Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake | CD review

Russian National Orchestra/Pletnev(Ondine, 2 CDs)Swan Lake is so popular we forget that its complex musical history tends to leave ballet and classical fans on opposite sides of a divide. A failure at its premiere, it owed its eventual success to a production in St Petersburg in 1895, two years after Tchaikovsky's death. This gave us not only the familiar Petipa/Ivanov choreography but also an edition of the score prepared by Riccardo Drigo, who jettisoned roughly a quarter of the music and re...

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