Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, Russia. He was widely known as the most popular Russian composers of his time. He and the Five Russian composers (Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Balakirev) attempted to create music that was totally Russian in character and style. Tchaikovsky was more cosmopolitan and looked to western European traditions for their inspiration while still incorporating Russian elements into their music. (Charlton, 195-196). His most famous works include, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Swan Lake.

Tchaikovsky composed Swan Lake (1875) after being commissioned by Vladimir Begichev, Russian dramatist and administrator. Swan Lake premiered at Moscow 's Bolshoi Theatre in 1877.The content was based

Petersburg. It is his longest ballet, lasting nearly three hours without intervals. Mel Spencer asserts that Tchaikovsky accepted the commission to write a ballet based on Charles Perrault 's La Belle au bois dormant via a version by the Brothers Grimm. Tchaikovsky 's ballet focussed in on the two main conflicting forces of good - the Lilac Fairy - and evil - Carabosse. Each has their own theme, which runs through the entire work, providing a thread to the plot. Act III, however takes a complete break from the two motifs and instead places focus on the individual characters at the various court dances. Many of his best tunes were later turned into songs in the Walt Disney animated feature version, made in

His last of the ballets, The Nutcracker has been brought about in 1891 and wasn’t performed until December 1892. The Nutcracker was the most frequently performed ballets out of all his pieces. The story was based on E.T.A Hoffmann fantasy story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, regarding a girl who befriends a nutcracker that comes to life on Christmas Eve and the battle against the evil Mouse King. His story precedes dark and troubling. Tchaikovsky, while in Paris, discovered a new instrument called the celesta, a clear, bell-like tone which fits the fairy-tale style of the Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky recognized the “voice” of his Sugar Plum Fairy, and he immediately wrote to his publisher, asking that the instrument be acquired for the performance. It was presented at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre on a double bill with Tchaikovsky’s one-act opera, Iolanta. Betsy Schwarm reveals that in a letter to a friend, Tchaikovsky himself remarked, “Apparently the opera gave pleasure, but the ballet not really; and, as a matter of fact, in spite of all the sumptuousness it did turn out to be rather boring.” He thought little of it, describing it as “infinitely worse than Sleeping Beauty.” The reference was to the second of his three ballets; the Additionally, the scenery and costumes were panned as tasteless, and the performance of the ballerina who danced the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy was widely criticized. Despite the failure of its initial performance, The Nutcracker has