The repertoire of any ballet company always has three performances penned by the same author Pyotr Il"yich Tchaikovsky. These are Swan Lake (1877), The Sleeping Beauty (1889), and The Nutcracker (1892). Today, these works are well known to the whole world, but in Tchaikovsky s time they ushered in a new era of the Russian ballet. Tchaikovsky was one of the first Russian composers who turned to the genre of ballet, adding a self-reliant artistic value to the music. This Firma Melodiya program features music performed by the USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra lead by prominent conductor Evgeny Svetlanov. The wealth of Tchaikovsky s scores, performed by the celebrated orchestra, allows the listeners to become immersed in the magical world of the characters of Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker!