excerpts from Swan Lake, Op.20

Prelude

Waltz

Although it is now one of the most popular of all ballets, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was not a great success when it was first seen at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1877. The problem was not the score so much as the performance, which was so bad as to have been described by one observer as “shabby.” The music as Tchaikovsky himself so modestly remarked, “contains some quite decent numbers.” He had long been familiar with the story - about Prince Siegfried and the look-alike rivals for his love, the innocent Odette and the treacherous Odile - and had been inspired to write some of his most eloquent and most tuneful music to go with it. The Prelude is based on the plaintively beautiful oboe melody associated with Odette and her swan-maiden companions who, like her, are under a spell that condemns them to appear as swans during the day and allows them to resume their human form only at night. The Waltz is taken from an entertainment put on for Siegfried’s birthday celebrations in Act 1. Actually a sequence of four waltz-time tunes and a coda, it is structurally one of the best developed and melodically one of the most attractive of all Tchaikovsky’s pieces in his favourite dance form.

Prelude to Act 2

Waltz

One of the greatest of all Tchaikovsky’s melodic inspirations - which means one of the greatest ever - is the achingly wistful oboe tune first heard in Swan Lake as a flight of swans passes over Prince Siegfried’s estate. Siegfried does not know it at the time but, as he learns later, they are no ordinary swans: they are a group of maidens condemned by an evil spell on their leader Odette to appear as swans during the day and as humans only at night. The Prelude to Act 2 of the ballet takes up the oboe theme again as they return to their lake in the moonlight - just before they resume the shape of the beautiful maidens they really are and Siegfried falls in love with thei beautiful Odette. The Waltz is taken from an entertainment put on for Siegfried’s birthday celebrations in Act 1. Actually a sequence of four waltz-time tunes and a coda, it is one of the best developed and one of the most attractive of all Tchaikovsky’s pieces in his favourite dance form.

Although it is now one of the most popular of all ballets, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was not a great success when it was first seen at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1877. The problem was not the score - which, as Tchaikovsky himself so modestly remarked, “contains some quite decent numbers” - but a performance so bad as to have been described by one observer as “shabby.”

Although it is now one of the most popular of all ballets, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was not a great success when it was first seen at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1877. The problem was not the score so much as the performance, which was so bad as to have been described by one observer as “shabby.” Tchaikovsky had long been familiar with the story - about Prince Siegfried and the look-alike rivals for his love, the innocent Odette and the treacherous Odile - and had been inspired to write some of his most eloquent and most tuneful music to go with it. One of the most poetic items, the plaintively beautiful oboe melody associated with Odette in her guise as a swan, derives from a domestic entertainment he had based on the same story for his nieces at his sister’s home in Kamenka six years earlier.

Odette has been transformed into a swan by the wicked sorcerer Baron von Rothbart and is allowed to assume her human form only at night. Having pursued the swan when out hunting on his twenty-first birthday, Siegfried is astonished, as night falls, to see the bird turn into a beautiful princess. She explains that she can be released from the spell only if a chaste young man swears undying love for her - which Siegfried would be only too willing to do but for the dramatic intervention of the sorcerer. Later, at the ball arranged to celebrate his birthday, Siegfried thinks he sees Odette among the guests and immediately swears his love for her - only to find that it is not really Odette but Baron von Rothbart’s daughter Odile. The only way to resolve the situation, in the final scene by the lake in the forest, is for Siegfried and Odette to throw themselves into the water to seek reunion after death.

It was in his disappointment at the failure of the ballet that Tchaikovsky authorised the performance of some of the best items in the score as a concert suite. Most selections begin with the atmospheric music based on the oboe melody written in Kamenka in 1871 and and now most effectively applied to a scene by the lake inhabited by Odette and her swan-maiden companions. Other popular numbers include a splendid waltz, the charming dance of the swans, a pas d’action for Siegfried and Odette featuring a lovely violin solo, and (among the national dances performed at Siegfried’s birthday ball) a fiery czardas. Music from the finale of the fourth and last act of the ballet is customarily used to make an effective ending.

