Nutcracker Suite
Recordings
Historical and comparison recordings, outside the concert’s running order.
- Opening disc side onlyPhiladelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski · 19343:29
Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra play the opening of the Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker Suite, where a free harp cadenza leads into a horn melody. This is the first disc side of their 1934 recording.
Listening notes
- Harp cadenza before the waltz
The harp’s long solo comes after the opening wind chords. Its arpeggios rise and fall freely before they come to rest on held chords. The bass then begins the regular waltz accompaniment.
- Principal melody, horns and clarinet
The horns play the principal melody in D major, marked dolce cantabile. A solo clarinet plays figures around their phrases. Below them, plucked bass notes and two string chords mark the three beats of each bar.
- Recording, Camden, New Jersey, 1934
In 1934 Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra recorded the waltz in Camden, New Jersey, at the former Trinity Church studio. The original record divided the dance between two sides, and this is the first.
- Place in the ballet and suite
On stage, the flowers dance late in Act II of The Nutcracker, before the pas de deux. Tchaikovsky placed their waltz last in the concert suite.
- Opening disc side onlyNational Symphony Orchestra of London, Stanford Robinson · January 1945, Kingsway Hall, London3:17
This is the first side of the 1945 Decca recording of the Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker Suite by Stanford Robinson and the National Symphony Orchestra of London. It contains the opening of the waltz, with the harp’s long flourish and the horn theme.
Listening notes
- Harp cadenza
Chords in the woodwind and horns lead to the harp’s cadenza. Its broken chords run up and down the instrument and end on a few held chords. Tchaikovsky marks the solo ad libitum.
- Horn theme and clarinet replies
The horns introduce the waltz, marked dolce cantabile. Plucked bass notes and two string chords mark out each bar. A solo clarinet replies to the horns.
- Recording, Kingsway Hall, January 1945
Robinson and the orchestra recorded this side at Kingsway Hall in January 1945, before the war in Europe had ended. Decca issued the record in September, with the waltz spread across two sides.
- Suite première, Saint Petersburg, 1892
Tchaikovsky conducted the suite, including this waltz, in Saint Petersburg on 19 March 1892, nine months before the ballet’s première. Two days later he wrote to Pyotr Jurgenson: “The suite from the ballet was successful.”