Dormant Beauty

This two-disc set marks the beginning of a new project devoted to Tchaikovsky's ballet scores. We start the survey with the complete score of The Sleeping Beauty, recorded on SACD. Swan Lake and The Nutcracker will follow in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Tchaikovsky was approached by the Director of the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, in 1888 about a possible ballet adaptation of Charles Perrault's La Belle au bois dormant (The Sleeping Beauty).

The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande is a Swiss symphony orchestra, based in Geneva at the Victoria Hall. In addition to symphony concerts, the OSR performs as the opera orchestra in productions at the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

Originally, it was a four-hand piano work composed by Maurice Ravel for the son and daughter of friends - inspired by Charles Perrault's collection of fairy tales "My Mother the Goose". When the time came, however, the two children did not dare to give the first performance. Ma mère l'oye" was not quite so simple and small after all. The piano piece later became an orchestral work and even a ballet. Florian Heurich talked to conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin about the work - and about the child's soul that adults need for this music.