Nine unexpected uses of Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker’

 How Tchaikovsky's ballet crops up here, there and everywhere in popular culture...

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By BBC Music Magazine

Fantasia (1940)

As well as mop-wielding Mickey Mouse, Disney’s feature-length cartoon has a gorgeously animated section devoted to The Nutcracker, including music from the Sugar-Plum Fairy, the Arabian Dance, the Russian Trepak and the Waltz of the Flowers.

• Six of the best musical settings of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001)

Further cinematic Nutcracker delights, as a computer-animated Barbie embarks on a ballet adventure. It is, needless to say, all very pink, though our heroine does dance a neat little Sugar-Plum Fairy routine.

• Six of the best American ballets

The Simpsons Christmas Stories (2005)

‘I hope I never hear that God-awful Nutcracker music again,’ complains a typically grumpy Homer Simpson. And guess what comes next? Yup, the Simpsons cast sings a Christmas medley to the tune of the Act I March.

• Six of the best American ballets

Duke Ellington’s The Nutcracker Suite (1960)

Few musicians have fused the worlds of classical and jazz as sublimely as The Duke, whose 1960 take on Tchaikovsky comes complete with natty titles such as ‘Sugar Rum Cherry’ and ‘Toot Toot Tootie Toot’.

• 25 greatest jazz saxophonists of all time
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• The best recordings of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto

Nut Rocker (1962)

Two years after Duke Ellington, American rockers B. Bumble & the Stingers were inspired to create their own high-octane arrangement of The Nutcracker’s March, a version that’s been covered by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, among others.

• Six of the best Lang Lang performances

Nutcracker (1982)

Joan Collins is in quintessentially sassy form in this splendidly awful British film about a Russian ballerina defecting to the west. Finola Hughes is the dancer in question.

• The best pieces of festive classical music

Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut Advert (1976 etc)

From Frank Muir pootling around in a punt in 1976 to a 1980s office worker being serenaded by a singing chocolate bar and her hunky-chunky almonds, Cadbury’s brilliant ad campaign had us all singing ‘Everyone’s a Fruit and Nut case’ to the Dance of the Reed Pipes.

• The best pieces for flute: our top picks

Tetris (1989)

Block-dropping fun galore, as the Nintendo Gameboy version of this ultra-popular game was accompanied by The Nutcracker’s ‘Trepak’.

• The best pieces of music about love

Forgotten Pianists: Jorge Bolet

By Anson Yeung, Interlude

Jorge Bolet © Radio King

To say that Jorge Bolet (1914 – 1990) is “forgotten” may not be entirely correct, but he is certainly one of the most underrated pianists of the 20th century. Born in Havana, Bolet gave his first public performance at 9 and enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music with a scholarship at 12, where he studied piano with David Saperton and conducting with Fritz Reiner. He also received mentoring from great pianists including Leopold Godowsky, Josef Hofmann and Moriz Rosenthal. These all seemed to set him for a thriving career.

Jorge Bolet rehearses in the Tanglewood Shed with Pierre Monteux conducting the BSO © Boston Symphony Orchestra

However, Bolet’s career was far from a flourishing one and had remained static for a major part of his life. He travelled extensively, taught at Indiana University and at his alma mater and recorded for small record labels, without really achieving international fame. It wasn’t until his successful recital at Carnegie Hall in 1974 that he received the recognition he fully deserved. That was a turning point in his life and led to his contract with Decca several years later.

Bolet’s playing was suave, delicate and, most importantly, genuine. Best known for his interpretations of the Romantic repertoire and piano transcriptions, he was never virtuosic merely for its own sake. His finger dexterity was undoubtedly fascinating, but it all came so naturally under his hands. Unlike his contemporaries, he preferred Baldwin and Bechstein to Steinway. This, together with his exquisite touch, makes it possible to identify him just by the sound he created on the piano.

Richard Wagner: Tannhäuser Overture (arr. F. Liszt) (1974) (Jorge Bolet, piano)

This stupendous recording of Liszt’s magnificent transcription of Wagner Tannhäuser Overture was from Bolet’s breakthrough Carnegie Hall recital in 1974, only after which he experienced real success. It was outstanding on any terms – it had absolute technical command, real excitement and aplomb.

