PerA

I don't have much info, but I have found a catalouge-entry in the music collection of the National Library in Copenhagen of a preserved set of parts (might be incomplete though) to a 'War Dance' from Roxana, that was published by Büttner in St Petersburg.

I have a number of CDs and DVD where parts/complete? of Deldevez/Minkus’ music to Paquita is recorded. However, and now for the tricky part – I just feel that all available recordings are made using an orchestration that just appears too 'modern' in my ears - to me it just never sounds like an 1846/1881-instrumentation, but more like newer re-arrangements, say, made around 1915 and later. In my collection, I also have a very short - 35 seconds - video-sequence where it appears like a different score was used, and although performed by a quite large orchestra, it sounds more like a 19th-century instrumentation then on any of the available recordings! I recently had a chance to ask one of the dancers whom appeared in the video about the music, but she could only tell that the music that was used for the recorded performance was from a tape in the possession of the company (in Ukraine), so it seems difficult to obtain any more specific information. Anybody that can share some information with regard to recordings of what with certainty is the original 1846/1881-instrumentation?

There words that go with the Sylph’s death scene have changed quite a bit over the years according to a recent publication – more recently separated into three lines, rather than two that seems to have been an earlier practice. However, what they express has remained basically unchanged over the years. Currently, the Sylph's lines are suggested to be: “You should not have done that” – “I could not help it” – “I have loved you more than anything on earth”.

I can at least share some information re the two Bournonville ballets. Like most of the Danish ballet (and other dance-related) musical heritage, it is only a very small percentage that has appeared in print for orchestra (scores and/or parts) – and many of the published piano-editions have been out-of-print for decades. However, the good news is that the Danish Royal (national) Library has made PDF-type scans of some of the published piano-editions from their Bournonville-collection available for non-commercial use at their web-site - http://www.kb.dk/index-en.htm An extensive piano-edition for La Sylphide can thus be found at http://img.kb.dk/ma/bournon/df145-01.pdf For Le Conservatoire however, only a selection for piano is available, although it includes much of the original music – at http://img.kb.dk/ma/bournon/df187-01.pdf /Per