Musical surprises #15: It’s musicians who count weirdly, not dancers
The term ‘dancers counts’ is often used in a rather perjorative way – as if they’re incapable of seeing and hearing the world normally. Even dancers use the term against…
Musical surprises #13: The male variation in Sugar Plum was originally in C minor
Tchaikovsky has a reputation for bringing high production values to the composition of ballet scores by conceiving them architecturally and symphonically. But in practice, he’s as likely to borrow, copy…
Musical surprises #8: Petrushka’s not all by Stravinsky
Well, not exactly, but the point is that one of the big tunes in the Wet Nurses’ dance in Stravinsky’s Petrushka is a Russian folk song (Я вечор млада во…
Musical surprises #7: Jingle Bells doesn’t go like you think it does
Jingle Bells is a song you’ve known ever since you were a child, and you hear every christmas. The chorus has a shape and a direction that is so simple…
Musical surprises #5: Mirlitons are cakes
OK, so I’ve posted about this before, but hey it’s Christmas, and it’s still one of the great mysteries of musical life: why in the Kingdom of the Sweets in…
Musical surprises #4: There’s a cuckoo in the Nutcracker
Well, a toy one anyway. If you look at the instrumentation for The Nutcracker over at www.tchaikovsky-research.org (possibly the best resource about any composer on the web), you’ll see that…