"The Nutcracker" Complete Ballet Score for Solo Piano: A Great Holiday Gift for Pianists

Perhaps you've long-ago grown tired of hearing the score to Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" year after year around the holidays that never seems to wane in popularity with local ballet productions both professional and dreadful. Most of you reading have likely only heard the ballet's score in the long-standing "Nutcracker Suite" (eight of the not-necessarily-best pieces from the score selected by Tchaikovsky himself in 1893) or, outside of seeing live ballet productions, two-CD box sets of the complete score. And all those have probably been heard with an originally-intentioned full orchestra. But you probably haven't known that back when the ballet was first written--Tchaikovsky asked his close friend, pupil (and overly harsh critic) Sergei Taneyev to write a piano transcription of the entire score to be used for rehearsals in ballet schools. Taneyev understood Tchaikovsky's musical sensibilities better than anyone--and (while possessing superhuman technical ability on the piano)--managed to transcribe every note of the amazing score to "The Nutcracker" into an approximately 176-page book for piano. It was originally published only in Russia in 1892 not long after the ballet premiered to lukewarm response.