Franz Liszt: Schumann – Liebeslied, S566/R253, “Widmung” (Jorge Bolet, piano)

This has been my all-time favourite rendition of this tremendously romantic piece. It had a beautiful singing tone throughout while drawing such a wide array of orchestral colours from the piano. A perfect blend of romanticism, refinement and passion!

This performance had poetry, poise and no affectation, as usual. Observe how sensitively each phrase was crafted and how he reached such emotional intensity without the histrionics that are commonly seen today. One can sense his humbleness in his playing – there’s only music and nothing else. sly known for their extreme technical difficulty. Only a few pianists dared to perform these Études live, and Jorge Bolet was one of them. He was able to transcend the technical challenges and bring out the music despite the complexity. Everything was under complete control – the melodic line was always apparent, and the sound was so rich and lush. Sheer beauty!

Bolet was surely one of the finest musicians of his generation, having been hailed as the greatest pianist in America by Emil Gilels (another legendary pianist). Although his ascent to the rank of “great masters” had been strenuous, he has become an important part of the history of piano music and will continue to inspire pianists of future generations.

My passion of music (I)

Music is an important part of our life as it is a way of expressing our feelings as well as emotions. No matter where you are living on this globe.  Some people consider music as a way to escape from the pain of life. It gives you relief and allows you to reduce stress. ... Music plays a more important role in our life than just being a source of entertainment.

Music affects our emotions. When we listen to sad songs, we tend to feel a decline in mood. When we listen to happy songs, we feel happier. Upbeat songs with energetic riffs and fast-paced rhythms (such as those we hear at sporting events) tend to make us excited and pumped up. 

Music means the world to me. It makes me think about how it relates to life and I love the beats. Music is a way to express yourself, keep you company while you're alone, and always give you something to do. Music is a way of expressing me and being able to relate to other people.

It won't be a surprise to most that music can affect the human brain emotionally. ... Happy, upbeat music causes our brains to produce chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, which evokes feelings of joy, whereas calming music relaxes the mind and the body.

Music is a form of art; an expression of emotions through harmonic frequencies. ... Most music includes people singing with their voices or playing musical instruments, such as the piano, guitar, drums or violin. The word music comes from the Greek word (mousike), which means "(art) of the Muses.

Music is love. David Crosby sang this wonderful song already in 1971. "Everybody's sayin' music is love

Everybody'sayin' it's, you know it is..."

Music tells stories. Well, composers and musicians use music to tell stories. From all over the world.  Music can be used to depict characters, places, actions and even emotions. Music is often used to heighten a mood, or to express a thought or feeling when mere words are not enough.

“[Music] can propel narrative swiftly forward, or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry. It is the communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping all into one single experience.” The best stories engage all of the senses.

One of the great things about music in general, and in particular concert music, is that playing it opens up a whole new world of experience that further enhances the mind, physical coordination, and expression. Music lovers, who are also amateur performers, may choose to play in community ensembles (orchestra, band, choir), take lessons, perform with others, compose, and nearly anything else a professional musician may do, while maintaining their regular lives. All of this involves intense physical coordination in performing an instrument alone or with others, while reading musical notation, and adding delicate or strong nuanced changes to the music that only a performer can bring. In general, to an amateur musician, music can provide an escape from everyday life or an alternative means of expressing one's own capabilities. It is an important part of their lives and fills a need or an urge to create music.

I have been a music lover since my 4th birthday. Meanwhile, living as a German expat in the Philippines, I found out that Filipinos and Germans are music lovers. Among indigenous Filipinos, one important function of music is to celebrate or commemorate important events in the human life cycle. Fortunately, until today, these rich indigenous musical traditions live on. They serve as a reminder of the Filipinos' long history of musical talent and ingenuity.

Such is the case of Philippine music which today is regarded as a unique blending of two great musical traditions – the East and the West. ... The majority of Philippine Music revolves around cultural influences from the West, due primarily to the Spanish and American rule for over three centuries.

Becoming a German expatriate in the Philippines already 1999, I have attended many music events. I fell in love with Filipino classical music. So what does music really mean to Filipinos? It simply tells them where they've been and where they could go. It tells a story that everyone can appreciate and relate to, which is why it's a big part of every Filipino culture. 