Scene

Dance of the Swans

Hungarian Dance (Csárdás)

Waltz

Tchaikovsky’s first ballet - using the term in its widest possible sense - was an entertainment he devised for his nieces in the domestic bliss of his sister’s home at Kamenka in 1871. Based on the same German legend as Swan Lake - which was his first ballet in the real sense of the term - it apparently contained an early version of the lovely, plaintive oboe melody which, through its association with the heroine Odette and her swan-maiden companions, brings at least an impression of symphonic unity to a score comprising literally dozens of separate numbers grouped into four eventful acts.

The musical superiority of Swan Lake did nothing, or rather less than nothing, to guarantee it popular success after its shabby first performance at the Bolshoi in 1877. If Tchaikovsky himself wasn’t immediately unhappy with the score, he confessed himself “ashamed” only a few months later when he saw Delibes’s Sylvia in Paris and declared that if he had known that ballet before - “such elegance, such a wealth of melody and rhythm, such outstanding orchestration” - he would never have written his own. Demoralising though it apparently was at the time, the French composer’s example did benefit Swan Lake in one way, however: as Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher in 1882, “The other day I remembered my Swan Lake and would very much like to preserve the music from oblivion for it contains some quite decent numbers. So I have decided to make a suite from it in the manner of Delibes.” It is not at all likely that Tchaikovsky himself selected the six numbers eventually published by Jurgenson in 1900 but, whoever was responsible for it, the suite clearly had the desired posthumous effect.

The Swan Lake Suite begins in Act 2 with a sadly atmospheric Scene set by the lake inhabited by Odette and her swan-maiden companions who, like her, are under a spell that condemns them to appear as swans during the day and allows them to resume their human form only at night. It is based on the evocative oboe melody written at Kamenka and first heard in the ballet at the end of the preceding act as the flight of enchanted swans passes over the Prince Siegfried’s estate.

The Dance of the Swans features a group of Odette’s young companions in a curiously charming combination of cheerful rhythms and lugubrious minor harmonies. The other two dances in this selection are associated not with the swan-maidens but with Siegfried, who falls in love with Odette and finally dies for her. One five national dances performed at his birthday ball in Act 3, the Hungarian Csárdás offers an authentic combination of a slow lassú section with a characteristically fiery friss. The Waltz is taken from an entertainment put on for another of his birthday celebrations in Act 1. Actually a sequence of four waltz-time tunes and a coda, it is structurally one of the best developed and melodically one of the most attractive of all Tchaikovsky’s pieces in his favourite dance form.

Scene

Waltz

Dance of the Swans

Scene

Hungarian Dance (Czárdás)

Spanish Dance

Neapolitan Dance

Mazurka

Tchaikovsky’s first ballet - using the term in its widest possible sense - was an entertainment he devised for his nieces in the domestic bliss of his sister’s home at Kamenka in 1871. Based on the same German legend as Swan Lake - which was his first ballet in the real sense of the term - it apparently contained an early version of the lovely, plaintive oboe melody which, through its association with the heroine Odette and her swan-maiden companions, brings at least an impression of symphonic unity to a score comprising literally dozens of separate numbers grouped into four eventful acts.

The musical superiority of Swan Lake did nothing, or rather less than nothing, to guarantee it popular success after its shabby first performance at the Bolshoi in 1877. If Tchaikovsky himself wasn’t immediately unhappy with the score, he confessed himself “ashamed” only a few months later when he saw Delibes’s Sylvia in Paris and declared that if he had known that ballet before - “such elegance, such a wealth of melody and rhythm, such outstanding orchestration” - he would never have written his own. Demoralising though it apparently was at the time, the French composer’s example did benefit Swan Lake in one way, however: as Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher in 1882, “The other day I remembered my Swan Lake and would very much like to preserve the music from oblivion for it contains some quite decent numbers. So I have decided to make a suite from it in the manner of Delibes.” It is not at all likely that Tchaikovsky himself selected the six numbers eventually published by Jurgenson in 1900 but, whoever was responsible for it, the suite clearly had the desired posthumous effect.

