Showing posts with label ballet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ballet. Show all posts

May 7 - Beethoven! Brahms! Tchaikovsky!

 

    Posted on May 7, 2022


This is an update of my post published on May 7, 2011:


Today we celebrate the birthdays of German composer Johannes Brahms (1833) and Russian composer Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840). It's also the anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's world premiere of his Ninth Symphony (1824).

Wow! Big day in musical history, huh?

Let's take these in order:


Ludwig van Beethoven

1824 – Beethoven's Ninth Symphony played for the first time!

Remember, Beethoven didn't take a lot of time and trouble to name his musical works. This particular symphony's actual name is Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125. This was Beethoven's final complete symphony, and it is considered one of the best-known and greatest musical compositions ever written.

Have you ever heard this bit, called Ode to Joy?





Johannes Brahms

1833 – Johannes Brahms born in Germany.

Because Brahms was German, like Beethoven, many people considered him Beethoven's successor. I imagine that this made Brahms feel a little insecure, when he was young—how do you live up to greatness?—and apparently he resisted writing a symphony for years because he was “afraid his work would not be as good.”


Brahms at age 20

Eventually he got over his fear and produced four symphonies, and Brahms is often included with Bach and Beethoven in the “Three Bs.”

You may have heard Brahms' Lullaby.





1840 – Pytor (Peter) Ilich Tchaikovsky born in Russia.

As a kid, Peter Tchaikovsky was a good musician. But his parents didn't think that was an “acceptable” profession, and they made him go to law school to prepare for a job in the civil service. He continued to study and work on music on the side. After three years in the civil service, and against his family's wishes, he quit his job and studied music full-time.

A wealthy widow became Tchaikovsky's patroness, sending him money every year so he could concentrate on composing music. She made sure that they would never meet face-to-face, but they exchanged more than a thousand letters over the course of 14 years!

You probably know Tchaikovsky's ballets The Nutcracker Suite  (which we can hear in the Disney movie Fantasia), The Sleeping Beauty (which we can hear in the Disney movie of the same name), and Swan Lake. Another super-famous piece he wrote is Romeo and Juliet Theme.




 






(First Saturday of May)




(First Saturday of May)

(First Saturday of May)



(First Saturday of May)



(First Saturday of May)



(First Saturday of May)


(First Saturday of May)


(First Saturday of May)






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December 18 - World Premiere of The Nutcracker

  Posted on December 18, 2021


This is an update of my post published on December 18, 2010:




On this day in 1892, the now-famous ballet The Nutcracker was performed for the first time. It was performed at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia. (St. Petersburg has also been called Petrograd and Leningrad. The name is often shortened to Petersburg or even Piter.)

The composer chosen to create the music for the ballet, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was given a simplified story about a girl who gets a nutcracker doll for Christmas.



After she goes to sleep, she hears something and either wakes up to see - or watches in a dream - as the nutcracker and some other toys fight an army of mice. When she helps her nutcracker win the fight by throwing a slipper at the Mouse King, the nutcracker is transformed into a prince and whisks the girl off to the magical Land of Sweets. 


The Land of Sweets has been imagined and re-imagined by
many different artists, for paintings and book illustrations...



...and for stage sets.






Tchaikovsky was given a lot of structure for the ballet that he was asked to create—the composition of each number, including the tempo and length, were set out for him. Tchaikovsky was not eager to work with all those constraints. Yet he managed to create arguably the most popular and enduring of his works!

The reception of this first performance was a bit mixed. Most critics were pretty harsh about the dancing and choreography, yet most were positive about Tchaikovsky's music. It probably would have shocked the more negative critics if they could have known how many times this ballet would be performed and filmed and watched and enjoyed all over the world—especially in the U.S. from the 1950s on.


This Nutcracker was staged in Beijing, China.



Celebrate The Nutcracker:

  • Watch it. My kids loved the ballet danced by Mikhail Baryshnikov, which was filmed for television. Many other versions are available on video, including the ballet on ice and the story as an animated feature (with no dancing).
Also, part of Tchaikovsky's “Nutcracker Suite” was used for one of my favorite segments of the animated Disney classic Fantasia. So you could watch that movie, as well.
You can find lots of bits and pieces of the ballet on YouTube. For example, here is one version of the Chinese Tea dance. And here is another version - this time with three dancers - and here is a third version - this time with lots of dancers!

 


Best of all, make plans to go see a production this holiday season.



  • Make a nutcracker, courtesy of Crafty Morning. Or color a special Nutcracker picture.

    Or make toilet paper tube nutcrackers!


  • Listen to bits of music from the ballet.




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