For Balletomanes perhaps, works hi-jacked for the dance

[salymap]

I was having a discussion with a friend with whom I visited th ballet as a youngster.

We were trying to think of works that are no longer used in dance - not music specifically written for it.

I could only think of Choreartium {sp? ] Brahms symphony no 4

A Tchaikovsky symphony, 4 or no 5] Les Presages.

Any others known/remembered ?

[Mary Chambers]

They were both Leonid Massine, weren't they? He also did Symphonie Fantastique (Berlioz) and a ballet to Beethoven 7. So-called 'symphonic ballet' was considered shocking by some musicians at the time.

I'm sure there are lots of examples, but can't think of any at the moment. Has anyone used Chopin piano works since Fokine?

[Mary Chambers]

I'm not really sure what you mean by 'no longer used'. There are many ballets that use music not originally intended to be danced to, but many of them are still around....Ashton's Symphonic Variations (Franck) for example, and lots of Balanchine. I dislike Balanchine ballets so am no expert, but I do remember seeing Symphony in C (Bizet, I think).

[salymap]

Thanks Mary, I thought you would know what I'm talking about. Yes, Massine I think.

Was there a ballet with Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody, last bit.?


Yes it went out of fashion.

Yes lots still around but don't seem to be many symphonies given a fancy name.

[LHC]

MacMillan's ballet Anastasia uses Tchaikovsky's 1st and 2nd symphonies for its first 2 acts, and then Martinu's 6th Symphony for the last Act.

[Richard Tarleton]

Kenneth MacMillan much given to this sort of thing - Song of the Earth, Manon, Fauré's Requiem, Shostakovich 2nd piano concerto....no time for it myself, a bit like golf ruining a good country walk. I went through a brief ballet phase in the early 70s as part of my musical education, saw all the greats but soon lost interest. Much more entertaining was spotting the celebs in the Crush Bar in the intervals, quite a different crowd to the opera.

[Mary Chambers]

That's true about Macmillan. I don't like the ones that use singing, but not too worried about orchestral music being used for ballet.

The 60s were the time to see ballet. It's all been downhill (in Britain anyway) since then! Technique at the expense of all else. I blame Balanchine.

[salymap]

And in the late 1940s Margot Fontyne came to a cinema in Woolwich, some miles from here but what a start for me.

[Richard Tarleton]

The 60s were the time to see ballet.

That's interesting. I do recall an interval conversation with a couple of elderly female balletomanes (friends of friends) in 1972 who were talking nostalgically about Beriosova. It was an all-Stravinsky programme, with Les Noces in part 2. They missed her so much they were not going in for Noces, preferring to remain in the Crush Bar . This struck me as the last word in ballet posiness. I just stopped myself asking why they'd bothered to come.

[Richard Tarleton]

And in the late 1940s Margot Fontyne came to a cinema in Woolwich, some miles from here but what a start for me.

I just caught her and RN, in Sleeping Beauty. My first too! Just before curtain up, a flunkey came onstage. There was a gasp from the audience. The flunkey said that Mr Nureyev would indeed be dancing, and announced some minor change. Cue wild applause.

[Mary Chambers]

That's interesting. I do recall an interval conversation with a couple of elderly female balletomanes (friends of friends) in 1972 who were talking nostalgically about Beriosova. It was an all-Stravinsky programme, with Les Noces in part 2. They missed her so much they were not going in for Noces, preferring to remain in the Crush Bar . This struck me as the last word in ballet posiness. I just stopped myself asking why they'd bothered to come.

She was fabulous, but that is going TOO far! On the other hand, anyone other than Fonteyn and Nureyev in Marguerite and Armand - that's ridiculous (Seriously, it is...)

Anthony Dowell was the best dancer in the Royal Ballet for a very long time. Antoinette Sibley, Lynn Seymour and Ann Jenner were wonderful as well.

By the 70s, Fonteyn would have been in her fifties, which even for her was a bit late. I first saw her in 1951, when I was eleven.

[teamsaint]

just to take this off topic a bit, (sorry!) do any of you Ballet experts reckon i would have any chance of ever seeing one of Arthur Bliss's scores performed (as a ballet not as a concert work)?

Although even as a concert work would be a start.....

[Richard Tarleton]

Anthony Dowell was the best dancer in the Royal Ballet for a very long time. Antoinette Sibley, Lynn Seymour and Ann Jenner were wonderful as well.

By the 70s, Fonteyn would have been in her fifties, which even for her was a bit late. I first saw her in 1951, when I was eleven.

I caught Dowell a couple of times paired with the newly defected Natalia Makarova (Swan Lake and Giselle), and Sibley on, I think, her own - could it have been in Firebird? Fonteyn was certainly very graceful.

[Alain Maréchal]

just to take this off topic a bit, (sorry!) do any of you Ballet experts reckon i would have any chance of ever seeing one of Arthur Bliss's scores performed (as a ballet not as a concert work)?

Although even as a concert work would be a start.....

In the days when Peter Wright was running things in Rosebery Avenue "Checkmate" used to crop up regularly (as did Petrushka - Peter Wright took care the 20thC classics were danced). I haven't seen it for years, but I have a video to console me.

On-topic, I thought Hans van Manen had a lot of nerve using the Grosse Fuge, but I was convinced when I saw it.

And there's a ballet of La Dame aux Camellias (Domy Reiter-Soffer) using Saint-Saens orchestral works including a violin concerto.

[Bryn]

How about a radio play purloined by its author and his partner for a right song and dance?

(RAH Sunday 19 July 1987).