The Swan Lake suite begins in Act 2 with a sadly atmospheric Scene set by the lake inhabited by Odette and her swan-maiden companions who, like her, are under a spell that condemns them to appear as swans during the day and allows them to resume their human form only at night. It is based on the evocative oboe melody written at Kamenka and first heard in the ballet at the end of the preceding act as the flight of enchanted swans passes over Prince Siegfried’s estate. The Waltz is taken from an entertainment put on for Siegfried’s birthday celebrations in Act 1. Actually a sequence of four waltz-time tunes and a coda, it is structurally one of the best developed and melodically one of the most attractive of all Tchaikovsky’s pieces in his favourite dance form.

Siegfried catches up with the swan-maidens on their lake in Act 2 and falls in love with Odette when she assumes her human form. The Dance of the Swans features a group of her young companions in a curiously charming combination of cheerful rhythms and lugubrious minor harmonies. It leads into another Scene from Act 2 where a harp cadenza introduces an amorous pas d’action for Siegfried and Odette. An expressive violin solo accelerates into a more decorative middle section and, on the reprise of the first section develops into a tender duet with the cello.

Of the five national dances performed at Siegfried’s birthday ball in Act 3, the official suite includes only the Hungarian Czárdás, an authentic combination of a slow lassú section with a characteristically fiery friss. On this occasion we will be hearing three more dances from the same festive scene - a rather less authentic but no less entertaining Spanish bolero rattling with castanets, a Neapolitan tarantella introduced by a melodious cornet solo, and a brilliantly stylish Mazurka that makes at least as effective an ending to the Suite as the episode chosen by Tchaikovsky himself.

Gerald Larner© 2004

Dance of the Swans:

Tempo di valse

Moderato assai (Odette)

Allegro moderato (“Dance of the Little Swans”)

Andante (Odette and Sigfried)

Tempo di valse

Coda: Allegro vivace -

Final Scene: Moderato

The great ballet score that Tchaikovsky wrote for the Bolshoi in his mid-thirties was not his first treatment of the Swan Lake story. A few years earlier in the domestic bliss of his sister’s home at Kamenka in the Ukraine he had devised an entertainment on the same German legend for his little nieces. It was apparently for that family event that he conceived the lovely, plaintive oboe melody which in the full-length ballet - through its association with the heroine Odette and her swan-maiden companions - brings not only a monumental climax but also a sense of symphonic unity to a score comprising literally dozens of separate numbers.

The oboe melody is first heard in the ballet at the end of Act I as the flight of enchanted swans passes over Siegfried’s estate and the Prince, ignorant of their true identity, sets out to hunt them. Act II is set by the lake inhabited by Odette and her companions who, like her, are under a spell that condemnds them to appear as swans during the day and allows them to resume their human form only at night. The opening Moderato both sets the watery scene, with its rippling harp and tremolando strings, and gives vivid expression to the plight of the swan-maidens through a resourcefully varied use of the oboe melody.

Siegfried catches up with the swans by their lake in the next Scene (Allegro moderato) where, since night has fallen, they are restored to their true form as beautiful maidens. It is a dramatic episode which, beginning cheerfully enough with the entry of Siegfried, contains some eloquent scoring for woodwind and strings as Odette explains the predicament she and her swan-maidens are in and describes how a spell was put upon them by her stepmother and the evil magician Rotbart. Only a vow of eternal love can save them. Suspecting - rightly as it turns out - that Siegfried might be inclined to make that vow to Odette, Rotbart himself puts in an appearance to warn him off with menacing brass sounds. Undeterred, in the brisk Scene (Allegro) that follows Siegfried declares his love for Odette and invites her to attend his betrothal ball, promising to choose her as his bride.

