When does modern music start? With the Rite of Spring? With Schönberg’s Second String Quartet?? Those two are amongst the most popular suggestions; but there are, of course, any number of other candidates. Smart money however (I reckon), is on this… w …Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune – and I have no less an […]
There’s something frightening about the string quartet. It’s the tradition, I suppose – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert all poured some of their best and most profound music into the medium, and that makes the standard for the young, aspiring composer pretty high(!!). So, when the thirty-or-so year old Debussy came to tackle a quartet, he […]
“one of the most substantial composers these islands have yet produced.” Martin Anderson, The Independent Need convincing? Listen to this… Also, this week, a chance to explore the Four Ritual Dances from Tippett’s opera The Midsummer Marriage: Earth in Autumn, Waters in Winter, Air in Spring Fire in Summer Course materials: Elizabeth Maconchy Cycle of […]
For our final session of the term we have some rather black Russian farce, a visit to a factory (it’s the Five Year Plan, you know) and a chance to hear Daphnis and Chloe in its entirety. Prokofiev’s two ballets for Diaghilev are very different: the first, Chout, tells a comic but very bloodthirsty tale […]
When the Russians (Stravinsky, Prokofiev) got too famous and so too expensive, Diaghilev commissioned his new ballets from the younger – and therefore cheaper – generation of French composers. A group of young musicians had formed around the wonderfully eccentric figure of Erik Satie. Originally named (by Satie) Les Nouveaux Jeunes they soon became known as […]
… or The Three-Cornered Hat, if you’d prefer. Given its roots in Spanish folk music, in flamenco and its cante jondo [deep song], it’s rather surprising to discover that the first complete performance of Manuel de Falla’s ballet was given in the Alhambra Theatre in London. The reason? Between 1918 and 1922 – in the […]
Another scandal! I’ll let Claude Samuel and the co-author of Parade, Jean Cocteau explain… Course materials: Daphnis et Chloé, Part 1 Daphnis et Chloé, Part 2 Lydian Cycle of 5ths Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as “fair use/dealing”, for the purpose of study, and critical analysis only, and will be removed at […]
Tennis? Tennis??? Yes, Debussy’s Jeux [Games] revolves around a game of tennis. Of course, it’s all a bit more complicated and considerably darker than that. Anyway, it inspired Debussy to produce one of his finest scores, so that’s a good place to start from! Anyone for transgender studies? Sorry the videos are in three bits […]
The music of Le Sacre du Printemps baffles verbal description. To say that much of it is hideous as sound is a mild description. There is certainly an impelling rhythm traceable. Practically it has no relation to music at all as most of us understand the word. Musical Times, London, August 1, 1913 1913: Stravinsky’s […]
The 1911–1912 seasons of the Ballets Russes saw the premiers of two of the twentieth century’s greatest scores — Stravinsky’s Petroushka and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. But, while Petroushka was a great success and (for non-musical reasons) the Ravel considerably less so, it was two smaller works that seemed most to capture the public imagination in […]
