Classical Music, Poetry and stuff

[Stavros]

Maya Plisetskaya has died at the age of 89. She was one of the finest ballerinas of the last 100 years and established her reputation during and after the Stalinist period which saw her father shot in the Terror of 1936 and her mother shipped off to the Gulag. Her family was Jewish a fact which worked against her as she was a member of the Bolshoi company but prevented from touring outside the country until the Khruschchev period. She excited an adulation that only Russians can shower on their favourites, and at a famous performance of Swan Lake in 1956 the KGB were ordered into the Bolshoi to intimidate the audience from showing their approval of this magical dancer. At the end of the first interval the audience went berserk, leading the KGB to grab people by the scruff of their necks and haul them out of the theatre, though by the end the applause was so ecstatic they gave up. She never defected, but became an international ambassador for Russian ballet though died in Munich where she lived with her composer husband Rodio Shchedrin. She was tall, at 5 foot 9 inches, with size ten feet which may have given her the lift which set her apart from her contemporaries. In the film below she dances Ravel's Bolero, created for her by Maurice Bejart when she was 50 years old in 1975 -this is typical Bejart, the constant movement (she doesn't stop moving once in the entire ballet) in which one dancer becomes enmeshed with the ensemble, and it a fitting tribute, I think, to a phenomenal dancer.

[eded]

Fine Arts are the Jewel of the Pangea Spirit.

[runningdownthatdream]

Resurrecting this thread again so some of the newer members who came for discussion could contribute..........I think this belongs here:

[runningdownthatdream]

Resurrecting this thread again so some of the newer members who came for discussion could contribute..........I think this belongs here:

[hamdasl]

Try Telemann. He was a virtuoso recorder player.

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks for reviving this thread .I'm a fan of early music and instruments too:



As well as 'resonant' music bringing new life to ancient instruments.

[runningdownthatdream]

Thanks for reviving this thread .I'm a fan of early music and instruments too:



As well as 'resonant' music bringing new life to ancient instruments.

Excellent......we share similar musical tastes....and even as specific as central Asian stuff. You might like these:


I want to walk on the steppes one day while listening to this.......like listening to the traditional El condor Pasa played on flute only while on the train from Cuzco to Aguas Caliente at the foot of Macchu Picchu

[Stavros]

Jessye Norman has died at the age of 74. She was one of the finest singers of her generation, though she did not in fact perform opera as much as her contemporaries or the generation slightly before here, in particular Leontyne Price whose voice range is probably closest to hers. I did see her at Covent Garden sing Ariadne in the opera by Richard Strauss, Ariadne auf Naxo, and can still remember those soaring resplendent tones rising from the depth -one of the hardest roles Strauss composed. It is a notoriously difficult opera to stage as it asks a tragedy and farce to be performed simultaneously, but they got it right that evening as Jessye/Ariadne reached a level of perfection of singing rarely heard on any stage.

The BBC in its broadcasts has been playing her Countess from Mozart's Figaro but this was not a role suited to her -it is suited to a lighter toned soprano-, whereas she was better in the heavier roles for Strauss and Wagner and thus had a different repertoire from Price who in her time was the outstanding Aida, though both also exalted in gospel music, and had a wide repertoire.
74 is a young age, and though I think she had stopped singing, she will be remembered not just for that fabulous, fabulous voice, but also her deep humanity, her commitment to the politics of liberation, and above all the use of her art to improve the quality of the lives of all, whoever they are, from wherever they have come from. Such talent is rare, it must be cherished, as it will be in the memory and recordings. Some of which are here- (first link is with orchestra not piano)