The Dance of the Swans make up a whole series of numbers linked by recurrences (not all of which are included on this occasion) of the gliding waltz melody first heard on the strings in the opening bars. It includes a graceful solo for Odette and an engagingly characterised episode which, because of its waddling bassoon accompaniment and its quacking oboes, has come to be known as the “Dance of the Little Swans,” although to Tchaikovsky it was just another “Dance of the Swans.” After that comic episode, the amorous pas de deux for Odette and Siegfried seems all the more serious. Introduced by a romantic harp cadenza, a melodiously expressive violin solo accelerates into a more decorative middle section and, on the reprise of the first section, becomes a tender duet with a solo cello. After an abbreviated recall of the waltz melody, the series ends with a vigorous ensemble finale. Dawn breaks, however, and in the last Scene, to a reprise of the dramatic music of the opening Scene of the act, Rotbart drags Odette away from the despairing Siegfried.

As for the rest of the story, there is a choice between the ending envisaged by Tchaikovsky, as Odette and Siegfried die in each other’s arms, and the happy ending devised in the Soviet era and still in use at the Kirov (Mariinsky) Theatre.

Scene

Waltz

Dance of the Swans

Scene

Hungarian Dance (Czárdás)

Final Scene

Tchaikovsky’s first ballet - using the term in its widest possible sense - was an entertainment he devised for his nieces in the domestic bliss of his sister’s home at Kamenka in 1871. Based on the same German legend as Swan Lake - which was his first ballet in the real sense of the term - it apparently contained an early version of the lovely, plaintive oboe melody which, through its association with the heroine Odette and her swan-maiden companions, brings at least an impression of symphonic unity to a score comprising literally dozens of separate numbers grouped into four eventful acts.

The musical superiority of Swan Lake did nothing, or rather less than nothing, to guarantee it popular success after its shabby first performance at the Bolshoi in 1877. If Tchaikovsky himself wasn’t immediately unhappy with the score, he confessed himself “ashamed” only a few months later when he saw Delibes’s Sylvia in Paris and declared that if he had known that ballet before - “such elegance, such a wealth of melody and rhythm, such outstanding orchestration” - he would never have written his own. Demoralising though it apparently was at the time, the French composer’s example did benefit Swan Lake in one way, however: as Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher in 1882, “The other day I remembered my Swan Lake and would very much like to preserve the music from oblivion for it contains some quite decent numbers. So I have decided to make a suite from it in the manner of Delibes.” It is not at all likely that Tchaikovsky himself selected the six numbers eventually published by Jurgenson in 1900 but, whoever was responsible for it, the suite clearly had the desired posthumous effect.

The Swan Lake suite begins in Act 2 with a sadly atmospheric Scene set by the lake inhabited by Odette and her swan-maiden companions who, like her, are under a spell that condemns them to appear as swans during the day and allows them to resume their human form only at night. It is based on the evocative oboe melody written at Kamenka and first heard in the ballet at the end of the preceding act as the flight of enchanted swans passes over Prince Siegfried’s estate. The Waltz is taken from an entertainment put on for Siegfried’s birthday celebrations in Act 1. Actually a sequence of four waltz-time tunes and a coda, it is structurally one of the best developed and melodically one of the most attractive of all Tchaikovsky’s pieces in his favourite dance form.

Siegfried catches up with the swan-maidens on their lake in Act 2 and falls in love with Odette when she assumes her human form. The Dance of the Swans features a group of her young companions in a curiously charming combination of cheerful rhythms and lugubrious minor harmonies. It leads into another Scene from Act 2 where a harp cadenza introduces an amorous pas d’action for Siegfried and Odette. An expressive violin solo accelerates into a more decorative middle section and, on the reprise of the first section develops into a tender duet with the cello.

Of the five national dances performed at Siegfried’s birthday ball in Act 3, the official suite includes only the Hungarian Czárdás, an authentic combination of a slow lassú section with a characteristically fiery friss. Harmlessly amusing though the entertainment seems to be, however, it is at the ball that the wicked Odile poses as Odette and, fatally, steals Siegfried’s love from her.

