ballet_n00b
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How viable is the ROMANTIC/CLASSICAL distinction today?
ballet_n00b replied to bart's topic in Aesthetic Issues
So if I understand correctly, in ballet romanticism preceded classicism? This is surprising to me as in music it is the other way round. It's also funny because musically all the ballets mentioned are comfortably within the romantic period/style. Being relatively inexperienced when it comes to ballet, I never picked up on a difference in style. -
Does anyone know why she switched from Semenyaka to Grachyova? I was over the moon when I heard she (as my current favourite) would be learning from my all time favourite (Semenyaka). Shame it didn't last.
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Is Svetlana Lunkina moving to Toronto?
ballet_n00b replied to kbarber's topic in Ballet News & Issues
That's terrible! Poor Lunkina, she's one of favourites and I was hoping she'd be on the Bolshoi's upcoming tour to Australia. -
I agree; great cast and solid acting all around. I actually quite enjoy Roger's flicks w/o Fred, especially the Major and the Minor (although it's not drama). I thought her performance in Kitty Foyle was excellent. It's a bit too much of a tear-jerker for me to like unequivocally but I certainly couldn't fault Ginger. Fred and Ginger were the ne plus ultra of hollywood musicals and no other dancer (even my beloved Rita H) could match the chemistry that Rogers had with Fred. Despite his continued success later in his career, I don't think Fred ever improved on his RKO flicks and I have a general dislike for those garish MGM musicals (though I can tolerate the garishness of the Bandwagon, mainly because I have Cyd to distract me ).
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Anna Moffo did a great version of Kern's "Smoke get's in your eyes", though I'm not sure how many other show-tunes she recorded. For the most part I don't like mixture of Jazz and Classical. As far as crossover artists (classical/pop) are concerned, I can't say I've listened to many but the few I am familiar with (Maksim et al) appealed to me as much as 7 straight Andre Rieu specials.
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Lady of the Camellias - Spring 2010
ballet_n00b replied to Batsuchan's topic in American Ballet Theatre
His name is Koji Attwood and he's tremendous. I hope he starts getting better known; he deserves it. He's a great transcriber too, he did transcriptions of Schubert's Death and the Maiden and Tarrega's Recuerdos de la Alhambra which are fabulous. -
Interesting comment about the Debussy etudes, which as I'm sure you're aware aren't nearly as popular as alot of his other music (the preludes for example). I'm not particularly familiar with most of them. You're right about the RH bias in Chopin, which is why Godowsky liked to transcribe them for the LH. Chopin liked to give the LH arpeggio figures, like the "cartwheel" figurations of the E minor posthumous waltz (incidentally, I think Schumann imitated this idiosyncrasy rather well in Carnaval). Personally, I think the Preludes are Chopin's best set (Cortot's is my favourite version). Btw, I also love the E major Scherzo, Wild, Richter, Petrov and Ashkenazy all play that brilliantly although I think I like Wild the best. I also agree with what you wrote about introverts, even though people like Rubinstein were most definitely extroverts, the music is itself often introverted. As far as Argerich is concerned, I can't say that she's an artist after my own heart, I have a F minor concerto video from the 80s which she bangs out rather obnoxiously. Nor am I particularly taken by any of her early Chopin. I hate Blechacz, he plays Chopin like it's all perfumed drawing room music, his playing is also incredibly boring imo. Rubinstein I love in everything he plays, his Chopin is great but it's hardly the ne plus ultra imo. Dirac's suggestions are good especially Cortot. Ashkenazy I like better when he was young, his recordings from the Chopin Competition (where he placed 2nd) are fabulous. It includes the best 25/3 I've ever heard. Cortot is always great musically although there lots of wrong notes. There's a rather rare live etudes set from Pollini when he was 14 which is very interesting for the amazing mechanism he had at such a young age, (though unfortunately it is pitched sharp which I find irritating). I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my favourites Sergio Fiorentino and Josef Hofmann who were both great chopinists, as well as Horowitz whom I love in just about everything he played. Rachmaninoff is also amazing, the B flat sonata recording!! fabulous pianist. Ignaz Friedman's recordings are extraordinary, for example the third ballade where he plays this ascending scalar run at least TWICE as fast as every other pianist, producing an amazing effect. There's also the ending of 25/6 where he harmonises a descending double note passage in A major (basically a Neapolitan cadenza leading to the tonic G sharp minor) in the RH with an added A major scale in the LH. Beautiful. Kissin's concerti age 12, I have the video of the E minor and he was a real wonder child; ethereally beautiful, feeling the music with every ounce of his being and communicating this to the audience. Really there are so many pianists who play Chopin wonderfully, and so differently too! In any case I'll be listening to lots of Chopin come Monday.
