Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake (highlights)

Advantages: Very exciting and powerful piece of emotional hysteria
Disadvantages: If you're obsessed with classical form and beauty, then this might just be too much

...preceded this more famous overture. Tchaikovsky was a firm believer in fate (or "Fatum" as he referred it). His battle with Fatum (in a very Beethovenian sense) would be central to his entire life and this also reflected in his work. In 1868, Tchaikovsky encapsulated his beliefs in a concert overture entitled "Fatum." It was not received favourably and was not published until following the composer's death, which is understandable since the work is pretty insubstantial and mediocre. But it did serve as a foreshadowing of the composer's later Fate Symphonies. A TIME OF HARDSHIP 1877 was a year of profound unhappiness for Tchaikovsky. The premiere of his great ballet Swan Lake was a dismal failure, although the cold reception would soon turn into more favourable acceptance. His struggle with his homosexuality, something that was considered... Read review

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Advantages: Exquisite dance music. A fesrive fantasia.
Disadvantages: A little too fast moving

...With all the festivities of Christmas now begun, we are bombarded with advertisements of Christmas Films, Pantomimes and CDs. Among these, and often overlooked, is The Nutcracker composed by Peter Llyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky was already well known for his Ballet music when he composed the music for the Nutcracker in 1892 with compositions for Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty already completed. Both had, however, been unfavourably received by the contemporary audiences and critics, Not discouraged, the director of The Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg, Vsevolozhsky commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose another ballet. Vsevolozhsky himself suggested that an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by Alexander Dumas, be used as a subject for the ballet. Tchaikovsky was not originally impressed... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Beautiful, carefree winding melodies, memorable sequences, wonderful for the christmas season.
Disadvantages: Absolutely none.

...into despair, he begun to believe that the composition was a mere plagiarism of others works, with only fractions of it being worth keeping away from the fire. However, he would not be deterred so easily - he decided to leave his first Piano Concerto unchanged. At the time, he was characterized as a rather un-Russian composer by his critics, being regarded as a favorer of more west European styles of composing. Tchaikovsky went on to produce such famous works as Swan Lake, which is regarded by some as the greatest ballet ever created. Aswell as his famed Romeo & Juliet overture, the Nutcracker suite. The Sleeping Beauty (which was also adapted for Disney's film of the same name) and also his countless concertos and symphonys that so charactarize his inventiveness and sheer adeptitude when it came to composing music of limitless beauty. He... Read review

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