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I don't mind people disagreeing with me, although it does disappoint me when they cannot produce an argument to explain why. What does mystify me is why people with no real interest in classical music, poetry or the arts would open posts in a thread devoted to it merely to poke fun at it. Not least because it isn't funny.
Oh no! I've been SCHOOLED by Stavros!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I recently bought a dvd of the Royal Ballet's performance of Mayerling, the full-length, 3 Act ballet created by Kenneth MacMillan in 1978. Hailed by some as a masterpiece the ballet has some great moments that reflect Macmillan's strengths and some poor moments which reflect his weaknesses. The most obvious weakness is the music of Franz Liszt, tepid and insipid, lacking in focus, it serves to provide the dancers something to dance to, but in itself lacks the qualities one finds in the great ballet scores by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. Dramatically, it is another tale of doomed love, albeit based on real events. Crown Prince Rudolph of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is besieged in Acts 1 and 2 by Hungarian nationalist friends of his, and this is supposed to contribute to Rudolph's 'bad boy' image given his addiction to morphine and infidelity, but they make no appearance in Act 3 so their appearance at all makes no sense -indeed, this ought really to be a two-act ballet as it also includes scenes which last a few minutes in order to flesh out a story which, at its core, involves just two lovers and the world that they are trying to escape from.
Macmillan's strength in the choreography of the pas-de-deux is seen three times, in the Act 1 pas-de-deux between Rudolph and his wife, and the Acts 2 and 3 pas-de-deux with his lover Mary, as seen here in the Act 2 scene when they first make love, taken from a Hungarian performance (some of Covent Garden's youtube extracts are blocked in some countries on copyright grounds).
Tamás Solymosi in Mayerling 2nd act - YouTube
Another Macmillan ballet, this one a beautifully realised short piece in full with the superb American dancer Amanda McKerrow. I love Prokofiev's violin concerto but think Macmillan should have used different music or asked for an original score. First performed in London in 1972, and is described thus on the Macmillan website:
Triad graphically portrays the intensities of adolescence and yet again MacMillan created an ‘outsider’ figure, one left behind. There are three central characters, two brothers and a girl. Her arrival disrupts the very intense relationship between the brothers. The elder tries to impress the girl and cynically pushes his junior into the clutches of a gang of young toughs (with whom the girl arrived) who beat him up. He then has a dalliance with the Eve-like newcomer. Driven by resentments he can barely understand the younger brother lashes out. But dawning sexuality has undone childhood sweetness. The elder has been swept across the threshold of eroticism and the younger must wait outside.
Prokofiev - Triad - YouTube
One of my favorite music/poetry combinations is Sir John Gielguld reciting the poetry of Aloysius Bertrand that inspired Maurice Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit" . Stunning combination of piano and the spoken word.
Ravel Gaspard de la Nuit - Gina Bachauer & John Gielguld - YouTube
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspard_de_la_Nuit_(book)
Thank you for the link, unfortunately I think it is mistake and that the juxtaposition of words and music in this case does not work, although it does confirm that Ravel's music is superior to Bertrand's poetry.
Thanks Stavros , interesting observation.
For me , it is the juxtaposition of the moods that the poetry and music evoke . Sorry that link doesn't work. I'll try another.
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit -- Robert Casadesus, John Gielgud - YouTube-
The previous link worked well. It is just one of those things, there is a programme on BBC Radio 3 on Sundays called Words and Music which alternates between the two and often with great effect, I have been introduced to both words and music I had not previously known.
Too slow! It is a dance, not a funeral march.Quote:
Originally Posted by eded
I saw Natalia Osipova in Swan Lake this week, and I must say that in all the years I have spent watching outstanding dancers, I have rarely seen Odette/Odile danced with such a magical combination of physical expertise and poetry. She is even better than the hype.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsSALaDJuN4
Fine Arts are the Jewel of the Pangea Spirit.
Resurrecting this thread again so some of the newer members who came for discussion could contribute..........I think this belongs here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OMh0u-ir9w
Try Telemann. He was a virtuoso recorder player.
Thanks for reviving this thread .I'm a fan of early music and instruments too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FysO3inyM18
As well as 'resonant' music bringing new life to ancient instruments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4BJ3wng6Mk
Excellent......we share similar musical tastes....and even as specific as central Asian stuff. You might like these:Quote:
Originally Posted by sukumvit boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTMJ...eature=related
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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew-bu4bBC7k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYev...eature=related
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)