[Kathy in Alaska]

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Music posted for your enjoyment. Thank you for serving our country.

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Larry Clinton & His Orchestra ~ Dance of The Sugar Plum Fairies

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[Publius]

For those who would like to see a fully staged performance of the entire “Nutcracker” ballet, here it is, all 1 hour and 42 minutes of it.

Bookmark this for when you have the time.

Prior to Leo Delibes, music for a ballet wasn’t supposed to call attention to itself, just provide a chance for the dancers to show off their chops. Delibes broke that mold, and Tchaikovsky wrote some of his best material for the three ballets he scored. This ballet failed at its premiere, but after Tchaikovsky’s death it became one of his most beloved scores. For those of you who only know the Nutcracker Suite, this will be a revelation because of all the good music he wrote outside the suite.

This is a fine production with a very Russian flavor, taped in St. Petersburg. The ballet is based on a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, and at 16:51 the ballerina plays the living toy as Coppelia, the star of another story by Hoffmann, which had incidentally been set to music by Delibes a few decades earlier. (This is an inside joke for classical music lovers.) At 36:56 note the use of kazoos as a backup to the winds. At 46:49 he uses the celeste, something new for Tchaikovsky. You’ll note that all the action takes place in Act 1, and the sole purpose of Act 2 is to show off the dancers’ chops.

Tchaikovsky: “The Nutcracker”