"Class Concert"

[auricoma]

Does anybody know where to get a recording of the music for Asaf Messerer's "Class Concert?"

[Mel Johnson]

Since "Class Concert" is a reworking of Messerer's earlier "Ballet School", I doubt that it has a coherent score as such. "Ballet School" had a pastiche of Chopin, various Russian composers, and Imperial Ballet musique dansant.

[bart]

The Bolshoi's performance of this a few years ago is delightful. Good luck, auricoma, in finding the music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av0ICqH_hzs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvP9qTt25D4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOeu00jZ26I&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni28DQQRjuc&feature=related

The performance is described briefly on YouTube, as follows:

This is the complete Bolshoi Ballet production of Class Concert by Asaf Messerer using music by Shostakovich, Glazunov, Rubinstein and Lyadov. The man taking bows at the end is Mikhail Messer,a relative of the choreographer and alsoa relative of Maya Plisetskaya. Mikhail Messerer is now artistic director of the Mikhailovsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, having succeeded Faroukh Ruzimatov, who decided that he was not ready to stop performing.

The leading ballerina is Svetlana Zakharova with support from Maria Alexandrova , Marianna Rhyzhkina , Svetlana Lunkina , Natalia Osipova , Ekaterina Krisanova , Dennis Matvienko and Andrei Merkuriev plus Ivan Vasiliev .

[auricoma]

Thank you Mel and bart! I actually didn't know the ballet existed until finding the Bolshoi's performance on YouTube. I really love it and would like to teach some excerpts to my students but I don't know where to find the music. I wonder if I would need to find the individual pieces and put them all together myself? The problem is, I don't even know where to begin to find any of the pieces in the ballet... If anyone knows, please help!

[ksk04]

I found some info on the music.

http://www.danzaballet.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1372

"The ballet has music by four different composers -- Anatoly Lyadov, Anton Rubinstein, Alexander Glazunov and Dmitry Shostakovich -- arranged by Alexander Tseitlin, who was the musical director of the Bolshoi School and conductor at the Bolshoi Theater. This revival adheres to the original music arrangement.

"By the way, Shostakovich was present at rehearsals when this ballet was remounted for the company in 1962," Mikhail Messerer said. "Asaf used Shostakovich's 'Romance' from the film 'Gadfly' in this production. At the time, 'Romance' was incredibly popular, as it was on the radio about five times a week. Shostakovich's music from 'Festive Overture' was used too, as well as 'Gallop' from his 'Ballet Suites.'"

So there's a start for you! What I would do next is go to Amazon or iTunes and listen to previews of mp3s from the composers and see if anything else stands out besides what Mikhail Messerer mentions above.

[auricoma]

Thank you so much, ksk04! I will start with those. :-)