Tuesday, September 17, 2013

The Ballet Programme

The NSO have another concert coming up in November - it's being referred to as an all Russian programme, but in my mind I'm calling it the ballet programme. We're playing excerpts from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Suites (yes, including the theme from The Apprentice!), Petrouchka by Stravinsky and Piano Concerto No 2 by Shostakovich.

Petrouchka is another ballet - again with a slightly strange and surreal plot, and we're just getting used to the music at the moment. It is not too long and I wanted to try and find a version of it on You Tube, but just found it in 4 sections rather than all in one video, so I'm not going to post it here. Wikipedia had a very full synopsis though which is here.

The piano concerto is a piece I thought I had not heard before, but recognised it within a few bars as being the music used by Disney to set the story of the steadfast tin soldier to in Fantasia 2000. I proclaimed this quite proudly to my desk partner at rehearsal and then thought I perhaps should have been a bit more circumspect about revealing my shabby musical knowledge! But I did find a video of it (it is only the first movement of the concerto) - it isn't a ballet, but there is a ballerina in it!

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