Tchaikovksy’s Swan Lake

Some works of art become bigger than life. Swan Lake started its life as Tchaikovsky’s first attempt at a ballet…and initially it was a flop.

Premiering in March 1877, Swan Lake came at a pivotal moment in Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky’ career.  The composer had two symphonies under him, and was writing his landmark piano concerto at the same time, but still hadn’t gained considerable fame. It was a stressful time in his life, entering into a loveless marriage and waiting for his music to take off. Fashioning a love story for the ages out of folk tales from Russian and German lore to tell the story of princess Odette who winds up turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse. Receiving its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow with one of the day’s leading choreographers there was much hope for this new work…but the ballet wasn’t a hit. At least, not yet.

Tchaikovsky lived in the Russia of the “Mighty Five” – a group of composers’ whose works were simultaneously creating the Russian national voice of music – but for his ballet he looked to inspiration from composers he admired for their stage dance works. He’d found genius and muse in the works of French compoers Adolphe Adam (Giselle) and Leo Delibes (Sylvia) and found there to be an elegance, charm, and and “wealth of melody, rhythm, and harmony”.

Commissioned to compose Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky drew on previous compositions for his new ballet; some of his cousins even noted he’d previously penned a short ballet called “The Lake of the Swans”. He used the technique of leitmotif for the Swan Theme – the music would allow the audience to associate certain themes, characters, or moods, with a melodic idea. In total the ballet took only a year to write from beginning to end and while many see this as his excitement for the music itself, some historians note that he was anxious to finish Swan Lake so that he could get going on composing Eugene Onegin.

At the premiere, audiences and critics felt the score was noise and “too Wagnerian, too symphonic”. To be sure, it was the most symphonic ballet written to date, elevating the orchestral music from the pit to being music worthy of sitting centre stage. But there was a curiousity around the characters of Odette and Odile that started to draw attention from dancers and patrons alike. The ballet continued to be performed and, in the years that followed the composers’ 1893 death, Swan Lake staked its claim as one of the monumental works of romantic ballet and indeed romantic music!

Swan Lake is now one of the most frequently performed ballets, and has earned the honour of being refered to as a “beloved classic”.

You can see the SSO perform the music of Swan Lake February 26th – live at TCU Place or live online at ConcertStream.tv

 

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