44 replies to this topic

[bart]

Generally it's whatever I've seen recently, so right now it's Apollo and Carmina Burana. The tricky part is when I start to put them together...

Sounds like a fascinating combination, sandik. I am imagining two orchestras on opposite sides of the stage. The Apollo orchestra is in tails; the Carmina Burana orchestra looks like it just got home from an all-night party. They duel. The Apollo orchestra seems about to be overwhelmed, but is victorious in the end, when the Carmina Burana orchestra stops playing and just listens all the way through the apotheosis music.

Agree with Makarova Fan as to the Adagio from Spartacus; it's very hard to keep from humming along with that.

Also want to add the Hungarian variation (with the balalaika) from Raymonda.

[sandik]

Generally it's whatever I've seen recently, so right now it's Apollo and Carmina Burana. The tricky part is when I start to put them together...

Sounds like a fascinating combination, sandik. I am imagining two orchestras on opposite sides of the stage. The Apollo orchestra is in tails; the Carmina Burana orchestra looks like it just got home from an all-night party. They duel. The Apollo orchestra seems about to be overwhelmed, but is victorious in the end, when the Carmina Burana orchestra stops playing and just listens all the way through the apotheosis music.

Either that or they march through each other, like the Charles Ives, and I'm sitting on the center line.

[bart]

Sandik, I like your use of movement across big empty spaces. Much better for a ballet audience than my own static vision. Are we talking marching bands here? Possibly with diagonals, criss-crossing, and moving wheels (a la Balanchine) to reflect the complex rhythms and inevitable dissonances?

Still ... It WOULD be nice to have Apollo win in the end. Such gorgeous music.

[sandik]

Sandik, I like your use of movement across big empty spaces. Much better for a ballet audience than my own static vision. Are we talking marching bands here? Possibly with diagonals, criss-crossing, and moving wheels (a la Balanchine) to reflect the complex rhythms and inevitable dissonances?

Still ... It WOULD be nice to have Apollo win in the end. Such gorgeous music.

Oh, your vision is much better than my single pass-by! This sounds like the description of the early court ballets, with their elaborate processions and dressage!!

And since Louis XIV was the Sun King in Le Ballet de la Nuit, Apollo would have to prevail.

[Paul Parish]

The first that springs to mind is the Waltz Girl's Waltz from Serenade
Swanilda's first waltz
the entr'acte from Sylvia (o GOD, I love that)
The cancan form "Orpheus in the Underworld"
the third movement from 'Symphony in C'
'Breadcrumb Fairy' from Sleeping Beauty, and Panorama
'Simple gifts' from Appallachian Spring

[cubanmiamiboy]

When I read the title of this thread, I thought the OP meant actual "hunting melodies," as for instance the Hunters' Choruses from Der Freischutz, and Charpentier's Acteon

Maybe someone could kindly change the title of the thread to "haunting" which is what I assume it should be?

Sorry about it, Aurora. I haven't mastered the foreign language completely.

Hey Cristian - I wish I were as idiomatic (and articulate) in ANY foreign language as you are in English

[Birdsall]

I tend to have melodies haunt me when I am in the middle of listening to a ballet in preparation for a live performance. For example, I am re-watching various Bayadere videos I own in preparation for my trip to NY. So when I am walking my dog sometimes I can't get a piece out of my head. Same when I prepared for the live Coppelias in Miami. I found myself humming sections from the third act a lot!!!

[4mrdncr]

When I was small, I would hum the entire score to Swan Lake. Now, whenever I'm stressed or nervous about something, I'll find myself humming (sometimes subconsciously) the Act3 waltz of the princesses from Swan Lake. It's like a pause--a serene center--in between 4 acts of highly emotional drama and dramatic music. And therefore, it helps to calm me too.

I will add more later. Suffice it to say, I ALWAYS have ballet music in my head whether I am consciously aware or not.

[Marga]

Nothing better fits the category of haunting ballet music for me than the adagio pas de deux in Symphony in C. Every time I hear it (and my classical radio station in Toronto plays it regularly) I picture Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins dancing it. It is achingly beautiful - and the only piece of music I don't mind hearing on the radio as often as it is presented.
(On the other hand, I'd like to sneak into the station and do damage to the hunting music from Giselle, which seems to be the only Giselle music the station owns, and many other pieces that are played ad nauseum, like the Mozart used for the theme from Elvira Madigan.)

[PeggyR]

Ear worms I don't mind being haunted by:
-Swan Lake pdd from Act II violin solo
-Opening from Petrouchka
-Nutcracker Waltz of the Flowers

Ear worms I could live without:
-Sylvia Pizzicati (sp?) -- da DA da DA da DA da DADADA plink plink – that one can drive me crazy for hours
-Not a ballet, but ballet music from La Gioconda -- The Dance of the Hours – once that one starts, there’s no getting rid of it (although it does bring back fond memories of lines of double piques in ballet class many, many years ago).

Ear worm that makes no sense:
Giselle Act II when the Wilis do their arabesques sautés lines across the stage – with all the lovely music from Giselle to be haunted by, for some reason this is the one that won’t go away. It’s perfect music for that choreography, but out of context, there’s really nothing to hum, and it really goes nowhere – ARGH.

[Neryssa]

All Balanchine:
Mozart's Symphonie Concertante in E-flat major for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, K.364 - Andante
Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings - always gives me chills...
Hindemith Four Temperaments Variation 2: Sanguine
Of course: Bizet Symphony in C (2nd movement): I think of Allegra Kent and Tanaquil Le Clercq based on films that I have seen.
Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice - Of course, I can only think of Suzanne Farrell in Chaconne

[cubanmiamiboy]

Let me add more.

The Adagio/PDD from Diamonds
The entrance of the Shades
The three Shades waltz
The entrance/diagonal grand jeteed entrance of Myrtha after the Willis sliding sequence.
Giselle's Pas Seul final diagonal

[Paul Parish]

Since I've just seen Don Quixote, -- the overture (it's hilarious -- and I can't stop hearing it).
The section of Scotch Symphony where the guys in kilts stop hte hero from moving towards the Sylph
Phlegmatic
the finale of 4 Temperaments
the very sad slow gavotte/bourree that starts act 4 of Swan Lake in Ashton's version, where all the swans are grieving [and four and ONE TWO three and uh four and one and two]
"The man I love"
'Someone who'll watch over me'

[Hamorah]

Well, it's not haunting as such, more in the catchy category, but I would like to add the clog dance from Fille Mal Gardee - dadada dadada dadada dadada dum pum pum. OK I've started you all off, so altogether now - dadada dadada dadada dadada dum pum pum ad infinitum..............

[sandik]

Well, it's not haunting as such, more in the catchy category, but I would like to add the clog dance from Fille Mal Gardee - dadada dadada dadada dadada dum pum pum. OK I've started you all off, so altogether now - dadada dadada dadada dadada dum pum pum ad infinitum..............

Argh!!!!!

(this is one of my favorite pieces to have running in my head as I walk down a street, since you can sync up with it really easily. which I now will be doing for the rest of the day, thank you very much!)