Tchaikovsky : Suite from Sleeping Beauty Ballet, Op. 66a

Suite from Sleeping Beauty Ballet, Op. 66a

Piotr Illyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Classical Ballet traces its origins to the “Ballet de Cours” [“Court Dance”] which came into being in the aristocratic artistic and social world of Renaissance France, which formed a focus of entertainment and court festivities of the day.) While the development of Classical Ballet began to spread beyond France in the 18^th century, “ballet” was regarded as an essentially French invention---indeed, the very terminology of ballet (“pirouette,” “corps de ballet,” “pas de deux,” etc.) remains indelibly French to this day. But by the late 19^th century the highest accomplishment in ballet began to take place in Russia, which was to be widely recognised only when Sergei Diaghilev’s “Ballet Russe” first performed in the capitals of western Europe to sensational acclaim in the years before the First World War..

It is no action that the greatest Russian composer of the late 19^th century, Tchaikovsky, would be commissioned to compose ballet scores, paving the way for the extraordinary ballets with which the young Igor Stravinsky made his name a quarter century later. Tchaikovsky composed three major ballet scores: Swan Lake (1877), Sleeping Beauty (1888), and (currently the most-performed) the Nutcracker (1892).

Sleeping Beauty was written in 1888 to a scenario based upon Charles Perrault’s “La Belle au bois dormant,” with choreography by the legendary master of the dance, Marius Petipa, and first performed with great success at the Maryiinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg early in 1890. A suite comprising six movements from the complete ballet was prepared by the composer, four of which are to be heard on today’s concert.

Opening with a commanding call to attention in full orchestra (prophetic of the dramatic first movement of the Pathetique Symphony yet to come), a complete change in mood ushers in a tender melody, symbolising the Lilac Fairy, heard in the winds against sweeping harp arpeggios and rustling string accompaniment. Rising in intensity, the full sonority of the orchestra rounds out the movement with the Lilac Fairy music sung out in the strings.

The Rose Adagio is the essence of ballet music in its utmost Romantic expression. Opening with pulsing wind chords, and an extended harp cadenza, the principal element is heard, a lush, flowing melody in the strings. Becoming agitated and rhythmically pointed, with sweeping scale figures in the violins and a trilling background in the winds, the opening melody returns, yet more richly textured. Again there is contrast, now with pattering figures in the winds, soon bringing back the principal theme for a third and climactic time, making full use of the resources of the orchestra to build to a massive conclusion.

The Panorama movement is music which accompanies an innovative moment in the ballet where the hero (a prince) and the Lilac Fairy glide away in a boat, while the scenery gradually slides past behind them. This is mirrored to perfection in music which unfolds gently-floating melodic lines in the strings against a murmuring background in the winds, creating a sensation of gliding over the water through a misty landscape, whispering into silence in the final feathery gestures in the harp.

The concluding movement is the famous waltz from Act I of the ballet. Johann Strauss met his match in Tchaikovsky, whose waltzes take prominent positions in nearly all his major works, ranging from his symphonies to chamber works, as well as various concert works, and, naturally the ballets, where they are usually the best-known music of all. This is no exception. Following a festive and excited introduction, a suave and uncomplicated principal melody is heard in the strings, with a brief middle section providing rhythmic contrast. An easy-going dialogue to-and-fro in the winds breaks away from the honeyed lyricism of the first section, which, however, soon returns very much as before, bring the suite to a warm and sunny conclusion.

GPYO concert