Show host Irving Deakin talks (via transcription so he can "attend only production of Gissele with its two greatest living interpreters") about composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky on the centennial of his birth. Deaking recounts the composer's difficult early life and upbringing adding, "for life like his soul was an open book. Emotional, nervous, highly stung, his heart was frequenty on his sleeve. But it was a big heart, and human heart..." And for the first time on WQXR, he plays excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Theme and Variations (from Suite no. 3 in G major, opus 55, a work a work rarely heard in American concert halls or radio.

Deakin discusses Tchaikovsky's music for the ballet Casse Noisette (The Nutcracker or Shchelkunchik) and plays recorded ballet musical excerpts preceeded by a summary and commentary. Deakin also provides critical commentary on the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo's spring 1940 season at the Metropolitan Opera House. His focus is on the new work, Nuages by Nini Theilade set to Claude Debussy's Clouds. Nuages from his Nocturnes and George Balanchine's Baiser de la fée.

Deakin also comments on the Russian ballerina and actress Irina Baronova as a street dancer in Leonide Massine's Le beau Danube and as a doll in Michel Fokine's Petrouchka. He concludes by talking about Alicia Markova in Frederick Ashton's Devil's holiday.

(total ca. 39 min.).

Audio courtesy of the NYPL Dance Division.

WNYC archives id: 152560