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I quite like his Gershwin concerto (incidentally a favourite of mine), he made lots of changes in the orchestration although most are quite innocuous. His transcriptions of Gershwin and Rachmaninoff are also pretty good. He did like to play a lot of "frivolous" music but he did it well. He was always good for a quote such as "Lang Lang is the JLo of piano" and (my personal favourite) "Banging is for the bedroom".
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Music You'd Like to See as a Dance
ballet_n00b replied to fendrock's topic in Everything Else Ballet
Which pieces are including la Dame aux camelias ? It'd be interesting to see what choreography could be done to the Barcarolle (incidentally one of my fav Chopin pieces). It would have to be as written though, I don't think I could handle an orchestrated version. I have to admit though that I'm somewhat sceptical about setting the piano repetoire to dance; there was a horrendous Liszt sonata danced by Guillem and Le Riche on youtube, just the most perfunctory playing imaginable, which I hope wasn't as a result of having to "accompany" the dancers but rather the pianist's own lack of musicality. Perhaps the piece could work well, it certainly has programmatic elements to it (even if Liszt insisted there was no programme). I also saw an orchestrated version of the Schuman's Carnaval danced by Obraztsova and Shklyarov. I actually quite enjoyed the dance, Obraztsova was terribly cute. The piece itself worked rather well as a dance at times however there were instances (Paganini) where it was completely bent out of shape to accommodate the cheoreography (or was it just because of the poor orchestration?). There was also a setting of the Prokofiev 2nd which a lot of my pianist friends thought was hilarious (since removed). I agree with the suggestion of Saint Saens Danse Macabre that one would work well. I think programme music would work well in general - I'd be interested to see Ravel's Gaspard danced and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition to name a couple of examples. -
Sorry, I simply cannot take him seriously (nor, I'd imagine, can any other hardcore classical aficionados). He's only one rung above Maksim, Clayderman and Abel. His is "classical" music for the uninitiated/novice (a niche which he shrewdly exploits). If anything it's unfair to compare Somova to Rieu whom I have a feeling is rather the Lang Lang of ballet.
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This is exactly what I would like too; a comprehensive video library of the moves. I've found the fact that I speak French to be of little help when it comes to working out what the moves involve, e.g. épaulement - obviously something to do with the shoulders but beyond that I have no clue. The ABT one is pretty much what I would hope for, but comprehensive.
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ou dégoût I by no means meant that the two are mutually exclusive - of course they're not! Rather one doesn't listen to Rieu for artistry any more than one watches Somova for taste. Nor did I mean that the music itself (i.e. strauss waltzes) is inherently schmaltz, rather the setting for the music is pure kitsch. Rieu is selling an image, that's it. Some people like it, I don't.
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Who was your "first love"..as far as ballerinas go....
ballet_n00b replied to iczerman's topic in Dancers
I'm still very new to ballet, but the dancers I've been particularly taken by are Obraztsova, Vishneva, Guillem, Osipova and Nikulina. It's very depressing, however, that without youtube I wouldn't have been exposed to their art as I live in a country where major companies seldom tour (it's as if the world ends at the equator). Obraztsova is the one I'm keenest on, I'd love to see her Juliet live but I doubt that'll ever happen. -
Listening to Saint-Saëns' Le Cygne...
ballet_n00b replied to cubanmiamiboy's topic in Everything Else Ballet
Rachmaninoff's recording of this (in Siloti's transcription) is the best, so beautiful. He could really make the piano sing.