Annual Christmas Concert: December 8

‘Tis that time of the year again, when the twinkling sound of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy floats above your head at the supermarket and lifts your spirits. There it is in the elevator and on phone ringtones. You’ve heard it in Christmas TV ads that range from Baileys to Barclaycard and in holiday movie trailers. Everything about the music of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite says “Christmas,” even if you’ve never seen the famous ballet. 

“If ever there was a piece of music that needs no introduction, the Nutcracker Suite is it,” says Grant Harville, Great Falls Symphony Association Music Director and Conductor. 

The GFSA’s Orchestra and Symphonic Choir performance of CHRISTMAS on Dec. 8, 2024, features the Nutcracker Suite as well as holiday compositions that include Skater’s Waltz, A Symphony of Carols and Sing the Carols of Christmas—an audience sing along—as well as a special guest conductor for the traditional Sleigh Ride finale. Santa will be there too!

“Holiday programs always emphasize tradition and familiarity, reflecting many people’s desires to celebrate continuity, family and community during this time of year,” says Harville. 

While the ballet was not a success—critics in 1892 hated that the children were so prominent and the fact that the prima ballerina didn’t dance until late in the second act. The score, however, was praised for its beautiful music and the astonishing sounds the composer got from the orchestra that brought the toys and sweets to life in music that sounds like “glittering cut-glass, crystallized ginger and spun sugar.” 

Tchaikovsky used the celesta, the instrument heard in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, to get a sound like drops of water shooting from a fountain. It is a keyboard instrument whose hammers hit metal plates, similar but softer than the sounds of a glockenspiel. He had heard one in Paris in 1891, and had his publisher buy one, hoping to keep it a secret so that no other Russian would compose music for the instrument before he did.

In 1882, Émile Waldteufel, inspired by the skating rink in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne, wrote the Skater’s Waltz, filled with graceful gliding melodies and not-so-graceful crash-landing scales. Something of a French Johann Strauss, Jr., Waldteufel was a composer and bandleader whose activities focused on music for dancing and entertainment. 

The program’s carol selections come from both sides of the Atlantic. Englishman Gustav Holst, known more for his “noisemakers” like The Planets and his suites for military band, composed his stirring Christmas Day in 1910. 

Symphonic Choir Director Jon Harney will conduct the choir-only work The Little Road to Bethlehem, written by Sussex native Michael Head in 1946. This modern carol tells the story of a traveler happening to pass by Mary as she sings a lullaby to the infant Jesus. 

The two American composers featured on the program, Leroy Anderson and Randol Bass, made their names composing, conducting and arranging so-called “occasional” music meant for particular events and holidays. Anderson’s Christmas Festival, best-known for its concluding “Jingle Bells” / “O Come All Ye Faithful” mashup and the iconic Sleigh Ride were composed for the Boston Pops. Bass’s medley, A Symphony of Christmas Carols is known for its substantial and engaging orchestral writing. 

New amenities for this season’s concerts, held in the Mansfield Theater in downtown Great Falls, include the availability of beer and wine, a free coat check run by the GFSA’s Youth Orchestra, and a Maestro Lounge reception after each concert. The performance begins at 3:00pm.

Tickets for CHRISTMAS start at $49 for adults, $43 for seniors, $14 for students, and are available online at gfsymphony.org or by calling the Symphony office at 406-453-4102.

This performance of CHRISTMAS is sponsored by RBC Wealth Management; Days Inn of Great Falls; D|A|Davidson.