23 March 2010

Disc 5 - Ballets vol 5

Playing this for the first time, I think, we begin with a discord of strings to open Scènes de Ballet. 

1. Introduction 0:52
2. Danse (corps de ballet & ballerine) 4:14
3. Pantomime 2:06
4. Pas de deux 2:49
5. Pantomime 0:31
6. Variations: danseur & ballerine 2:24
7. Pantomime 0:27
8. Danses (corps de ballet) 1:03
9. Apothéose 2:12

Played by the CBC Symphony Orchestra recorded 28 March 1963. This piece was written in 1944. After the attention-grabbing opening it's a perfectly nice piece of music.

Next is Bluebird - pas de deux played by the Columbia SO in 1964. Thanks to this site (new to me) I know it is an arrangement of part of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty ballet made by Stravinsky in New York in 1941 for a small orchestra with prominent flute part in the adagio. Variation 1 is a brisk waltz. Variation 2 has the flute featuring again. And the coda sounds a little jazzy. A very short but very enjoyable piece, with clever instrumentation.

10. Adagio 2:00
11. Variation I 0:48
12. Variation II 0:41
13. Coda 1:37

The final work is The Fairy's Kiss, with the Columbia SO in 1965. Obviously this is the major work on the disc, written 1928, revised 1950. Apparently it's a homage to Tchaikovsky.

Scene 1
14. Prologue 8:14
Scene 2
15. A village fete 11:18
Scene 3
16. At the mill 6:55
17. Pas de deux 1:34
18. Adagio 3:02
19. Variation 1:21
20. Coda 2:11
21. Scene 4:49
Scene 4
22. Epilogue 6:16
The lullaby of the land beyond time and place

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