Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893)
The Nutcracker/Der
Nußknacker/Casse-noisette
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov (1865
- 1936)
Les Sylphides
Tchaikovsky found no particular
attraction in the subject proposed to him for what was to be his last ballet,
The Nutcracker and the Mouse-king, based on a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann. The
choreographer Marius Petipa and the Imperial Theatre Directorate commissioned
the work in 1891, and the composer worked on the score during a foreign tour
that took him, as a conductor, to Paris and to America. The most famous dance
in the ballet, the Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, caused Tchaikovsky some
initial difficulty, but in Paris he found a new instrument ideal for his
purpose, the celesta, a keyboard metallophone invented by Auguste Mustel in
1886, and by June he had sketched out the whole work.
While it was Petipa who had proposed the
subject for the ballet, the choreography of the first production at the
Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on 18th December 1892 was left to his
assistant Ivanov. Of this version only the Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy and
the Prince has survived, while a number of later versions include choreography
by Balanchine, Grigorovich, Cranko, Nureyev and Flemming Flindt. The Nutcracker
Suite was arranged by Tchaikovsky for concert performance in St. Petersburg
in March 1892, nine months before the staging of the ballet. It was an
immediate success, each number except one being encored. The ballet itself was
not so well received. It was presented as a double-bill with Tchaikovsky's
opera lolanta, a work that proved more satisfactory to the Tsar and his
subjects. Since then, however, the ballet has become an annual favourite, with
its Christmas setting and easily intelligible series of dances.
CD1
The Nutcracker is introduced by a
miniature Overture, scored without cello or double-bass (1). The curtain
rises on the living-room of the President of the Council of a German state in
the eighteenth century. The President and his friends are decorating the
Christmas-tree, to the sound of a violin melody (2). The candles are
extinguished and the children come in, approaching the tree and marching in
play (3). They join in a lively galop (4) and at this point a strange elderly
man with a patch over one eye comes into the room. The children draw back,
until they see the presents he has brought. Drosselmeyer, the newcomer, has a
pretty doll for Clara, the daughter of the house, and a toy soldier for her
brother Franz (5). They dance a waltz, ending in a more rapid dance (6). When
the grown-ups refuse permission for the children to take their presents from
the room, Clara begins to cry and Franz proves refractory and obstinate.
Drosselmeyer takes out of his pocket a nutcracker, a joint present for the two
children, and after explaining how to use it, hands it to Clara. After much
protest, Clara eventually gives the nutcracker to Franz, who tries at once to
crack the biggest nut and breaks the nutcracker. Clara sadly picks it up and
lays it, with her new doll, in a cradle, while Franz quickly forgets and he and
his friends start playing with toy trumpets and drums. The festivities are
brought to an end, the guests leave and Clara and Franz are sent to bed.
The room is left in darkness, lit only by
the moonlight from outside. Clara creeps in to see her broken Nutcracker once
more and is terrified when mice emerge from the wainscot. She jumps onto a
chair, while the mice scurry around. As the orchestra reaches a climax, the
Christmas-tree grows enormous and the everyday world is transformed, a brief
oboe figure arousing a toy sentry, who, receiving no reply to his challenge,
wakens his Gingerbread Soldier companions, who engage in a fierce battle with
the Mice, led by the Mouse-king, the soldiers commanded by the Nutcracker. The
Mice are about to win when Clara intervenes, hurling her shoe at the
Mouse-king, who sinks dead to the floor, while his army withdraws. The
Nutcracker is transformed into a handsome Prince and invites Clara to travel
with him to the Land of Sweets (7 & 8).
The second scene of the ballet takes us
to a pine forest, where Clara and her Prince are welcomed by the Snow-King and
Snow-Queen, who offer as entertainment the Dance of the Snowflakes (9 &
10). The following act is set in the Kingdom of Sweets, where Clara and the
Prince are welcomed first by the Sugar-Plum Fairy, to be carried in a boat over
a river of Rose-water. The Prince relates his adventures, with the episode of
Clara's brave intervention in his struggle with the Mouse-king (11 & 12).