The last movement in the official suite is a vividly dramatic episode from near the end of Act 4, reflecting Odette’s anguish at Siegfried’s apparent betrayal, followed by his arrival at the lake to plead for her forgiveness. (Although this is the end of the Suite it is not the end of the ballet, where Siegfried sacrifices himself for Odette and, as the lovers die in each other’s arms, the other swan maidens are released from their magic spell.)

Scene

Waltz

Dance of the Swans

Scene

Hungarian Dance (Czárdás)

Spanish Dance

Neapolitan Dance

Final Scene

Tchaikovsky’s first ballet - using the term in its widest possible sense - was an entertainment he devised for his nieces in the domestic bliss of his sister’s home at Kamenka in 1871. Based on the same German legend as Swan Lake - which was his first ballet in the real sense of the term - it apparently contained an early version of the lovely, plaintive oboe melody which, through its association with the heroine Odette and her swan-maiden companions, brings at least an impression of symphonic unity to a score comprising literally dozens of separate numbers grouped into four eventful acts.

The musical superiority of Swan Lake did nothing, or rather less than nothing, to guarantee it popular success after its shabby first performance at the Bolshoi in 1877. If Tchaikovsky himself wasn’t immediately unhappy with the score, he confessed himself “ashamed” only a few months later when he saw Delibes’s Sylvia in Paris and declared that if he had known that ballet before - “such elegance, such a wealth of melody and rhythm, such outstanding orchestration” - he would never have written his own. Demoralising though it apparently was at the time, the French composer’s example did benefit Swan Lake in one way, however: as Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher in 1882, “The other day I remembered my Swan Lake and would very much like to preserve the music from oblivion for it contains some quite decent numbers. So I have decided to make a suite from it in the manner of Delibes.” It is not at all likely that Tchaikovsky himself selected the six numbers eventually published by Jurgenson in 1900 but, whoever was responsible for it, the suite clearly had the desired posthumous effect.

The Swan Lake suite begins in Act 2 with a sadly atmospheric Scene set by the lake inhabited by Odette and her swan-maiden companions who, like her, are under a spell that condemns them to appear as swans during the day and allows them to resume their human form only at night. It is based on the evocative oboe melody written at Kamenka and first heard in the ballet at the end of the preceding act as the flight of enchanted swans passes over Prince Siegfried’s estate. The Waltz is taken from an entertainment put on for Siegfried’s birthday celebrations in Act 1. Actually a sequence of four waltz-time tunes and a coda, it is structurally one of the best developed and melodically one of the most attractive of all Tchaikovsky’s pieces in his favourite dance form.

Siegfried catches up with the swan-maidens on their lake in Act 2 and falls in love with Odette when she assumes her human form. The Dance of the Swans features a group of her young companions in a curiously charming combination of cheerful rhythms and lugubrious minor harmonies. It leads into another Scene from Act 2 where a harp cadenza introduces an amorous pas d’action for Siegfried and Odette. An expressive violin solo accelerates into a more decorative middle section and, on the reprise of the first section develops into a tender duet with the cello.

Of the five national dances performed at Siegfried’s birthday ball in Act 3, the official suite includes only the Hungarian Czárdás, an authentic combination of a slow lassú section with a characteristically fiery friss. On this occasion we will be hearing two more dances from the ballet, a rather less authentic but no less entertaining Spanish bolero and a Neapolitan tarantella introduced by a melodious cornet solo. Harmlessly amusing though the entertainment seems to be, however, it is at the ball that the wicked Odile poses as Odette and, fatally, steals Siegfried’s love from her.