Music of the Philippines (Filipino: Himig ng Pilipinas) include musical performance arts in the Philippines or by Filipinos composed in various genres and styles. The compositions are often a mixture of different Asian, Spanish, Latin American, American, and indigenous influences.

Notable folk song composers include the National Artist for Music Lucio San Pedro, who composed the famous "Sa Ugoy ng Duyan" that recalls the loving touch of a mother to her child. Another composer, the National Artist for Music Antonino Buenaventura, is notable for notating folk songs and dances. Buenaventura composed the music for "Pandanggo sa Ilaw".

(To be continued!)

Charles Gounod - his music and his life

by Georg Predota, Interlude

“Before Mozart, all musical ambition turns to despair”

Charles Gounod was born 200 years ago, on 17 June 1818 in Paris. Today we primarily remember him as the composer of the opera Faust and an Ave Maria descant to the first prelude of J.S. Bach’s C-major prelude from the WTC. Yet, during the second half of the 19th century, he was one of the most respected and prolific composers in France. His musical influence on the course of French music was highly significant, but in the fractured post-Wagnerian critical climate towards the end of his life, his reputation took a severe hit. Son of a painter and engraver of considerable talent, Charles exhibited enormous talents in music and the fine arts. Pressured into studying law, Charles decided at age 16 to devote himself to music. Private lessons in counterpoint and harmony with Antoine Reicha prepared Charles for his enrollment at the Paris Conservatoire. Fully devoted to composition, Charles furthered his studies with Halévy and Le Sueur, and he won the Prix de Rome in 1839 with his cantata Fernand.


The operatic stage in Rome—primarily populated by Donizetti, Bellini and Mercadante—was of little interest to Gounod. However, coming under the influence of the Dominican preacher Père Lacordaire, Gounod became genuinely fascinated by the music of Palestrina and the cultural legacy of Rome. He also crossed paths with Fanny Mendelssohn, and spent the remainder of his government stipend in Austria and Germany. After meeting with Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig, Gounod returned to Paris and became music director of the Missions Etrangères church in 1843. He stayed in this position for the better part of four years until he formally enrolled at the seminary of St. Sulpice to begin studies for ordination into the priesthood. In the end, he rather abruptly abandoned his pursuit of the cloth and began to cast his eyes towards the glitzy world of opera.


Gounod was not a household name on the Parisian musical scene, but all that changed when he started to orbit around the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot. It was her influence that secured him an unexpected commission at the Opéra for Sapho, with a libretto by Emile Augier. In the event, Sapho was an unmitigated failure at the box office, but the work did receive some critical approval from Hector Berlioz. As such, the Opéra offered him another contract in 1852 to set Eugène Scribe’s libretto La nonne sanglante.

Additional projects soon followed but Gounod had no great theatrical success until he hit the jackpot with Faust derived from Goethe. Première on 19 March 1859, the opera was once more praised by Berlioz, but casting problems and a hostile press raised doubt whether Faust would be able to survive. Thanks to the efforts of the publisher Antoine de Choudens, who bought the rights and aggressively promoted the work, Faust exploded onto the European opera stages. Richard Wagner called it a “feeble French travesty of a German monument,” but he could not prevent Gounod’s Faust to become the most frequently staged operas of all time.

Gounod died on 18 October 1893, and although Ravel considered him the “real founder of the mélodie in France,” his music fell rapidly out of fashion. Gounod steadfastly believed in a universal dramatic and spiritual truth, and his refusal to pursue the implications of Wagner’s musical style placed him at odds with writers and critics alike. Debussy quipped, “Gounod, for all his weaknesses, was necessary as his art represents a moment in French sensibility.”

The Renaissance in Music and the Arts

 by Ursula Rehn Wolfman, Interlude

The idea of the Renaissance, in which language, literature, the arts and music saw a remarkable change and renewal, started gradually taking shape in the 14th century, celebrated then and later by writers, artists and musicians such as Petrarch, Boccaccio, Cola di Rienzi, Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Dufay, Monteverdi, Lasso, Palestrina, and many others. The Renaissance’s human spirit, ‘being born again’, shaped not only musical, artistic and literary production, but also laid the spiritual, intellectual and moral foundation of life well into the 19th century.

