Suite from The Nutcracker

The seventh piece in the concert, entitled Suite from The Nutcracker, was arranged by James Curnow (see below) in 1987.

The Nutcracker is an 1892 two-act classical ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The plot is an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not initially as successful as the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier.

Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight of the pieces from the ballet before the ballet’s December 1892 première, forming The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite was first performed, under the composer's direction, on March 19, 1892 at an assembly of the Saint Petersburg branch of the Musical Society. The suite became instantly popular, with almost every number encored at its premiere, while the complete ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after the George Balanchine staging became a hit in New York City in 1954.

The suite became very popular on the concert stage, and was excerpted in Disney's Fantasia, omitting the two movements prior to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the Nutcracker Suite made by the composer:

I. Miniature Overture (B-Flat Major)

II. Characteristic Dances

a. March (G Major)

b. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy (E Minor)

c. Russian Dance (Trepak) (G Major)

d. Arabian Dance (coffee) (G Minor)

e. Chinese Dance (tea) (B-Flat Major)

f. Dance of the Reed Flutes (Mirlitons) (D Major)

III. Waltz of the Flowers (D Major)

The suite we are performing includes all eight of the pieces from the ballet which Tchaikovsky selected for that suite, but they have been shortened for programmatic reasons and the keys have been changed to suit the instruments of the concert band.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893) was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Arranger James Curnow (b. 1943) is currently a resident of Nicholasville, Kentucky. He composes and arranges full time and is an educational consultant and composer for Curnow Music Press, Inc. of Lexington, Kentucky. Curnow is also Composer-in-Residence Emeritus at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky.

Mr. Curnow also serves as Editor of USA South Music Publications for The Salvation Army USA Southern Territory in Atlanta, Georgia, and a member of

The Salvation Army, Lexington, KY.

His formal training was received at Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan) and at Michigan State University (East Lansing, Michigan), where he was an euphonium student of Leonard Falcone and a conducting student of Dr. Harry Begian. Mr. Curnow has taught in all areas of instrumental music, both on the public school level (five years) and college-university level (27 years).

In 1974, he received the Outstanding Educator of America Award and the National Band Association’s Citation of Excellence in 1980. In 1985, while a tenured Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Mr. Curnow was honored as an outstanding faculty member.

As a conductor-clinician-composer, Curnow has traveled throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe where his music has received wide acclaim. He has won several awards for band compositions.

Curnow has been commissioned to compose over 200 works for band and various ensembles, including brass band. Mr. Curnow’s published works now number over 400 and include numerous compositions published for Brass Band through Salvation Army Publications and other publishers in Europe and the United States.

The music for Suite from The Nutcracker was purchased for the band by Barbara and David Cotton.