CD2
A series of character dances follows, a
Spanish Chocolate-Dance, an Arabian Coffee-Dance, a Chinese Tea-Dance, a
Russian Trepak and a Dance for Toy Trumpets, ended by the appearance of the old
woman who lived in a shoe and her numerous offspring (1). Flowers of all
colours join in the Waltz of the Flowers (2). The Prince and the Sugar-Plum
Fairy dance a pas de deux, with a solo Tarantelle for the first and the famous
dance accompanied by the celesta for the second (3), followed by a coda. All
then join in the final dance, which leads to a closing Apotheosis for the
Kingdom of Sweets, honey-bees and their Queen (4).
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov
Les Sylphides
(Chopiniana)
Glazunov belongs to the generation of
Russian composers after Tchaikovsky, able still further to heal the rift
between the nationalists and those with a more formal musical training. He
progressed rapidly as a private pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, who remained a firm
friend, and collaborated with him in completing and
editing for publication some of the compositions left unfinished by Borodin and
Mussorgsky. For the ballet Glazunov provided three full-length original scores
for Marius Petipa, Raymonda, staged at the Maryinsky Theatre in 1898 and
set at the time of the Crusades, Les ruses d'amour, staged in St
Petersburg in 1900 and based on a Watteau fête champetre, and The Seasons,
also mounted in 1900.
The ballet Chopiniana is better
known outside Russia as Les Sylphides. It was first staged at the
Maryinsky Theatre in 1907 with choreography by Fokin and with Pavlova as prima
ballerina. This first strongly Polish version opens with a ball-room scene, set
to the Chopin Polonaise in A major, Opus 40 No.1, followed by the F
major Nocturne, Opus 15 No.1, showing Chopin's feverish dreams during his
fateful winter in Mallorca with his mistress George Sand, when tuberculosis
threatened his life The C sharp minor Mazurka, Opus 50 No 3, celebrates
a Polish wedding and the Waltz in the same key, Opus 64 No 2, allows the
ballerina to appear not in Polish national costume but in traditional romantic
dress. This version of the ballet ends with the Tarantella in A flat major,
Opus 43, set understandably, in Naples, a city associated with the rapid
whirling dance Fokin choreographed an extended version of the ballet in' 908
and in' 909 devised a further version for Dyagilev in Paris. It is generally
the later versions of the ballet that remain in current repertoire both in
Russia and abroad.
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
(Bratislava)
The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
(Bratislava), the oldest symphonic ensemble in Slovakia, was founded in 1929 at
the instance of Milos Ruppeldt and Oskar Nedbal, prominent personalities in the
sphere of music. The orchestra was first conducted by the Prague conductor
František Dyk and in the course of the past fifty years of its existence has
worked under the batons of several prominent Czech and Slovak conductors Ondrej
Lenard was appointed its conductor in 1970 and in 1977 its conductor-in-chief.
Ondrej Lenard
Ondrej Lenard was born in 1942 and had
his early training in Bratislava, where, at the age of 17, he entered the
Academy of Music and Drama, to study under Ludovit Rajter. His graduation
concert in 1964 was given with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and during his
two years of military service he conducted the Army Orchestral Ensemble, later
renewing an earlier connection with the Slovak National Opera, where he has
continued to direct performances.
Lenard's work with the Slovak Radio
Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava began in 1970 and in 1977 he was appointed
Principal Conductor. At the same time he has travelled widely abroad in Europe,
the Americas, the Soviet Union and elsewhere as a guest conductor, and during
his two years, from 1984 to 1986, as General Music Director of the Slovak
National Opera recorded for Opus operas by Puccini, Gounod, Suchon and Bellini.
For Naxos Lenard has recorded symphonies
and ballet music by Tchaikovsky and works by Glazunov, Johann Strauss II, Verdi
and Rimsky-Korsakov.
