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Which Ballet Composed By Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Is Your Favorite?

Which Ballet Composed By Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Is Your Favorite?

5K views 22 replies 18 participants last post by  Ravellian 
#1 ·
Tchaikovsky composed three ballets, all of them have stayed at the forefront of the ballet repertoire. Which one's music do you enjoy the most?
 
#2 ·
The Swan Lake Waltz is the epitomy of everything good in Tchaikovsky. All of the wonderful orchestration, melodic quality, and the method of cutting back on the rhythmic background makes it a breathtaking composition.
 
#3 ·
Swan Lake all the way! Sleeping Beauty I find to be too sappy and The Nutcracker has (sadly) turned into a commercial Christmastime cliché.

Swan Lake has great orchestration, great tunes and a great sense of drama. I could never really appreciate it until I saw the San Diego Symphony perform an extended suite from it. I was blown away and have admired the music ever since.
 
#4 ·
I like The Nutcracker the best. I don't mind the fact that it's been over-hyped. It's the most accessible to me, althought the others are great too. But generally, I like Tchaikovsky's concertos much more, but then again, I am a sucker for virtually any concerto...
 
#9 ·
Whatever occurred to people to make them think Ballet was so feminine? It's more heterosexual than Opera, in my opinion. Maybe it's because someone named a piece the Sugar Plum Fairy:)
 
#10 ·
I'll always be bound to say Swan Lake - not just because the music is utterly beguiling (nay, haunting), but also because this was the first complete classical music work I ever bought.

To go further, I owe my 'entry' into the world of classical music to my early experiences with Tchaikovsky's emotional writing and melodic brilliance.

FK
 
#12 ·
Well I grew up with the nutcracker and being the Christmas freak I am it was my choice. As for ballet...I cant really stand ballet. I love the music, not the dance. Now I can stand a Waltz any time but Ballet is just too blah.

Friends think I am odd for my hatred of Broadway when I love Opera. Ballet can be very good. But it seems like the 20th century destroyed it with 5 year old girls in pink tutus. I suppose it beats what the kids are doing these days.
 
#13 ·
I get the impression that 'proper' critical opinion is in favour of the music of Sleeping Beauty, but I would have to side with The Nutcracker - not least because too few people on this thread have voted for it thus far!

I don't mind in the least how the meme of The Nutcracker has wormed its way so deeply into consumer culture; the effect it has had on the music, I feel, is not in the least bit as damaging as we find with the pieces by Mozart or Rachmaninoff et. al. In fact, I think I owe my appreciation of the ballet (above the others) to the fact that it is so deeply rooted in 'trivial' culture; from this, I have so many childhood associations with the music that listening to it is a markedly more magical experience.
 
#14 ·
Truthfully, everything Tchaikovsky did for ballet was wonderful. He truly made ballet what it is today, just like Segovia and the classical guitar. It's all wonderful stuff.
 
#15 ·
I saw performances of "Sleeping Beauty" and "Swan Lake" both performed by The Royal Ballet in 1961 and both were performed by Margot Fonteyn at The Civic Opera House in Chicago and as far as the ballet itself I definitely enjoyed Sleeping Beauty more and I like the music more as well. Taste is individual.
 
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