Rush Hour: Nutcracker Selection

Hear the magic of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, conducted by Maria Seletskaja, Music Director of the English National Ballet.

From the ‘Chinese Dance’ (Tea), through the ‘Trepak’, to the ‘Arabian Dance’, Tchaikovsky’s abridged score of the beloved ballet takes the audience on a magical journey with snowflakes, sweets and – of course – a Sugar Plum Fairy. Before we embark on that journey, we hear Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from his unfinished opera Prince Igor. It is largely thanks to Anatoly Lyadov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov that we can hear any of this wonderful music today; they helped Borodin orchestrate the Polovtsian Dances in just one fraught evening, using pencil (rather than waiting for ink to dry) and covering the score in liquid gelatine to protect their markings.