The Swan Lake, Op. 20

Orchestras rarely perform Swan Lake complete on a symphony program; most concerts offer a suite of highlights drawn from the full ballet's four acts.

The scene-setting oboe melody over rippling harp and strings is the piece most listeners already know without realizing it: it is the "swan theme," representing Odette, and it returns throughout the ballet whenever her fate is in question.

The waltz from Act I is broad and stately, built for dancing but also satisfying as pure orchestral sound, with the melody passed between strings and woodwinds.

The Act II "Dance of the Little Swans" is a quick, giggling little march for four dancers in unison, easy to spot from its repeated, bouncy rhythm.

The Hungarian, Spanish, Neapolitan, and Russian dances that make up much of Act III are character pieces, each using instrumental color, tambourine, trumpet fanfare, or plucked strings, to suggest a different national flavor at the ballroom scene.

The finale returns to the swan theme, now in the minor key and full orchestra, building to a grand and often stormy close that mirrors the ballet's tragic or redemptive ending, depending on the production.

Tchaikovsky composed Swan Lake between 1875 and 1876 on a commission from Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, his first attempt at writing for the ballet stage. The premiere took place in Moscow in 1877, choreographed by Julius Reisinger, and was not well received; critics found the dancing weak and the orchestra under-rehearsed. The score itself drew little attention at the time. Tchaikovsky died in 1893 without seeing the work's fortunes change. It was only revived in 1895 in St. Petersburg, with new choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov and a score revised after the composer's death, that Swan Lake found the success it has kept ever since. Today it is one of the most performed ballets in the world, and orchestras regularly present suites of its best-known dances in concert.