The last movement in the official suite is a vividly dramatic episode from near the end of Act 4 reflecting Odette’s anguish at Siegfried’s apparent betrayal. Because it does not have a very satisfactory ending, tonight’s selection concludes with the Final Scene of the ballet itself, beginning with Siegfried’s arrival at the lake and his passionate plea for forgiveness. It is not, however, a happy ending for Odette and Siegfried, who die in each other’s arms in the flooding waters of the lake. For the swan-maidens, on the other hand, it means release from the magic spell. The whole of the last section is based on the swan theme which passes through a variety of epic incident before it reaches its triumphant climax.

Gerald Larner©

Act 1:

Waltz: Tempo di valse

Act 2:

Scene: Moderato

Scene: Allegro moderato - allegro vivo

Dance of the Swans: Tempo di valse -

Moderato assai (Odette) -

Tempo di valse -

Allegro moderato (“Dance of the Little Swans”)

Pas de Deux: Andante

Tempo di valse -

Coda: Allegro vivace -

Final Scene: Moderato

Act 3

Spanish Dance: Allegro non troppo

Act 4

Dance of the Cygnets: Moderato

Scene: Allegro agitato -

Finale: Andante - allegro agitato - moderato e maestoso

The great ballet score that Tchaikovsky wrote for the Bolshoi in his mid-thirties was not his first treatment of the Swan Lake story. A few years earlier in the domestic bliss of his sister’s home at Kamenka in the Ukraine he had devised an entertainment on the same German legend for his little nieces. It was apparently for that family event that he conceived the lovely, plaintive oboe melody which in the full-length ballet - through its association with the heroine Odette and her swan-maiden companions - brings not only a monumental climax but also a sense of symphonic unity to a score comprising literally dozens of separate numbers.

The musical superiority of Swan Lake did nothing, or rather less than nothing, to guarantee it popular success after its shabby first performance at the Bolshoi in 1877. If Tchaikovsky himself wasn’t immediately unhappy with the score, he confessed himself “ashamed” only a few months later when he saw Delibes’s Sylvia in Paris and declared that if he had known that ballet before - “such elegance, such a wealth of melody and rhythm, such outstanding orchestration” - he would never have written his own.

Demoralising though it apparently was at the time, the French composer’s example did benefit Swan Lake in at least one way: as Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher in 1882, “The other day I remembered my Swan Lake and would very much like to preserve the music from oblivion for it contains some quite decent numbers. So I have decided to make a suite from it in the manner of Delibes.” No such suite appeared during his life time, however, and it is not at all likely that the six numbers published as the Swan Lake Suite, seven years after his death, were selected by the composer himself. So it is entirely legitimate to set aside the familiar Suite and make a different selection from a score which, uncommonly inspired though it is, remains largely unknown in the concert hall.

As it happens, the first item in Carl Davis’s selection, the Waltz taken from the entertainment put on for Prince Siegfried’s birthday celebrations in Act I, also occurs in the official Suite. Actually a sequence of four waltz-time tunes and a coda, it is structurally one of the best developed and melodically one of the most attractive of all Tchaikovsky’s pieces in his favourite dance form. It couldn’t be left out. Nor could the following, sadly atmospheric Scene from the beginning of Act 2. It is set by the lake inhabited by Odette and her swan-maiden companions who, like her, are under a spell that condemns them to appear as swans during the day and allows them to resume their human form only at night. It is based on the evocative oboe melody originally written at Kamenka and first heard in the ballet at the end of the preceding act, as the flight of enchanted swans passes over Siegfried’s estate and the Prince and his men set out to hunt them.

Siegfried catches up with the swans by their lake in the next Scene where, since night has now fallen, they are restored to their true form as beautiful maidens. It is a dramatic episode which, beginning cheerfully enough with the entry of Siegfried, contains some highly expressive writing for woodwind and strings as Odette, the leader of the swan-maidens, explains the predicament they are in and describes how a spell was put upon them by the evil magician Rotbart. Only a vow of eternal love can save them. Suspecting - rightly as it turns out - that Siegfried might be inclined to make that vow to Odette, Rotbart himself puts in an appearance to warn him off with menacing brass sounds.

