Question about music choices in Figure Skating

[4everchan]

Thank you both for recommending Jeff's program!
I originally thought it would probably work if you mix some Chopin and early Scriabin but a Wagner-Bach-Scriabin-Schönberg medley would never click for me. But it turned out not bad at all with Jeff's interpretation. I think it's probably 1) the skating diverts my attention from the music edit; 2) Glenn Gould's calm interpretation to some extent unifies the style.
I wonder if the theme and/or music was picked by David Wilson as many of Jeff's programs.

regarding jeff's program : i am pretty sure that whoever picked the music was inspired by the soundtrack of the movie 32 short films about glenn gould : in other words, the musicologist work was already done for them

re music cuts : that's a huge issue for me... let's not get into it... even the best editors sometimes kill it for me... i have so many pet peeves about it, but this is why i said : nowadays, I have learned that if I want to experience the best music, i just listen to music... i love figure skating, and i admit that i was drawn to the sport because, as a young musician, i thought it was wonderful to see athletes skate to music... but now, i am no longer expecting the best music to be picked by the best skaters without intrusive music cuts....

thankfully, the sport has evolved a lot from the 90s.... when we would find hideous costumes and music worse than a mix tape prepared by a 10 years old

I am going to end here by saying a big thank you to Torville and Dean who skated to ONE piece of music only : Bolero... Even with the edits. If i understood clearly, they were the first to do that. This is usually what I prefer in figure skating, ONE PIECE of music programs... otherwise, i get distracted by all the different parts put together... unless, in rare exceptions, it's done properly.

 

[FelineFairy]

I am going to end here by saying a big thank you to Torville and Dean who skated to ONE piece of music only : Bolero... Even with the edits. If i understood clearly, they were the first to do that.

This is the first programme using one piece of music. West Side story, Irina Moiseeva/Andrei Minenkov. Coached by young Tarasova. Loved by the audiences, not accepted by the judges.

Irina Moiseeva & Andrey Minenkov. WEST SIDE STORY. 1977-1978

1st place at the European Figure Skating Championships. Strasbourg. 1978. FD. WEST SIDE STORY.

youtu.be

 

[el henry]

This is the first programme using one piece of music. West Side story, Irina Moiseeva/Andrei Minenkov. Coached by young Tarasova. Loved by the audiences, not accepted by the judges.

Irina Moiseeva & Andrey Minenkov. WEST SIDE STORY. 1977-1978

1st place at the European Figure Skating Championships. Strasbourg. 1978. FD. WEST SIDE STORY.

youtu.be

I enjoyed watching that, but I'm afraid I would have to disagree that it is the same concept as Bolero. The program appears to be perhaps an overture to West Side Story. I heard snippets of "Tonight", "Maria", maybe "America", maybe "the Jet's Song"? in any event, at least five different pieces of music.

I would agree five or six songs from one musical is a step up from the truly bad music cuts of 70s and early 80's ice dance. But I think Leonard Bernstein would be the first to say that several songs from West Side Story together, even in an overture, was not one continuous piece of music like Bolero. T&D truly innovated with that program.

 

[4everchan]

This is the first programme using one piece of music. West Side story, Irina Moiseeva/Andrei Minenkov. Coached by young Tarasova. Loved by the audiences, not accepted by the judges.

Irina Moiseeva & Andrey Minenkov. WEST SIDE STORY. 1977-1978

1st place at the European Figure Skating Championships. Strasbourg. 1978. FD. WEST SIDE STORY.

youtu.be

this is totally not what I am talking about as @el henry has mentioned, there are a lot of different parts from West Side Story in this program... it's just the same as putting a 30 minute Rachmaninoff concerto in 4 minutes... or mixing it in with let's say a Rachmaninoff piano piece or the cello sonata (Chan had a program like that)... what I am talking about is ONE continuous piece of music.... in the example you are giving, there are so many tempo changes, instrumentation changes (sometimes the piano is very obvious.. other parts have no piano at all)... Torville and Dean were revolutionary because Bolero's is clearly one piece of music, with the same tempo. Much easier to do in singles nowadays as ice dance require a change of tempo... but still Piper and Paul managed the last two FD to keep one piece of music including changes of tempo... Je suis malade by Weaver and Poje is also a good example of how it can be done (even if the song is not my forte)....

 

[Penny]

Yup... Jeffrey Buttle in his Tribute to Glenn Gould program uses one of Schoenberg 6 small piano pieces in his LP. And some of Schoenberg's music is very appropriate for skating... so who knows (like Verklärte Nacht)

Beautiful use of the music.

 

[FelineFairy]

I totally agree that the Bolero was a masterpiece and a revolution. The West Side Story was, however, a huge step on the way from the programmes of the time to the Bolero. Torvill and Dean spoke of Moiseeva and Minenkov in their autobiography as of pioneers. Here is a quotation: " Moiseeva and Minenkov in particular were the ones Jayne and I both really admired. They were the most artistic couple, not simply relying on high-energy routines, which the majority of skaters did at the time. They were the ones who began turning ice dancing into more of an art form, which - later on - was precisely what we strived to do. They were the pioneers, though; the ones who first dared to be overtly expressive".

