Swan Lake: A Song History

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In the spring of 1875 the Bolshoi Theatre's Directorate in Moscow asked Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky for Swan Lake; he wrote the score from August 1875 to April 1876 and returned to it in February and April 1877.[1] Britannica counts it as the first of his three celebrated ballets and traces its tale to German and Russian folk stories, while Tchaikovsky Research names a German fairy tale as the source.[2][1] Julius Reisinger choreographed the premiere at the Bolshoi on 4 March 1877 (20 February in the Russian calendar of the time), with Stepan Ryabov conducting.[1][2] Accounts of the first run differ: Tchaikovsky Research judges the staging a success that held its place until the 1882/83 season, while the Mariinsky Theatre's website describes a muted reception, with some listeners finding the music short of melody.[1][3]

Sepia photograph of a dozen white swans swimming on calm water beneath overhanging willow branches

Unknown photographer, [Swans on the Water], albumen silver print, 1880s–90s. Swans on a lake in the late nineteenth century, shown for the ballet's title; the photograph has no connection to it.

The version most audiences know came after the composer's death, when his brother Modest and the conductor Riccardo Drigo prepared a revised score, adding three of Tchaikovsky's piano pieces in Drigo's orchestration.[1] Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov staged it at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg on 27 January 1895 (15 January Old Style), with Pierina Legnani dancing Odette and Odile.[1][3] Shelley Stevens's Classical Music For Mountain Dulcimer, published by Fingers Of Steel, sets a "Swan Lake (Theme)" in DAD tuning beside three other Tchaikovsky pieces among its twenty-six intermediate solo arrangements in notation and tablature, though the product listing does not say which of the ballet's melodies it uses.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Swan Lake"

Sources

  1. Tchaikovsky Research: "Swan Lake".
  2. Britannica: "Swan Lake".
  3. Mariinsky Theatre: "Swan Lake".
  4. Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Classical Music For Mountain Dulcimer".
  5. Image: Unknown photographer, [Swans on the Water], albumen silver print, 1880s–90s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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