Snow White & Mahler

[Flosshilde]

Doversoul, in my oiginal post I expressed my dislike of using Mahler's symphonies for a ballet based on the Snow White story. Others introduced the ballet to Das Lied & said, in effect, that it was sacrilege, an idea I find strange. There seems to be an idea that the piece of music is somehow damaged.

[Chris Newman]

I cannot find a full version of the MacMillan "Das Lied von der Erde" but here is most of it at Darcey Bussell's farewell performance at the ROH. I am not sure who the singers are but they are quite good. When I heard/saw it in the seventies the singers were Alfreda Hodgson and John Mitchinson and the conductor was Sir Adrian Boult. The movement of the male dancers in "The Drinking Song of the Earth" is eerily almost the same as that of the tenor Richard Lewis on the platform at Otto Klemperer's 85th Birthday on the 14th of May 1970 with Janet Baker and the New Philharmonia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iehydU6xCXc&feature=related

[salymap]

I prefer ballets like Coq'dor and Swan Lake with music and dance that really go together. Years ago I remember'Les Presages' [?]with music from a Tchaikovsky symphony: something danced to Brahms 4th, but they seem not to have stood the test of time.

[MrGongGong]

I prefer ballets like Coq'dor and Swan Lake with music and dance that really go together.

Personally I prefer dance by Cunningham and Cage with music and dance that "don't go" together .......... but suddenly they do .......... now they don't

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Doversoul, in my oiginal post I expressed my dislike of using Mahler's symphonies for a ballet based on the Snow White story. Others introduced the ballet to Das Lied & said, in effect, that it was sacrilege, an idea I find strange. There seems to be an idea that the piece of music is somehow damaged.

I didn't mean to suggest this, Flossie, nor did I read this in other people's posts, all of which I understood to be expressions of personal opinion. I'd hoped to say that there are certain works that, for me, have such an intense emotional, intellectual and even physical effect upon me that any further "stimulation" is superfluous and intrusive. I cannot even watch the orchestral performers or follow the scores when I listen to these works (as opposed to studying them): the Music is as much as I can cope with: to use language that can only sound pretentious (because language fails with these works) the sounds and my "self" become completely fused. It's not that "the Music is damaged", (these works are indestructible) but that my involvement with it is disturbed.

Nor did I wish or intend to suggest that, because of my personal response to this Music, nobody else should be permitted to enjoy performances that do involve additional interpretive features (dance, photography, perfume, alcohol, poetry readings ... whatever): if it helps others make these works a part of their enjoyment of life, let them be.

But I want, need and can cope "only" with the sublime Music itself.

[Flosshilde]

I agree, it is very much to do with personal perception & response to a work, & I wasn't thinking so much of your comments, ferney, but more of ahinton's views, which seemed to go rather beyond that. Still, people's positions can become more entrenched as the discussion develops (or goes round in circles )

[ahinton]

I didn't mean to suggest this, Flossie, nor did I read this in other people's posts, all of which I understood to be expressions of personal opinion. I'd hoped to say that there are certain works that, for me, have such an intense emotional, intellectual and even physical effect upon me that any further "stimulation" is superfluous and intrusive. I cannot even watch the orchestral performers or follow the scores when I listen to these works (as opposed to studying them): the Music is as much as I can cope with: to use language that can only sound pretentious (because language fails with these works) the sounds and my "self" become completely fused. It's not that "the Music is damaged", (these works are indestructible) but that my involvement with it is disturbed.

Nor did I wish or intend to suggest that, because of my personal response to this Music, nobody else should be permitted to enjoy performances that do involve additional interpretive features (dance, photography, perfume, alcohol, poetry readings ... whatever): if it helps others make these works a part of their enjoyment of life, let them be.

But I want, need and can cope "only" with the sublime Music itself.

I identify with these sentiments almost entirely, my only reservation being that, when some people's introduction to such works happens to be via performances that include such additional "distractions", "enhancements" (call them what you will), their appreciation of and response to the music itself might risk being compromised.