Description
Here we have ”The Nutcracker Suite”. The Nutcracker, Op. 71, is a two-act ballet, with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.
Although the original production was not a success, the twenty-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. However, the complete Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s.
Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight of the numbers from the ballet before the ballet’s December 1892 première, forming The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite became instantly popular. The Nutcracker Suite should not be mistaken for the complete ballet.
Contents:
- Miniature Overture
- II. Danses caractéristiques
a. Marche
b. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy [ending altered from ballet-version]
c. Russian Dance (Trepak)
d. Arabian Dance
e. Chinese Dance
f. Reed-Flutes
III. Waltz of the Flowers
