Carnival Ballets

[ardcarp]

Lucie Skeaping presents highlights of a concert recorded earlier this year at the Konzerthaus in Freiburg im Breisgau, given by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.

The concert, entitled “Carnival Ballets”, celebrates musical jokes, gallant dance routines, and curious compositions from all over Europe, from Monteverdi and Biber, to lesser-known composers such as Pavel Josef Vejvanovský.

Pavel Josef Vejvanovský - Intrada con altre Ariae

Anonymous (arr. Heinrich Biber / Johann Heinrich Schmelzer) - Sonata jucunda

Carlo Farina - Capriccio stravagante

Johann Rosenmüller - Suite IX in C minor

Claudio Monteverdi - Balletto de la bellezza le dovute lodi, SV 245:2 [Scherzi musicali á 3 voci]

Heinrich Biber - Serenade a 5 “The Night Watcher"
Wolfgang Newerla, bass

Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

Plus, there'll be your weekly edition of Early Music News from Mark Seow.

(Oh dear.)

[Serial_Apologist]

I would recommend carnivore ballets to celebrate the BBC Singers not getting the chop.

[smittims]

I'm disappointed . I thought it was a programme about the ballet version of Schumann's 'Carnaval', which has an interesting history.

[ardcarp]

I'm disappointed . I thought it was a programme about the ballet version of Schumann's 'Carnaval', which has an interesting history.

Tell us more, please!

[smittims]

Sorry if I led you to expect a salacious story; it's just that there is confusion over who orchestrated what. The version I heard is that Diaghilev asked a number of Russian musicians to do one movement each; they included some obscure names such as Kalazati and Wihtol, and I suspect some may be noms de plume : 'Klenovsky' was certainly used by Henry Wood for his Bach orchestration, yet he turns up here. According to Pigeon Crowle (itself a name to conjure with) the names of the orchestrators of the last nine movements are unknown.

I was also told that later Glazunov re-did the whole thing, but I have no documentary evidence for this story.

I've always had a liking for this curious confection, since I knew it before I heard Schumann's original, in vintage recordings by Ansermet and Robert Irving (Philharmonia).

[ardcarp]

Thanks for taking the trouble to do that smittims! I knew none of the details surrounding the birth of Schumann's orchestrated version.

This dredged up from somewhere on the internet:

In 1910, Michel Fokine choreographed [Schumann's] Carnaval for a production by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, with orchestration written collaboratively by Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Tcherepnin.

Going even further off-topic, one of my favourite pieces for tuba (yes I played that in my yoof) was Tcherepnin's 'Andante for Tuba à la mémoire de mon père.'
An even greater pleasure is that one of my nephews, at my suggestion, is playing it too...the only downside being that I have to provide the somewhat demanding (at sight) piano part!