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

I totally agree that the Bolero was a masterpiece and a revolution. The West Side Story was, however, a huge step on the way from the programmes of the time to the Bolero. Torvill and Dean spoke of Moiseeva and Minenkov in their autobiography as of pioneers. Here is a quotation: " Moiseeva and Minenkov in particular were the ones Jayne and I both really admired. They were the most artistic couple, not simply relying on high-energy routines, which the majority of skaters did at the time. They were the ones who began turning ice dancing into more of an art form, which - later on - was precisely what we strived to do. They were the pioneers, though; the ones who first dared to be overtly expressive".

That's a great quote, but the point of others in this thread and one that I agree with is that Moiseeva and Minenkov in the example you gave and the quote by T/D was that they admired them for pioneering movement and artistry in ice dance, it has nothing to do with the monumental use of one piece of music in whole as T/D did. That is the difference that was being pointed out b/t MM and TD.

 

[eppen]

The "music from one source only" programs started to appear in the early 1970s - off the top of my head, John Curry's Don Quixote from 1975-6 and around the same time at least two SPs with Carmen (Vladimir Kovalev and Linda Fratianne). And after checking some actual data - Suna Murray did Don Quixote in 1971-2 and I think she used only music from the ballet, John Michael Petkevich did his free on just Espana Cani back in 1967-8 season. So, in addition to the classical medleys which were the norm until the end of 1970s, there were occasionally other approaches to choosing music and constructing programs.

Some even tried to get the movement to work thematically and had costumes to match - Curry did the ballet movement pretty good, but the costume was maybe a fairly vague reference to Don Quixote. My fave in that respect from the 1970s is Kovalev's Carmen: music, costume and movement all went with the theme. This was also one of the first times Carmen was ever used in FS - at least I have not been able to find anything earlier - and it is funny to listen to the classic cuts right from the start! That music cut could have been used this season as far as Carmen goes.

The worst decace when it comes to FS music IMO is the 1980s when popular music started to get used instead of resorting just to classical music. The music medley theme was often "anything goes". But there were exceptions, like Katarina Witt 1984 to 1988. Every program was themed and her shorts explored different kinds of dance and music styles with movement to match. I think proper choreographers started to get used more and more during the 1980s and that development starts to show properly in the 1990s (Sandra Bezic, early years of Lori Nicholl for example).

In a recent interview a seasoned Russian choreographer, Elena Maslennikova, also blamed the conservative judges for the music choices. This is probably one factor in mind when music is chosen. Someone has to take the chance and if the results are good, then others can follow.

The warhorses also often give the skater a ready interpretive scheme they can follow. You take Carmen, get yourself a flamenco style red/black dress, add a few suitable arm moves and hey, you have a theme and a character.

What I do find weird is that music is such an important part and yet it is poorly documented and relatively little discussed in comparison to the technical side of the sport. It would be cool to know more about the music choices from the skaters and their teams, like I remember listening to a Shae-Lynn Bourne interview and stating that Hanyu for example chose POTO because he wanted to be taken more seriously.

I have followed Javier Fernandez a lot, and in his case, for example, Black Betty was chosen bcs Orser heard it somewhere and thought it might make a good SP (which it did). For him it was also usuallya team effort between Javi, Orser, David Wilson and Tracy Wilson, although apparently the Chaplin FS was Javi's wish (it was before it became really a staple topic for men), maybe also Elvis. The GP Finals in Barcelona prompted the Spanish choices for him. The first year they went for a very discreet reference with the Barber of Seville, but that was because paso doble/flamenco was obligatory in ice dance and they did not want to use it. The second year, there was no problem over exposure with flamenco and they went with Malaguena. I cannot remember wher Guys and Dolls came from, could have been David Wilson's idea. The last year with Modern Times and Man of La Plancha the choices were motivated by showing a different way of doing Chaplin and I think the FS was Brian's idea and there Don Quixote, Spain and Impossible Dream are pretty obvious reasons.

Can you give other examples? Would love to read also those stories...

E

 

[el henry]

@eppen there were indeed many programs from “one source only” for singles skaters in the 70s; the skater who brought me to figure skating, Janet Lynn, and her beautiful Afternoon of a Faun in 1971 and 1972 comes to mind.

Ice Dancers, probably due to the requirements imposed, instead at that time had the cheesiest and worst cuts known to fandom. I remember, and I cannot remember the team, but a program that had slow music, cut to a horrible Muzak version of Earth Wind & Fire, and then back to something completely unrelated ( I remember because I adored EW&F).

T & D, as has been noted, were not innovators because they chose one source, but because they chose one continuous piece of music. At the time, it was striking. And of course that program still is. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re skating to Bolero, you better be wearing purple chiffon

 

[eppen]

It is interesting that single skaters were apparently first to bring that aspect of using music and constructing programs to the scene - my gut feeling is that after T&D the tide turned around and single skaters started to look at ice dancers for inspiration. The "anything goes" medley continued in singles well into 1980s with relatively few themed programs whereas in ice dance that became much more common, if not the norm (right? have not watched ice dance much since the 1990s).

e