Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 03/06/2012, uploaded on 03/06/2012

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Ballet Suite for Piano from The Nutcracker   Tchaikovsky, arr. by Mikhail Pletnev

I.                    March

II.                 Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy

III.               Russian Dance – Trepak

IV.              Chinese Dance

V.                 Andante Maestoso

Mikhail Pletnev is unique in the world of classical music. At the age of twenty-one he won the 6th International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1978 playing, among other music, his own transcription of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. This was a courageous decision to play one’s own challenging transcription, daunting in its technical requirements while preserving the essence of Tchaikovsky’s colorful music. Since the competition, Pletnev has earned considerable attention as a conductor and founder of the Russian National Orchestra – the first privately-funded orchestra in Russia since 1917. Pletnev’s concert transcriptions of music from the ballets The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty carry the art of piano transcription to a new level in the 20^th century, throwing fresh light onto the well-known music while challenging and adapting the music from one instrumental medium to another.     Anastasia Seifetdinova

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.