Musical surprises #21: If you want to play for children’s ballet, study semiotics
Thanks to the musical semiotician Raymond Monelle and his wonderful book The Sense of Music, I am happily aware that there is a concept in music of a horse which…
Musical surprises #20: The end of Sleeping Beauty is a French song
That’s not the whole surprise, because it’s a fairly well-known fact that the big tune in the apotheosis of The Sleeping Beauty is an old French song, the pre-revolutionary national…
Musical surprises #19: That Russian sound is Italian
When you think of Russian folk music, what do you hear in your head? Probably the sound of someone playing a tune on a balalaika with that heart-rending tremolo on…
Musical surprises #18: 5/4 isn’t that odd in the 19th century
There’s a fairly common belief that until Stravinsky came along, everything was either in 4/4 or 3/4. When I was at school in the 70s, I remember one music lesson…
Musical surprises #17: Sometimes a strathspey is a reel is a jig
It’s not just the tango that’s complicated or misleading: Scottish music is apparently prey to the same terminological confusion. Writing about naming conventions in collections of dance tunes dating back…
Musical surprises #16: The skating in Les Patineurs is nothing new
I wasn’t going to post this since I thought it was no longer surprising, but then I overheard an announcer on Radio 3 only this morning give full credit to…