WOW *ORIGINAL*1955* Dorati TCHAIKOVSKY NUTCRACKER

$

25

Highly collectible.  Rare find!  The Nutcracker Ballet complete OP 71 by Tchaikovsky,  The Minneapolis symphony Orchestra conducted by  Antal Dorati.  This is the original 1955(1954?) release by Mercury Records  2 record set, complete with story booklet. Fine Fairchild Margin control. OL-2-101

The Case For Collecting
Monophonic LPs

Review By Leonard Norwitz

The Nutcracker

Family-size album of 12.5 x 14.3 inches, with the Christmas candy- stripe cover and the spine edge string that barely holds on to the booklet. Released in 1955, it was the first complete LP set of Tchaikovsky's dazzling score.  [The popularity of the familiar suites, derived mostly from the second act, has led many to think that The Nutcracker Suite is the same thing as The Nutcracker, even after attending a full-length production of the ballet.]

Mercury's was the first recording that fully followed the composer's indications for untraditional instrumentation, including children's toy instruments and an actual gunshot. (Mr. T does love those things that go bang.)  The project generated considerable excitement in the company--musicians, engineers, and designers alike. The result is a classic, and one not easy to find in mint condition, either in the original dynamic MF or the more refined FR pressing. At least the performance is available on CD.

The key to interpreting The Nutcracker is to convey its childlike innocence and magical wonder while maintaining the basic kinetic energy of the ballet.  Tchaikovsky was already beginning to explore more dramatic sweeps in his Sleeping Beauty (1889), but there was nothing in nineteenth-century ballet to quite prepare us for the likes of the Nutcracker's battle with the armies of the mouse king in the first act.

Teachers of music appreciation like to distinguish between "program" and "absolute" music, offering Berlioz and Liszt as exemplars — as much because they were said to write symphonies that didn't follow the "rules" of symphonic construction as that their music was especially evocative. Prior to Swan Lake (1877), ballet music was merely danceable, not all that suggestive of the image. Composers were able to get the mood of the thing, but not necessarily the visual. Tchaikovsky, in his three ballets, changed the course of dance theatre forever.  There are stretches where our imaginations are compelled to visualize the action, whether we have seen it in the flesh or not.  From his three great ballets, and not least The Nutcracker (1892), it isn't far to Stravinsky's The Firebird, Petrouchka and Le Sacre (1909-13), and eventually to Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet (1935).

Most of us have seen at least one production of this ballet.  The music is so associated with images from Balanchine to Disney that all we have to do is close our eyes to be swept away to fantasy-land.  No other ballet has quite that currency. Tchaikovsky was said to be famously unfond of his offspring; but what did he know? He was just one year short of being a dead man. Not even Stravinsky's elegant Firebird or primal Rite of Spring has such a connection to our collective visual memory.  In my view, The Nutcracker, in its ability to connect danceable music with visual drama, easily and directly presages everything from Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet to Disney's Fantasia.

[An aside regarding Romeo: The Kirov Ballet shelved the project that the company itself had commissioned, and the Bolshoi dismissed Prokofiev's score as undanceable. It was premiered in 1938 by a lesser company in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and eventually staged by the Kirov in early 1940, the same year that saw the release of Fantasia.  While Prokofiev failed to capture Disney's imagination then or in 2000, the idea that symphonic music might have compelling visual cues was not lost, and I think it's fair to say that Fantasia is the first important example of abstract dance in cinema.]

Dorati recorded this score twice with Mercury — the 1955 mono with Minneapolis, and ten years later in stereo (released simultaneously in mono, as pictured above) with the London Symphony — and yet again in stereo with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw on Philips. Each of these has distinctive qualities, but they are three best Nutcrackers on record.

Also-

Per ebay music board "professiorbooknoodle" says:
"Mercury's Olympian Series was very highly regarded at the time, and represents a signature event in recording history, and especially in the history of Mercury. Mercury issued fine quality recordings using a single microphone to record the entire orchestra .... The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Antal Dorati, was especially well-regarded. In this series the Minneapolis Symphony made the first ever complete recordings of Tchaikovsky's Ballets, including Nutcracker. In fact it is because of the Olympian Series that mercury started using the phrase "Living Presence (this was from a N. Y. Times review in which a critic praised the recording as "being in the living presence of the orchestra" .

Thanks professor!

CONDITION: I do not own a turntable and hence, I have not played them.  I am not an expert either so I am going to describe them to you as best as possible.  The cover is in  good condition with fading on the spine, to the cord that hold the booklet.  There is one bump to the from lower corner, minor scuffs and dulling to both the font and back boards.  A spot of dirt or two. The paper record slips are tanned.  There is a small split in the spine.

The records themselves appear to be in VERY VERY good condition. They were stored in plastic sleeves. They have been played as there is minor evidence at one of the holes on the paper label.  The labels are in excellent condition.  I have taken many pic of the records.  In natural light they appear in excellent condition.  At different angles there is some MINOR scuffing or dulling  It was almost impossible to photo and my pics show scuffs in angles that make them appear exaggerated.  I twisted and turned to get angles that highlight scuffing/dulling.

I ran my fingers over areas that looked scuffed and no scratches can be felt.

BEAUTIFUL!!!!!  SUPER CONDITION!

Great XMAS gift!

NO RESERVE!

Please review my pics and ask questions.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!