The Dance of the Swans is a whole series of dances linked by recurrences of the gliding waltz melody first heard on the strings in the opening bars. It includes a graceful solo for Odette and, after a recall of the waltz, an engagingly characterised number which, because of its waddling bassoon accompaniment and its quacking oboes, has come to be known as the “Dance of the Little Swans,” although to Tchaikovsky it was just another “Dance of the Swans.” After that comic episode, the amorous pas de deux for Odette and Siegfried seems all the more serious. Introduced by a romantic harp cadenza, a melodiously expressive violin solo accelerates into a more decorative middle section and, on the reprise of the first section, becomes a tender duet with a solo cello. The series ends with a vigorous ensemble finale and a climactic recall of the great oboe melody.

Act 3, set at a ball arranged for the Prince to choose a bride, is the tragic turning point in the story. Five prospective brides of different national origin each perform a number in an appropriate folk idiom. Tonight’s excerpt from Act 3, the Spanish Dance, is a bolero driven by characteristically vital rhythms and rattling with castanets throughout. Like the other national dances, it betrays not a hint of the disaster to come. (Having rejected all the brides offered him, Siegfried is tricked by Rotbart into swearing a vow of eternal love not to Odette, as he thinks, but the magician’s own daughter Odile. Realising his mistake, he rushes off in pursuit of Odette in an attempt to put things right.)

The last act is set by the lake where the swans are awaiting Odette’s return. To pass the time, they teach the little swans a dance Tchaikovsky really did intend for them, the Dance of the Cygnets. Faintly lugubrious in harmony and very Russian in idiom in the outer sections, it also includes a poetic woodwind melody and, right in the middle, a lively episode Delibes himself might have written. When the cruelly deceived Odette does return in the following Scene it is in great distress and to the accompaniment of music of such emotional intensity that, after the eloquently apologetic entreaties of the hapless Siegfried, it develops quite naturally into a monumental storm of rumbling percussion, glaringly brilliant woodwind and thunderous brass. In the ensuing flood, as Siegfried and Odette die in each other’s arms to music of briefly but searingly passionate ardour, Rotbart’s spell is broken. The great oboe melody is worked into an apotheosis of grandly symphonic proportions and the swans are finally set free.

Act 1:

No.1 Waltz: Tempo di valse

Act 2:

No.2 Scene: Moderato

No.3 Scene: Allegro moderato - allegro vivo

No.4 Dance of the Swans: Tempo di valse -

No.5 Allegro moderato (“Dance of the Little Swans”)

No.6 Pas de Deux: Andante

Act 3

No.7 Spanish Dance: Allegro non troppo

Act 4

No.8 Dance of the Cygnets: Moderato

No.9 Scene: Allegro agitato -

No.10 Finale: Andante - allegro agitato - moderato e maestoso

The great ballet score that Tchaikovsky wrote for the Bolshoi in his mid-thirties was not his first treatment of the Swan Lake story. A few years earlier in the domestic bliss of his sister’s home at Kamenka in the Ukraine he had devised an entertainment on the same German legend for his little nieces. It was apparently for that family event that he conceived the lovely, plaintive oboe melody which in the full-length ballet - through its association with the heroine Odette and her swan-maiden companions - brings not only a monumental climax but also a sense of symphonic unity to a score comprising literally dozens of separate numbers.

The musical superiority of Swan Lake did nothing, or rather less than nothing, to guarantee it popular success after its shabby first performance at the Bolshoi in 1877. If Tchaikovsky himself wasn’t immediately unhappy with the score, he confessed himself “ashamed” only a few months later when he saw Delibes’s Sylvia in Paris and declared that if he had known that ballet before - “such elegance, such a wealth of melody and rhythm, such outstanding orchestration” - he would never have written his own.

