Skating music you never want to hear again?

And then there are those pieces of music that a skater used and made a masterpiece like ex. Lyra Angelika.
A list of unused or rarely used classical music should be sent to people who choreograph programs and coaches.

Much of the slower music doesn't tend to help many of the skaters as well.

mwk81 said:

Sing sing sing, from ice dancing to some of the single skaters, so much sing sing sing

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agreed. also rhapsody in blue.

+Gershwin and all finnstep music

I wouldn't say I never want to hear any music again, but music I'd like to hear much less or only if they truly do something innovative with it:

Carmen
Swan Lake
Bolero
Four seasons
Rhapsody in Blue
Orchestra arrangements of pop rock songs
Phantom of the Opera
Les Mes
Chicago
West Side Story

vinganca said:

i agree with all of these...and also, phantom of the opera. and anything by Chopin.

a lot of this overplayed music i actually do like (i.e. nessun dorma), just not a zillion times.

have to say i love love LOVE when skaters do Cirque du Soleil medleys. My favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsEFv90V0TA

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Did anyone skate to "Nessun Dorma" this year?

On the Other Hand, Vannesa-Mae Storm based on Vivaldi's Summer From the 4 seasons is an awesome piece of music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOSIAKbXzE8

Scheherazade, Swan Lake and Carmen.

This! http://youtu.be/mpnFyNpczsE

And Carmen!!

I'd love to hear a Toro Amos song. Almost any of them!! Lindsey Sterling has amazing music that would be good for a SP too.

It's not so much that I wouldn't want to hear these pieces skated to again. It's that I'd love to see the choreographers and coaches find other pieces. There are so many rich works in the classical repertoire that remain unexplored, as well as more modern and popular works. (I worry, though, that we might end up with way too many movie sound tracks, and many of them sound generic even if they haven't been used previously.)

Lori Nichol used to be great at finding unusual music for Michelle, including Dvorak's chamber work the Dumky Trio and of course Lyra Angelica. Lately she too has stuck to warhorses, it seems. But there's heaps of other chamber music that is stunning, with splendid melodies and great variety of rhythms. Then there are orchestral works by the warhorse composers that are never looked at. For example, Rimsky-Korsakov's operas contain a lot of orchestral sections of stunning beauty, and Bizet has at least one symphony. Chopin has two piano concertos that I can recall offhand. Rachmaninof has three symphonies and a ravishing cello sonata.

Ice dance has less choice available, at least for the short program, because of the rhythm requirements, so I try to be more tolerant. But thanks in great part to Marina Zoueva, there's now a lot more range possible for the free dance. for example, I know a lot of people thought that the Glazunov music that Tessa and Scott used for their free dance was a bit subdued, but I disagree. If she had wanted to pump it up, I suppose she could have used the full orchestral arrangement. The rapid section at the end of V/M's program is quite full-blooded when it gets going, and Glazunov also had a lot of other ballet music, tone poems, and orchestral pieces to choose from.

Then, in the Spanish and Spanish-sounding repertoire (I differentiate because Carmen was composed by a Frenchman), there's a whole passel of music by Albeniz and Manuel de Falla, for example.

I know I keep bringing these up whenever music choice is discussed. Maybe hope springs eternal.

no more Carmen, Swan Lake, or Les Miserables...

raatkirani said:

carmen!!!! So sick of it! Swan lake is a close second, followed by scheherazade.

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this.

Sam-Skwantch said:

Lindsey Sterling has amazing music that would be good for a SP too.

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I think Lindsey Stirling would have to be a medley/compliation of 2-3 different songs in order for the program to have enough variety; I really like her music a lot but most of her songs sound similar from beginning to end. I would love to see someone skate to her Zelda medley! In a Link costume, of course.

Olympia said:

Then, in the Spanish and Spanish-sounding repertoire there's a whole passel of music by Albeniz and Manuel de Falla, for example.

I know I keep bringing these up whenever music choice is discussed. Maybe hope springs eternal.

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Falla is one of my favorite composers. How about this for a SP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auRUxPPqDcQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=35

And practically anything from El Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat)

Puchi said:

Falla is one of my favorite composers. How about this for a SP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auRUxPPqDcQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=35

And practically anything from El Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat)

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Oh, yeah! Can you imagine the footwork possible with the Ritual Fire Dance?

Have you ever seen that wonderful Carlos Saura flamenco movie with Antonio Gades of El Amor Brujo? Splendid.

Olympia said:

Oh, yeah! Can you imagine the footwork possible with the Ritual Fire Dance?

Have you ever seen that wonderful Carlos Saura flamenco movie with Antonio Gades of El Amor Brujo? Splendid.

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Yes! Someone has to use this music in a skating program. The upper body choreo is already there ( Look at those arms!)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L18b3UQQ49I&feature=player_detailpage

Swan

The ISU needs to pick ten pieces of music after each Olympics and declare a moratorium on them for the next quad. I would start the practice with the following:

Swan Lake (perhaps a 2 quad moratorium on that)
Romeo & Juliet (It is not a time for you or us anymore, just time to stop using that music)
Bolero (Let's be honest, how many skaters have really pulled it off?)
Tosca (Again, maybe 2 quads?)
Carmen (Maybe 3?)
Anything from Les Mis (I might make an exception if someone used "Master of the House" with vocals...but let's stop bringing him home or being on your own...and I LOVE that show)
Anything from Phantom
Scheherazade
Tango de Roxanne
Firebird

Swan Lake needs to stop. People use the same music cuts over and over again. Also Scheherzade is almost getting to carmen levels of overuse...

Carmen...It's so hard to see Carmen like a russian soldier.

vinganca said:

can I say what I'd like to hear MORE of in skating programs? Baroque music! there is SO much music from that era (mid-late 1600's - 1750) that is stunningly gorgeous.

I adore the four seasons and could never get tired of it, but it's not the only masterpiece by Vivaldi! Why not use parts of the b minor concerto for 4 violins, or stanzas from his La Follia? Same with Bach - he wrote more and far better music than Air on a G string; why is that the only Bach piece skaters think of to use?

And there is so much by other Baroque composers - the dance music from Rameau's operas and the Passacaille d'Armide by Lully for example.

the only reasons I can think of why skaters don't use this music is maybe they don't know about it, or perhaps because it is more rhythmic than Romantic-era music (Chopin, Saint-Saens, Rachmaninoff, etc.), even during lilting legato melody-driven lines the sense of beat is always there in Baroque music, so you have to be more exact regarding timing.

There is a lot of Baroque music that probably wouldn't be suitable because it repeats too much and/or doesn't build to a crescendo at the end, but there are quite a few compositions from this era that don't present those problems and would make great skating music.

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I COMPLETELY AGREE!! I love Baroque music too!