Tchaikovsky as a young man (1870s)

I came across some old notes I wrote about my community orchestra’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Suite from Swan Lake. It was kind of a shambles, because, it appears, there is more than one suite. We found that out when the guest conductor had a completely different score than what we had prepared.

Investigating on the internet, I don’t find any explicit description of more than one suite, but I do find that Tchaikovsky himself did not extract a suite from his ballet. And that the ballet was not especially successful in his lifetime.

Swan Lake, the ballet

Early reception

Tchaikovsky composed Swan Lake on commission from the Bolshoi Theater in 1875-1876. Very little background information is available. The source of the story and who prepared the libretto remain unknown. Either a German story or a Russian folktale may have inspired the basic idea.

Tchaikovsky had not thought much about writing a ballet until he received the commission. He made special study of such successful ballet composers as Ludwig Minkus and Leo Delibes and still managed to complete composition of the entire ballet in a year.

Rehearsals started in April 1876, and Tchaikovsky ran into the same problems his violin concerto and first piano concerto would later encounter. The choreographer removed several numbers he considered unsuitable for ballet. Tchaikovsky objected vehemently and they were restored.

The premiere took place on March 4, 1877 as a benefit for the ballerina who performed the major female role of Odette. Critics hated everything about it—the dancing, the orchestra, and the sets. Tchaikovsky’s music seemed too noisy and too Wagnerian.

Despite this failure, the Bolshoi revived Swan Lake in 1880 (with a new choreographer) and 1882. Tchaikovsky also arranged for concert performances of excerpts from the ballet. He expressed a desire to make a suite from the ballet but never got around to it.

Revival and success

When Tchaikovsky died, a great interest in his lesser-known pieces arose. In the hands of the team that had helped Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker achieve their success, the revival of Swan Lake created a sensation.

Tchaikovsky’s brother Modeste modified the ending to make it less bleak. Ricardo Drigo revised the score. With those changes, along with new choreography, the revival of 1895 has become the traditional way of performing it.

Tchaikovsky’s principal publisher, Pyotr Jurgenson, continued to issue works of Tchaikovsky after his death. He published a suite from Swan Lake as op. 20a in 1900. Tchaikovsky may have sent him suggestions of what music to include and in what order, but no one knows.

That seems straightforward enough. What happened to cause us such a mess? I don’t know, but I can describe my own experience.

Swan Lake, the suite(s)

Immaculata Symphony Orchestra / Jim, the Photographer via Flickr

My community orchestra played the suite from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Suite in 2009, or so it appeared. I certainly didn’t know anything unusual about the piece. I’d heard the waltz many times, and it was nice to have a chance to play it. Some of the other movements have fun trombone parts, too.

Trombone parts in orchestral music always have lots of long rests and seldom have good cues. If I don’t already have a recording of the pieces we perform, I try to get one. I didn’t know YouTube at the time, so I went online and looked for the Swan Lake Suite. Since I already had multiple recordings of the Nutcracker Suite, I made my choice from recordings paired with something else.

The recordings I found

The recording came, and it had six movements. Our version had eight. But where our “Dance of the Swans” was less than 40 measures long (with trombones playing only in the last measure), the recording had 12 minutes worth of “Dance of the Swans.” That’s not the only difference. In short, the recording had maybe half of the music we were preparing (but not the “Spanish Dance”) and a bunch of other stuff.

Back to the Internet. This time, I added a keyword to my search to find a recording that has the “Spanish Dance.” That’s the movement where my part had 34 measures rest, no cue, and a very important entrance, where for the first two notes, the first trombone is the only instrument in the orchestra that plays anything.

I picked one of the recordings, and when it arrived, got out my part. This version likewise had lots of music that our edition didn’t have, but it lacked the “Neapolitan Dance.” Oh well, that one has a dull trombone part and no counting issues. Murphy’s Law was still hard at work. This recording has a cut in the “Spanish Dance”–including the entire passage that I especially wanted to hear.

What the guest conductor had

When the guest conductor arrived, she had been preparing from a different Swan Lake Suite score than what we were using. She seemed uncomfortable with the “Spanish Dance” and confessed she was sight-reading the “Mazurka.”

In rehearsal, we only played through the “Neapolitan Dance” once. I think it has a cornet solo in it. At least, the whole trumpet section looked heartbroken when she announced that we weren’t playing it. Maybe some time I’ll get to hear it, but I’m not buying any more Swan Lake recordings.

Suite from Swan Lake seems to mean at least three or four very different selections of music from the ballet.

I have since discovered YouTube, but do any two videos of the Swan Lake Suite have the same music?

By the way, the suite as Jurgenson published it has the following six movements:

1. Scene (Act 2 no. 10)
2. Waltz (Act 1 no. 2
3. Dance of the Swans (Act 2 no. 13 part 4)
4. Scene (Act 2 no. 13 part 5)
5. Czardas: Hungarian Dance (Act 3 no. 20)
6. Scene (Act 4 no. 29)

So where did all that other stuff come from?

Sources:

History of Swan Lake / Rachel Wunder, Fischer Ballet Productions
Swan Lake (suite) / Tchaikovsky Research