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Dance Concert |
Sat 13 March 2010 7:45pm - The Anvil, Basingstoke
Conductor: Stephen Scotchmer
Programme:
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Copland Johann Strauss (Jnr) Ravel Tchaikovsky Manuel de Falla Brahms Dvorak Sting (Arr. Sutherland) |
Buckaroo Holiday and Rodeo (from Four Dance Episodes) The Blue Danube La Valse The Nutcracker Suite (extracts) Ritual Fire Dance Hungarian Dance (selected) Slavonic Dance (selected) El Tango de Roxanne |
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Leader - Rebecca Totterdell |
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Experience a range of music inspired by, or created for, dancing. Copland's ballet Rodeo tells of a young woman hoping to attract the attentions of the head wrangler on a ranch. He eventually succumbs when she trades her cowboy clothes for a dress at the rodeo dance. Rhythmic excitement, colourful percussion writing and cowboy songs add to the popular appeal of the music.
Perhaps the most famous waltz ever written, On the Beautiful Blue Danube was first performed as a choral work for male voice choir. It only became a great success after Strauss adapted it for orchestra.
The idea of La Valse began in Vienna as early as 1906, when Ravel intended to orchestrate a piece in tribute to the waltz form and to Johann Strauss. By the time Ravel returned to the project after the Great War, Vienna and every facet of European life had been drastically and irrevocably changed. The music still has more than an echo of Strauss but also has a darker aspect, reflecting Ravel's personal struggles as a soldier fighting against Germany.
Tchaikovsky's enduringly popular ballet suite includes The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, which made the celeste famous, as well as the Waltz of the Flowers, known to millions through the original Disney Fantasia film.