Building a Cornerstone Collection.

This is the first in a series of columns devoted to the best in new or recent CD's of music that was written for, or used for, dance. An outstanding recording of, say, Swan Lake, can act on our imaginations and call up the pleasure of a live performance even better than any videotape. Whether you are starting or adding to a CD collection, the following recordings of essential dance music will be its cornerstone.

I start with one of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty because, for many balletgoers, Tchaikovsky's scores are quintessential dance music--richly and colorfully scored, wonderfully melodic, filled with rhythmic and dramatic variety--and Sleeping Beauty is his grandest ballet score--structurally sound and emotionally temperate from first note to last, a beautiful dream lasting nearly three hours. It can be considered the first "modern" ballet, for it went beyond accompanying to serve, guide, shape, and extend the choreography at every moment. I recommend the excellent performance of the complete score by the Kirov Orchestra (Philips 434 922-2), led by Valery Gergiev, musical director of the Maryinsky Theater and already internationally renowned as a dynamic interpreter of opera. There is hardly a bar of music that sounds routine, although occasional passages find Gergiev's approach too energetic; the charming eighteenth-century-style dances for the Prince's entourage in Act II, for example, lack a certain courtly poise. Vigor and drive, rather than serenity and amplitude, are the hallmarks of this Beauty.

Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky's first ballet, is a more problematic score. Premiered in Moscow in 1877, it has become familiar to audiences in versions sometimes very different from the original. What we hear in the theater today often contrasts even with the revised score prepared for the ballet's 1895 St. Petersburg revival, choreographed by Petipa and Ivanov, that has come to stand for the "authentic" Swan Lake. The problem is that the frequent repositioning, omission, and substitution of individual numbers within the score have made Swan Lake something of an insolvable puzzle. (Why, for instance, did the music now used for the Black Swan Pas de Deux originally occur in Act I?) This profoundly expressive score may never make total, organic musical sense. The recording by Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony (London 436 212-2) is recommended because it contains all the music that Tchaikovsky wrote for the Moscow premiere and his own subsequent additions, including the number Balanchine set for his Tschaikovsy Pas de Deux. There may be other performances that match Dutoit's in theatrical flair, but none is as complete or as magnificently played and vibrantly recorded.

For The Nutcracker (1982), the final and probably most-performed Tchaikovsky ballet, it's back to Gergiev and his Kirov Orchestra (Philips 289 462 114-2). Theirs is a performance for those who think they know this music only too well; under Gergiev, the music sounds new again and delights and excites us as it should. Only once, at the end of the Waltz of the Flowers, does the conductor indulge in an unwritten, unnecessary, and ineffective change of tempo, marring an otherwise thrilling achievement. Generally fast tempi and several skipped repeats enabled Philips to fit the entire work on one CD instead of the usual two, making this version something of a bargain as well.

Speaking of bargains, Deutsche Grammophon has issued a low-priced, two-CD set (DG 435085-2) that contains most of Stravinsky's great ballets--Le Sacre du Printemps, The Firebird, Petrouchka, Pulcinella, and Jeu de Cartes--outstandingly performed by Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra. A taut, intense Sacre, an overwhelmingly beautiful and forceful suite from Firebird, witty and incisive readings of Jeu de Cartes and Pulcinella, and a gripping Petrouchka testify to both Stravinsky's and Abbado's powers as men of the theater. The recordings, all made around twenty years ago, sound stunningly transparent and immediate.

For Stravinsky's own conducting of his towering music, there's Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky: The Mono Years 1952-1955 (Sony MH2K-63325). Don't be put off by this set's dry, but decent, monaural sound; Stravinsky's conducting of his own works has a distinct clarity, pulse, and tension, and these are exciting performances (with the Cleveland Orchestra) of Pulcinella, Symphony in C, the suite from L'Histoire du Soldat, and the Octet for Wind Instruments. Perhaps the most valuable item here is the complete Baiser de la Fee, Stravinsky's rewriting of, and tribute to, Tchaikovsky; although it is one of the most touching and eloquent of ballet scores, Baiser is rarely heard in its entirety.

Bernstein Century: Copland (Sony 63082) is part of a major series of reissued Sony Classical recordings by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic; this disc contains the full Appalachian Spring, as well as suites from Billy the Kid and Rodeo. Bernstein had a special affinity for twentieth-century music, and these are straightforward, animated renditions of these lovely and popular works.

Edward Willinger is a contributing editor of Dance Magazine.