Demoralising though it apparently was at the time, the French composer’s example did benefit Swan Lake in at least one way: as Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher in 1882, “The other day I remembered my Swan Lake and would very much like to preserve the music from oblivion for it contains some quite decent numbers. So I have decided to make a suite from it in the manner of Delibes.” No such suite appeared during his life time, however, and it is not at all likely that the six numbers published as the Swan Lake Suite, seven years after his death, were selected by the composer himself. So it is entirely legitimate to set aside the familiar Suite and make a different selection from a score which, uncommonly inspired though it is, remains largely unknown in the concert hall.

As it happens, the first item in Carl Davis’s selection, the Waltz (1) taken from the entertainment put on for Prince Siegfried’s birthday celebrations in Act I, also occurs in the “official” Suite. Actually a sequence of four waltz-time tunes and a coda, it is structurally one of the best developed and melodically one of the most attractive of all Tchaikovsky’s pieces in his favourite dance form. It couldn’t be left out. Nor could the following, sadly atmospheric Scene (2) from the beginning of Act 2. It is set by the lake inhabited by Odette and her swan-maiden companions who, like her, are under a spell that condemns them to appear as swans during the day and allows them to resume their human form only at night. It is based on the evocative oboe melody originally written at Kamenka and first heard in the ballet at the end of the preceding act, as the flight of enchanted swans passes over Siegfried’s estate and the Prince and his men set out to hunt them.

Siegfried catches up with the swans by their lake in the next Scene (3) where, since night has now fallen, they are restored to their true form as beautiful maidens. It is a dramatic episode which, beginning cheerfully enough with the entry of Siegfried, contains some highly expressive writing for woodwind and strings as Odette, the leader of the swan-maidens, explains the predicament they are in and describes how a spell was put upon them by the evil magician Rotbart. Only a vow of eternal love can save them. Suspecting - rightly as it turns out - that Siegfried might be inclined to make that vow to Odette, Rotbart himself puts in an appearance to warn him off with menacing brass sounds.

The Dance of the Swans is a whole series of dances linked by recurrences of the gliding waltz melody (4) first heard on the strings in the opening bars. It includes a graceful solo for Odette and, after a recall of the waltz, an engagingly characterised number which, because of its waddling bassoon accompaniment and its quacking oboes, has come to be known as the “Dance of the Little Swans” (5) although to Tchaikovsky it was just another “Dance of the Swans.” After that comic episode, the amorous pas de deux for Odette and Siegfried (6) seems all the more serious. Introduced by a romantic harp cadenza, a melodiously expressive violin solo accelerates into a more decorative middle section and, on the reprise of the first section, becomes a tender duet with a solo cello.

Act 3, set at a ball arranged for the Prince to choose a bride, is the tragic turning point in the story. Five prospective brides of different national origin each perform a number in an appropriate folk idiom. Tonight’s excerpt from Act 3, the Spanish Dance (7), is a bolero driven by characteristically vital rhythms and rattling with castanets throughout. Like the other national dances, it betrays not a hint of the disaster to come. (Having rejected all the brides offered him, Siegfried is tricked by Rotbart into swearing a vow of eternal love not to Odette, as he thinks, but the magician’s own daughter Odile. Realising his mistake, he rushes off in pursuit of Odette in an attempt to put things right.)

The last act is set by the lake where the swans are awaiting Odette’s return. To pass the time, they teach the little swans a dance Tchaikovsky really did intend for them, the Dance of the Cygnets (8). Faintly lugubrious in harmony and very Russian in idiom in the outer sections, it also includes a poetic woodwind melody and, right in the middle, a lively episode Delibes himself might have written. When the cruelly deceived Odette does return in the following Scene (9) it is in great distress and to the accompaniment of music of such emotional intensity that, after the eloquently apologetic entreaties of the hapless Siegfried, it develops quite naturally into a monumental storm of rumbling percussion, glaringly brilliant woodwind and thunderous brass. In the ensuing flood, as Siegfried and Odette die in each other’s arms to music of briefly but searingly passionate ardour (10), Rotbart’s spell is broken. The great oboe melody is worked into an apotheosis of grandly symphonic proportions and the swans are finally set free.