Track Listing

1. Nutcracker Suite - Tchaikovsky
2. Christmas Eve Suite - Rimsky-Korsakov
3. Nutcracker: Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy - Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
4. Nutcracker: Russian Dance - Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
5. Nutcracker: Arabian Dance - Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
6. Nutcracker: Chinese Dance - Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
7. Nutcracker: Dance of the Toy Trumpets - Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
8. Nutcracker: Waltz of the Flowers - Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
9. Nutcracker: Finale - Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
10. Christmas Eve: Introduction - Igor Golovschin
11. Christmas Eve: Procession of the Comet - Igor Golovschin
12. Christmas Eve: Devil's Dance - Igor Golovschin
13. Christmas Eve: Vakula Woos Oksana/Polonaise - Igor Golovschin
14. Christmas Eve: Ovsyen and Kolyada - Igor Golovschin
15. Christmas Eve: Vakula and Oksana - Igor Golovschin

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12336 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 65 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The actress Prunella Scales is the narrator on this Naxos release which is unashamedly aimed at the children's Christmas market. Two seasonal works fill 64 minutes--Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and Rimsky-Korsakov's Christmas Eve Suite. Scales is rather a plummy mother. Her elegant diction comes from a bygone dinner-party era. She sounds kind and warm but also somewhat distant as if she were the sort to employ a third party actually to bring the children up. One imagines her obedient junior audience demurely sitting in rows, not making a sound, restraining themselves even as the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" twinkles magically from the speakers. Children may find this lap-forbidding. Nikolai Gogol wrote the story for Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Christmas Eve. A blacksmith fools the devil, obtains a pair of the Empress' slippers and wins the initially reluctant hand of the prettiest girl in town. Rimsky-Korsakov's music is more incidental to, and dependant on, the story than Tchaikovsky's, which may be performed without. Michael Halasz conducts the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in the Tchaikovsky, Igor Golovschin the Moscow Symphony Orchestra in the Rimsky-Korsakov. All very charming in a children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard sort of way. --Rick Jones

Customer Reviews

A civilising experience
It's true that the narration style of Prunella Scales is cool and restrained, but that is entirely in keeping with the tone of her script. The music sparkles, and The Nutcracker is full of memorable tunes that children warm to. Can it hold up against all the competition for kids' attention at Christmas? I think it probably can.