nysk8r said:
What a great coincidence! I watched the same program but the next day. ITA 100% about the music in Act III. For me the most emotional part of the ballet is the finale, and I would think that at least one figure skater would have used the music to help evoke emotion in their program (hopefully this one skater will be sasha cohen).
Nysk8r,
Cool! OT, I think there's a lot of great stuff on "Dance New York." They also have "Music New York" and "Opera New York." Also, on the NY cable station for PBS, "New York Metro" (channel 95 in Manhattan) they have a lot of great dance and music programs either from the PBS archives or are NY-specific. People who live elsewhere look at me like I'm crazy when I say one of the great things about living in NYC is the TV, but it's true, lol.
Back to Tchaikovsky, specifically "Swan Lake," I know a lot of people didn't like Shizuka Arakawa's techno version of "Swan Lake" last season for ehr SP but I loved it. To me it used a part theme and variation style and part hip-hop style (sampling) to turn an old warhorse of skating music into something fresh and that suited Shizuka's style of skating. In fact, I thought she skated the best I had ever seen her in that SP. I think a lot of people were more put off by the costume than the music, though I liked the costume too.
I think one of the things that attests to the strength of Tchaikovsky's music (and he is by no means one of my favorite composers) is how often his music is recorded and how often it is performed for symphonic listening. One of the reasons I think Tchaikovsky is argued about as to whether he is a "B" level composer is the fact that he wrote so much music for ballet. Composing for the ballet, especially in the 19th and early 20th Century was looked down upon the same way a great novelist would be if s/he started writing magazine articles or ad copy, sort of like, "Oh, can't write well enough and make enough money writing music people just want to listen to. PIT has to make ends meet by writing for the ballet, where the music is secondary to the dance."
That attitude went out of fashion when great composers such as Stravinsky collaborated with great choreographers such as Balanchine, or Copeland with Martha Graham. But in Tchaikovsky's time it was very strong. Also, Tchaikovsky's music can, at times, get sentimental and a bit drippy, but OTOH I think that some of his complex symphonies are greatly underrated. Also, in his ballet music, like "The Nutcracker" Tchaikovsky bases a lot of the sections in the Act III on folk music, which was something else the aristocracy looked down upon until Mahler started doing it decades later, but in a very different way.
I think there's always been a feeling that if classical music is popular with "the masses" that it's not great music. Yet Germans especially were wild about Wagner, as were many others, and despite his viriulent antisemitism, music scholars generally consider Wagner the greatest and most influential composer since Mozart and Bach, which reminds me of one of my favorite quotations:
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
Mark Twain
As for Tchaikovsky's place in music, I like what Ernest Newman has to say, "A good composer is slowly discovered. A bad composer is slowly found out." Not that Tchaikovsky is bad, and again I find myself returning to the success of his music for ballet, but rather I think Tchaikovsky is one of those composers who had success in both concert music and music for dance. Often the dancer or skater can make "music sound better than it is." Last season Ilia Kulik skated his own choreography to "Waltz of the Flowers." I was one of those kids and adolescents who did "The Nutcracker" year in and year out, so I'd heard "The Nutcracker" enough for a lifetime. Yet when I saw a male singles skater of Kulik's unique technical, expressive, and choreographic abilities do "Waltz of the Flowers," the music took on a freshness and a whole new meaning.
Similarly, about seven years ago, a British choreographer, Matthew Bourne, choreographed "Swan Lake" using an all male cast of swans. No, this wasn't "Trockadero" drag-style ballet. The male "swans" were bare chested, with pants that went just below the knee and had an abstract bird/animal sense about them, as did the make-up and head pieces. It was one of the most stunning works I've ever scene. In the traditional ballet production of "Swan Lake" the light and lyrical corps de ballet gives the feeling of a misty fairy tale. With Bourne's male swans, one is reminded that swans are animals, with all the fierceness, strength, and violence inherant in that--and in us.
The point I'm trying to make is that a lot of what can make music sound "better," aside from how well it's performed, is the context. In the case of "Swan Lake" and "Waltz of the Flowers," seeing men do what are traditionally femaile roles gave me a whole new perspective on both the dance/skating and the music. With the virility of the male swans in Bourne's choreography and in Kulik's skating, I heard new depth and meaning in the music of "Swan Lake" and "Waltz of the Flowers." Is it "kosher" to allow choreography to make music sound "better" or should music be judged strictly on its own merits, separate from anything else? I don't know, but I do know it made a difference to me.
BTW, speaking of dance music, I do think that Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" is far superior to Tchaikovsky's both for dance and as music.'
Rgirl
PS Favorite quote on Tchaikovsky "The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky." Solomon Short.
