We’re working our way into that time of year – you can get ambushed around every corner by The Nutcracker. Either as a standing figure occupying a store window or audibly with audio in the store. Tchaikovsky – he’s everywhere!
We’ll focus on other kinds of versions of Tchaikovsky’s dancing fairies and see if we can find one that better satisfies a 21st-century cynical holiday taste.
The Nutcrackers
In their 1960 arrangement, jazz players Duke Ellington and his arranger Billy Strayhorn brought the big band sound of Ellington’s band to Tchaikovsky’s music, creating something that not only sticks to your ear (beware of earworms!) but also makes you want to see some slouchy ballerinas.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a (arr. D. Ellington and B. Strayhorn for jazz ensemble) – VIII. Dance of the Floreadores (Lew Tabackin, tenor saxophone; Lew Soloff, trumpet; Bill Easley, clarinet; Victor Lewis, drums; George Cables, piano)
Sometimes you just don’t have your large ballet orchestra at your beck and call, and you have to use what’s around you. Of course, The Nutcracker has been arranged for all kinds of instruments, but the one that seems like it could be both ethereal and mysterious would be sitting in a large empty shadowy church with the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy playing and then a vision in white floats into your sight…
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a (arr. F. Hohman for organ) – II. Danses caractéristiques: Dance of the Sugar-plum Fairy (Frederick Hohman, organ)
If you have another friend, then organ 4-hands might cover it. Remember that really big organs have all kinds of sound effects, including bells.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a (arr. for organ 4 hands) – III. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies (Gerhard Weinberger, organ; Beatrice-Maria Weinberger, organ)
In an arrangement for guitar quartet, some of the ornamentation can take on a different feeling. The Arab Dance, depicting the alluring scent of coffee, takes on a much more interesting feeling on only strings.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a (arr. for guitar quartet) – V. Arab Dance (Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Ensemble)
Throw in a synthesiser for an electronic remix, and we have a wild Sugar Plum Fairy.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a: IIb. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (arr. S. Michaud for electronics and orchestra) (Shaun Michaud, electronics; Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra)
When you take it to a mandolin quartet, it seems to get even more Russian!
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a (arr. M. Imholz and P. Binkley) (excerpts) – II. Russian Dance, “Trepak” (Modern Mandolin Quartet, Ensemble)
One of the things that pianists did when music got too familiar was to make their own version, a paraphrase, that permitted them to exercise both their imagination and their virtuosic skills on someone else’s music. Australian composer Percy Grainger takes The Waltz of the Flowers and transforms it into something much showier.
Percy Grainger: Paraphrase on the Waltz of the Flowers from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (Michael Ponti, piano)
The Black Dyke Mills Band brings their very British band sound to the ballet.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a: I. Miniature Overture (arr. D. Wright for wind ensemble) (Black Dyke Mills Band, Ensemble; Edward Heath, cond.)
Sometimes you just need to add a harp, but in this arrangement of the Waltz of the Flowers, or as the title says, Mehr oder weniger ein Blumenwalzer (More or Less a Flower Waltz), the horns and um-pa-pa eventually take over and whirl us away into many different directions.
Ingo Luis: Mehr oder weniger ein Blumenwalzer (after P.I. Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Op. 71, Act II Tableau 3: Waltz of the flowers) (Das Rennquintett, Ensemble)
When you write for a 7-cello ensemble, the rich, low sound gives you a very different idea of the flowers.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Op. 71, Act II: Waltz of the flowers (arr. S. Parent for cello ensemble) (Gautier Capuçon, cello; Capucelli, Ensemble)
You know – the morning’s been chaotic, there are too many sweets around, and the kiddies are just in an uproar. Time for a visit from the Sugarhigh Fairy!
Wolf Kerschek: Nuts, Crackers and Borrowed Pieces – Sugarhigh Fairy (Asya Fateyeva, saxophone; Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic Orchestra; Anonymous, cond.; Vilmantas Kaliunas, cond.)
There’s a lot of humour in these pieces, and a desire to bring Tchaikovsky’s magical masterpiece to as many different audiences as possible. Which one was your favourite?
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