OCR errors and ballet
Optical character recognition (OCR) errors in pdfs can cause some pretty fundamental problems of understanding. Here's one from ballet.
Brahms, Tchaikovsky and the polysemic hairpin
Following on from an earlier post about Tchaikovsky's hairpins, today I learned about the Brahmsian hairpin too.
More background on the party scene song in The Nutcracker
Since writing about Bon Voyage Cher Dumollet nine years ago, I've found out a lot more. Here are some sources.
Kostrovitskaya’s career as a plasterer
In these days when artists are insulted by the idea of having to retrain as something else, let's take a moment to remember Vera Kostrovitskaya, famous pedagogue—and plasterer, restorer of…
Galina Bezuglaya’s second book
Perhaps you have to be as old as I am to be quite as excited about a book arriving from Russia, but it’s doubly exciting since I ordered it on…
Pianos and violins in the ballet class
When did the piano replace the violin in the ballet class in the Imperial Theatre schools? Galina Bezuglaya has some interesting answers.