Swan Lake Suite, Op. 20a

While the original ballet, the story of Prince Siegfried's love for the Swan Queen, enchanted by the evil magician Rotbart to turn into a swan everyday, more or less succeeded at its 1877, Moscow premiere, Tchaikovsky was very concerned that the music be saved from the oblivion common to ballet scores.  Inspired by the French composer Delibes, he thought to create a concert suite of the music.  No further correspondence on the idea exists, but a Swan Lake Suite, Op. 20a was published seven years after Tchaikovsky's death in 1900, containing six numbers from the ballet, though it remains uncertain whether they were selected by the composer or someone else, leaving the exact authorship of the suite unknown.  This edition offered by Carl Simpson pulls from multiple sources and restores the final movement to its rightful place at the end while retaining three wonderful dance movements that were added to a later Soviet score, bringing the number of movements to nine, though it may performed as the original suite of six movements merely by omitting the additional three movements from performance.  Movements: 1. Scene, 2. Valse, 3. Danse de Cygnes, 4. Pas d'Action, 5. Czardas - Danse Hongroise, 6. Danse Espagnole, 7. Danse Napolitaine, 8. Mazurka, 9. Scene et Finale. Instrumentation: 2+Picc.2.2.2: 4.2+2Crnt.3.1: Timp.Perc (3): Hp: Str (9-8-7-6-5 in set).