NYCB Music Director Andrew Litton hosts a new See the Music edition of City Ballet The Podcast, exploring the score to Balanchine’s ode to classical dance, Theme and Variations. Set to the final, eponymous movement of Tschaikovsky’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, the ballet, as Litton describes, corresponds to the many shifts in tone, pace, and featured instrumentation in the piece’s twelve variations. Highlighted by piano demonstrations and anecdotes from Tschaikovsky’s letters to his benefactress, Litton provides a tour through this musical—and dance—tour de force. (15:34)

Music: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G, Op. 55 (1884) by Pyotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky