Tag Archives: nutcracker

More on the Nutcracker party galop

Posted on December 30, 2018 5:49 pm by Jonathan Still

Thanks to Kathie Brobeck who commented on one of my favourite posts, about the origins of the children’s galop in “Tchaikovsky’s” Nutcracker, saying that Steamboat is a Scottish tune. I have to say I’m still keeping my options open as to where … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Bagpipes, Dumollet, Musical borrowings, Scottish music, Tchaikovsky, folk music, nutcracker | Leave a comment

And ANOTHER French song in the Nutcracker

Posted on February 17, 2014 10:22 am by Jonathan Still

Remember yesterday I said that the middle (6/8) section of Mère Gigogne in The Nutcracker just ‘had to be’ a French song? Well, I’ve found it, thanks to a post by Jeanne on a homeschooling site. It’s Cadet Rousselle a trois … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, Music, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Music, Tchaikovsky, ballet, nutcracker | Leave a comment

Yet another French song in The Nutcracker

Posted on February 16, 2014 10:28 am by Jonathan Still

I don’t know how I could have left this out of my ‘borrowings in the Nutcracker’ posts. The opening tune of Mère Gigogne is the French nursery rhyme Giroflé girofla. The 6/8 tune in the middle is another French song as well — Cadet … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Music, Personal, Tchaikovsky, ballet accompaniment, ballet music, nutcracker, songs | Leave a comment

Yet another source for the Nutcracker party scene tune

Posted on September 8, 2013 10:01 am by Jonathan Still

It’s become something of a hobby, finding sources for the tunes in Tchaikovsky’s score for The Nutcracker. I thought I’d had all the surprises there were to be had when I discovered that the source for the tune of the children’s galop … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, Music, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Basque dance, Music, Tchaikovsky, ballet, ethnomusicology, folk music, musical surprises, nutcracker | Leave a comment

More on borrowings in the Nutcracker

Posted on May 18, 2012 4:22 pm by Jonathan Still

I think most people know that there are quite a few musical borrowings in the Nutcracker, and that Tchaikovsky got the theme for the Arabian from somewhere – a Georgian folk song or something like that. But it’s only thanks … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, Music, Musicology, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Georgian music, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Music, Tchaikovsky, ballet, borrowings, choreomusicology, musical surprises, nutcracker | Leave a comment

On revolution in The Nutcracker and the limits of Google

Posted on May 12, 2012 10:55 am by Jonathan Still

French revolutionary musical borrowings in The Nutcracker —wny? As I said in my last post, where I think I’ve discovered a French counter-revolutionary song as a source for one of Tchaikovsky’s musical borrowings in The Nutcracker, I had a vague recollection … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, Music, Playing for ballet class | Tagged French, Music, Tchaikovsky, ballet, borrowings, musical surprises, nutcracker, songs | Leave a comment