken cover, as I am going to fire sweets at you from my toy cannon. I adore Nutcracker, I have probably attended a performance at least every every other year, sometimes making huge efforts to do so. (The music is not technically as good as Belle aux Bois, but that is rarely performed uncut, and I think it needs to be to make an effect). I think the Act 1 pas de deux (Klara and her newly human prince, following the battle) contains some of the most stirring music Tchaikovsky wrote, and certainly one of his best tunes. May I recommend a recording of an extended suite by Mravinsky, who plays that scene to the hilt and may convince you? It appears in several manifestations.

https://www.amazon.fr/Casse-Noisette...ette+mravinsky

I agree completely and hope that your gunnery is on target. I don't know Mravinsky and I am curious to hear what this Conductor, who always has seemed to me to conduct with a scowl on his face, would fare in the Nutcracker.

[makropulos]

An absolute gem of a work. My first complete recording was Rozhdestvensky with the Bolshoi orchestra on an old HMV Concert Classics set - I've just ordered a CD of that performance. Meanwhile my other favourites include Svetlanov (on CD and the DVD that has him conducting at the ROH), Rodzinski (under-rated in this ballet?) and Mackerras (Telarc). Plenty of other good versions out there, so it's very much a matter of taste - but this glorious score is certainly part of my essential Christmas listening or viewing.

[Dave2002]

Sensible man, I'd say! I'll probably be shot down in flames, but watching the whole ballet on DVD the other day I thought, surely this must be the worst of Tchaikovsky's ballet music. Admittedly, there are some magnificent moments, but as a whole I was glad when the curtain came down.

Runs for cover

I didn't specify the ballet, so not quite sure what/which you have inferred. I am very fond of the Nutcracker and Swan Lake, and some of the music from SB is lovely. I've not seen that one as far as I can recall.

Previn is really good in the Nutcracker, though he's not the only one.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This seems to be Tchaikovsky's only ballet to exist in a score with no add-ons and no attempts to edit it. Sleeping Beauty is usually performed with minor cuts, while Swan Lake's history makes Bruckner symphony editions look positively straightforward - two supplements plus the dreaded Drigo version that includes non-Tchaikovsky music.

Having said this, I saw The Nutcracker performed by the Royal Ballet at the ROH in 1968 in a tampered version that changed the story to show Clara's adventure was merely a dream. The finale of Act II was amended to return to The Act I music that preceded the transformation of the Nutcracker. It actually worked rather well.

[richardfinegold]

The downward scale pervades Tchaikovsky's melodic writing. Tatiana's Letter Scene, Finale of 6th Symphony, opening of Swan Lake, 3rd movement of 5th Symphony - for starters.

1812 overture...

[Alain Maréchal]

This seems to be Tchaikovsky's only ballet to exist in a score with no add-ons and no attempts to edit it. Sleeping Beauty is usually performed with minor cuts, while Swan Lake's history makes Bruckner symphony editions look positively straightforward - two supplements plus the dreaded Drigo version that includes non-Tchaikovsky music.
.

Sleeping Beauty is usually performed with major cuts, not minor ones. Roland Wiley https://global.oup.com/academic/prod...cc=fr&lang=en& persuasively argues that the score is written as a quasi-symphony, to follow the darkness to light/winter to spring/Freudian tale, and cuts destroy the key sequences. Some performances I have attended produced some strange key changes, but they were covered up by applause (ballet audiences often applaud every time the music stops, sometimes mid-cadence).

I attended that Royal Ballet version of Nutcracker, (Nureyev's production) and it worked. Wiley's book influenced a later production, which attempted to restore much of the lost choreography, not always successfully. The most notable example was to reproduce the detailed and complicated geometry of the Snowflakes Waltz - only visible in the upper reaches of the house, incomprehensible from the stalls. Most sensible productions of Nutcracker "work", as did some insensible productions which I have admired but loathed. It is a short ballet, intended to appear on a double-bill with "Yolande". That would have been quite an evening.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I attended that Royal Ballet version of Nutcracker, (Nureyev's production) and it worked. Wiley's book influenced a later production, which attempted to restore much of the lost choreography, not always successfully. The most notable example was to reproduce the detailed and complicated geometry of the Snowflakes Waltz - only visible in the upper reaches of the house, incomprehensible from the stalls.

You've restored my belief in my own sanity. I've sometimes wondered whether I had dreamt it all.

[Alain Maréchal]

I've sometimes wondered whether I had dreamt it all.

No. I attended the Nureyev production and the first night of the later one (Wright), which was created before the removal of the stage lifts. I saw it many times, and the effect of the growing Christmas Tree has never been surpassed in any production, certainly not the post-rebuild revision. I'm unsure if that version was issued on DVD, but there was a vhs.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm unsure if that version was issued on DVD, but there was a vhs.

It was released on DVD, and is still available ... to purchasers with deep pockets:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nutcracker-DVD-Merle-Park/dp/B000062Y66

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It was released on DVD, and is still available ... to purchasers with deep pockets:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nutcracker-.../dp/B000062Y66

I want it (but I'm not paying that silly price.

[Alain Maréchal]

It was released on DVD, and is still available ... to purchasers with deep pockets:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nutcracker-.../dp/B000062Y66

My enthusiasm above was for the first Wright production, using the Wiley dramaturgy, the reconstructed choreography, and making the most of the stage machinery, although the Nureyev was excellent.