Tag Archives: musicology

Brahms, Tchaikovsky and the polysemic hairpin

Posted on November 24, 2020 6:41 pm by Jonathan Still
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Following on from an earlier post about Tchaikovsky’s hairpins, today I learned about the Brahmsian hairpin too. Continue reading →

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A year of ballet playing cards #39 (KC): “Spanish waltz” medley

Posted on May 14, 2020 6:41 pm by Jonathan Still
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What is a Spanish waltz? Is there such a thing? No, but here is one all the same, in case you’re asked. Continue reading →

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A 19th century quadrille generator

Posted on April 6, 2020 4:57 pm by Jonathan Still
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I remember inwardly eye-rolling when I heard a teacher many years ago claim excitedly that her pianist “never played the same thing twice.” Call me cynical, but if you’re a pianist for ballet class, you know that if you play … Continue reading →

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Little Humpbacked Horse thesis online

Posted on September 13, 2019 11:48 am by Jonathan Still
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Great to read Aaron Manela’s masters thesis “Arthur Saint-Léon’s The Little Humpbacked Horse in Context,”  which is available online. Here’s the abstract:  In this study I examine representations of antisemitism, fantasy, and cultural imperialism in the 1864 ballet The Little Humpbacked Horse, … Continue reading →

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Sources for the “Esmeralda” pas de deux

Posted on June 20, 2019 10:34 am by Jonathan Still
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One of the oddities about the ballet repertoire is that the more famous and frequently performed the piece, the more tricky its musical history, like the  “Black Swan” Pas de Deux, for example, which does not exist in Tchaikovsky’s original … Continue reading →

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Do marches really have to have dotted rhythms?

Posted on December 11, 2018 3:48 pm by Jonathan Still
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Nice to see an article about marching music, one of the weird, esoteric topics  that perplex ballet pianists like me: a 2018 conference paper byNiels Hansen, Nicholas Shea & David Huron called Do Dotted Rhythms Increase Performance Precision: Why Marches … Continue reading →

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