Christmas 2004

For December 2004, BBC Music mag's seasonal offering was titled Russian Christmas. In truth, it would be more appropriately called "winter" than "Christmas". The works featured are Tchaikovsky's 1st Symphony ( Winter Daydreams ), extracts from his incidental music to The Snow Maiden and Rimsky-Korsakov's suite from his opera dealing with the same tale. The performers are the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Vassily Sinaisky. Tchaikovsky's first symphony, like the first symphony of many composers, was an arduous and painstaking endeavour but one that the composer retained affection for throughout his career. The first movement seems to me the most obviously programmatic around the stated theme. As for both composers efforts on The Snow Maiden, there are wintry effects such as sleigh bells as well as vigourous and stately dances to go with the story. So, no particular Christmas content as such but these works, especially The Snow Maiden, are perennially staged in Russia over the holiday period and so have attained the Christmas linkage in much the same way as the Nutcracker for instance.