Missing Nutcracker? Have a Cher Dumollet singalong
I’ve been looking for this for ages, a rendition of the French children’s song Bon voyage cher Dumollet, the contredanse-like bit in Act 1 of The Nutcracker which is usually…
Musical surprises #23: Vauxhall, Strauss & Tchaikovsky
Although the light and popular dance rhythms of Johann Strauss II seem a sociocultural world away from the ‘classical’ Tchaikovsky, they’re not. It’s our own snobbery that obscures the connections…
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 #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…
Tchaikovsky’s Großvater
Tchaikovsky’s Großvater: two sources The source of Tchaikovsky’s Großvater (the “grandfather dance” in the party scene in Act 1 of The Nutcracker, and the tune that Schumann quotes in Carnaval…
Mirlitons
One conundrum I missed out from the list earlier: I was passing Paul in the King’s Road the other day, when I noticed a plate of Mirlitons in the window.…