Fanfare and Dance

More than a hundred years have passed since Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's (1840-1893) "Swan Lake" premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 4 March 1877. Today it is the most popular of all classical ballets, and its music is immediately recognized as a work by Tchaikovsky. It was the first of his three well-known and esteemed ballets, whereby "Sleeping Beauty" and "The Nutcracker" were not to follow until more than a decade later as "Swan Lake". Today it is also true that "Swan Lake" was not only a milestone towards the newer Russian ballet, but that it was the real birth of Russian ballet.

At the time of the world premiere of "Swan Lake", the circumstances were completely different. The world premiere in Moscow met with only limited approval, which was partly due to the poor scenery and costumes, it was poorly invented and routinely executed without interesting choreography. In addition, neither the critics nor the audience were able to find their way into such a substantial and carefully executed score. Nevertheless, "Swan Lake" seems to have remained in the repertoire of the theatre until the 1882/83 season. After that it was not performed during the composer's lifetime.

When Tchaikovsky attended a performance of Delibes' ballet "Sylvia" nine months after the world premiere of "Swan Lake" in Vienna, he was so impressed that for a while he regarded his own work as far inferior and wrote in a letter to his student Sergei Taneyev of December 7, 1877: "If I had known this music before, I would not have written "Swan Lake"". Later he revised this judgment, because on 4 December 1885 he wrote to Brother Makkar in response to an invitation to perform the "Swan Lake" in Brussels: "I do not refer negatively to the music of my ballet "Swan Lake" and it seems to me that it is not so bad, but the plot is boring and I fear for its success".

Inspired by the example of Léo Delibes, Tchaikovsky developed the idea of putting together a suite from the ballet for concert use. His publisher finally agreed to this proposal in September 1882, although it is not known how far things had progressed during Tchaikovsky's lifetime or who was responsible for selecting the six numbers that were finally published as a suite seven years after Tchaikovsky's death in 1900.

"Fanfare and Dance" are essentially based on the No. 17 "Arrival of the Guests and Waltzes" from the 3rd act of the ballet. Leonty Dunajew has carefully adapted the model for symphonic wind orchestra and skipped a few passages which are of exclusive importance for the ballet performance but have no effect on a concert production.