Thanks to Adam Lopez (who I have to thank on an almost weekly basis these days), genius creator of all nearly all the Wikipedia pages on Petipa, Minkus and Imperial Ballet generally, I have now finally seen a score of Paquita that wasn’t scribbled in biro by a semi-literate child with their hands tied behind their back underwater and faxed from a tenth-generation photocopy on a steam-powered fax machine.
And thanks to this score, I discovered http://balletmusic.narod.ru/ where there are resources (including Paquita) of the kind that a ballet pianist can only dream, including (with the author’s permission) a downloadable copy of the best book on playing for ballet I’ve ever read. It’s by Galina Bezuglaya and is the only one which gives a realistic and practical guide to everyday playing for a company The site’s in Russian, but as I discovered – also thanks to Adam – Google does a pretty good job of translating it. Click here for the Googlified English version.
Thank you, Jonathan !
Thanks for this post! How did you read Galina Bezuglaya’s book? I can find it on the site, but it’s in a pdf in Russian and I’m not sure how to translate it. Thanks!
Aha…I could read it because my first degree was in Russian. No quick way around that one, I’m afraid!
Oh darn. Guess I’d better start learning! If I may ask, have you ever done a review on why that is the best book for playing for ballet? I’m a ballet student myself, and I’ve taken classes from several different Russian teachers. I notice the music they use is different from non-Russian teachers and I’m wondering what they teach their accompanists.
I did review the book in the Dance Gazette years ago, but it was very short article. I’ll do a longer review on my blog on why I think it’s the best. I’d be interested in knowing what differences you perceive between Russian/non-Russian teachers, since it’s something I’m writing about for my PhD as a side issue. I’m not saying that I think the book teaches the best way to play for class (though in some ways, it probably is) but that of all the books written on the subject it’s the best as a work of non-fiction – in terms of its scope, scholarship, knowledge and experience of the person writing it.
I guess I haven’t really articulated the differences in words before. I’d say perhaps it’s a certain accent in the music with certain exercises or steps. Or maybe the way they’re executed physically is different, so it feels different with the music. I guess I was hoping to find someone else who had articulated it.
I’m guessing here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the difference you perceive is that when accompanists play for Russian teachers, they try to mirror the dynamics, rhythm and articulation of the exercise with the music that they play: they wrap the music around the exercise.
You could do that for any teacher, and that’s what some teachers of any background want from the music, at least some of the time. But the Vaganova training is systematic in several respects, and so there is a tendency for the music to be tailored to support the system in a functional way, rather than be ‘interesting’ in its own right. There is no ‘opposite’ of that, really, but other possible approaches are: a) You use recorded music, or depend on whatever your pianist can play (and they don’t really “get” ballet class) – so there’ll never be a really good match between your exercise and the music b) As is common in sports training, the music performs a kind of distracting role, to take your mind off (rather than focus your mind on) the effort, or having music provides a general motivation to work (because you love the music), rather than having a specific ‘mechanical’ function to perform (like reminding you to get accents in the right place) c) It provides a background beat that helps to keep you in time, but it doesn’t have any ‘surface features’ that relate specifically to events in the exercise.
In practice, pianists (and dancers, I guess) move between all of these ways of using music in class, and sometimes it’s a difficult decision (see this post, and the one before it). If I’m playing for Russian-based teachers, I always default to improvising around the shape of the exercise until I get a clear idea of what they prefer. I also follow Bezuglaya’s advice (as far as I remember it) that by the time you get to the high end of vocational level training, you start using bits from the ballet repertoire for grand allegro etc. Or rather, I found that this works (because combinations are often based on things found in the repertoire, so repertoire music works better than most other kinds of music), and was interested to see that Bezuglaya recommends it.
The description of “mechanical” support definitely makes sense and fits what I was attempting to describe. I do have to admit that sometimes that kind of music sounds a little bland, though. The exciting pianists are the ones who somehow both provide the mechanical support but also add a little more to that. As a dancer, I have trouble understanding the last option you mentioned, where the music is there to just keep the beat. Intellectually, I understand that a choice has to be made quickly on the accompanist’s part and it may not always be possible to find a good match, but physically, music without mechanical support can sometimes be too distracting for me because I feel like I’m fighting the music. Having studied with many Russian/Russian-influenced teachers, I definitely find that I prefer the mechanical support approach. (I wonder if dancers schooled in different traditions prefer otherwise.)
I think the subdivision in petit allegro is an interesting topic but it’s a little above me since I’m not a musician myself. I have definitely had trouble with when the subdivision didn’t “feel right”. Also, at least with the teachers I’ve had, a “small” allegro doesn’t necessarily mean a “fast” allegro exercise. And lastly, I agree with what you’ve said as far as the grand allegro. With the big jumps, especially those found more in the male repertoire, the best accompaniment seems to be a “big waltz” as one teacher of mine called, and a lot of the classical male variations have that strong One two three feeling.
I’ll definitely have to explore your blog more. I randomly found this post while looking up ballet music and history, and I appreciate how articulate you are about your work!