Music, according to Tinctoris, a Renaissance era theorist from the Netherlands, is a ‘nova ars’ – new art – which rejected all that had grown stale from the Middle Ages, and focused instead on infusing it with sweetness and truth (‘suavitas et veritas’). Thinkers and theorists such as Tinctoris joined Italian musicians, such as Gafori, to establish a systematic theory of composition.

During the Renaissance music became polyphonic, leaving the ‘linearity’ of the plainchant monophony of the Middle Ages. The tonic triad centers the musical composition and each voice, unrestricted, equal in freedom and authority, weaving together, creates a musical unity, seeing the work as a harmonic whole. Renaissance composers found a new relationship to language, to word and voice, to prosody and meter, and to the pictorial and emotional content of their texts.

One of the most significant achievements of the time in music and painting is the transition from successive to simultaneous composition. In painting, the classical triangle (just as the tonic triad in music) centers the image on canvas. Painting during the Renaissance era abandoned the medieval superposition of narrative scenes and arrived at the central perspective, at a definite element of form from a single point of sight to the unity of time, action and space. In Botticelli’s painting, the vanishing point is centered on the Holy Family contained in the classical triangle in the center of the painting, which is set into an Italian landscape. The clothing of the Magi and their retinue (Italian courtiers) is in the style of Renaissance Italy, which was intended to demonstrate unity of time, action and space, i.e. order, balance and harmony. The light within the painting is evenly distributed, leaving nothing in the dark, nothing ‘unseen’. Painting found its depth, so that viewers of these paintings could perceive the work almost as if they were looking through a window into three-dimensional space. Painters reinforced this perspective by framing their paintings with replicated window frames to further enhance and emphasize the ‘modern’ three-dimensionality of their work.

From the Renaissance on, the day began to be measured in twenty-four hour periods, which, when applied to theatre and opera, becomes the famous “règle des 24 heures” (24 hour rule). It stipulated that all action on stage has to be started and completed within 24 hours – a rule which continued until the 19th century and was broken only by the Romantic time period.

Again, painting and music found their equivalent in the literature of the time, where protagonists find psychological depth.

In the music of the late Renaissance however, a different texture emerges, an antagonism between discant and bass begins and an entirely new sense of form emerges: a sensuous delight in color and the expression of extreme emotion replaces harmony, order and balance – the Baroque casts its shadow.

Classical Mercury: Freddie and the Bohemian Rhapsody

 

by Maureen Buja, Interlude

Freddie Mercury

We don’t think of the late Freddie Mercury (1946-1991) in the realm of classical music except for his duets with Montserrat Caballée. Secretly though, the world of classical music has been looking at the music of Freddie Mercury and dragging it over to the classical side.

Queen

Looking at A Night at the Opera (1975), Queen’s breakout album, we have to focus on the most memorable piece of that album, Bohemian Rhapsody, which had the whole world singing both the solo and supporting voices. And, of all the songs by Queen, this song has had, for better or worse, the most classical makeovers.

Danny Saucedo (2013) (photo by Frankie Fouganthin)

The problem with the song is that someone has to be Freddie Mercury and very few singers can or want to take on that responsibility. The Swedish singer Danny Saucedo, who made his name in 2006 winning the Swedish version of Idol, took it on with a backing choir with some success. You want the choir to be a bit more precise, particularly at the beginning, but the recording itself seems to be a large part of the problem.

Freddie Mercury: Bohemian Rhapsody (arr. A. Goransson and P. Olofson) (Danny Saucedo, soloist; Adolf Fredriks Gosskor; Pelle Olofson, cond.)

Forestella

The K-Pop group Forestella got around the soloist problem by having all members of the group take the lyrics, either singly or together.

Sebastian Di Bin

Solo piano versions make up for the big size of the performing ensemble by changing the character of the work.

Anderson and Roe Piano Duo

Duo piano versions give us a bit more.

Freddie Mercury: Bohemian Rhapsody (arr. G. Anderson and E.J. Roe for 2 pianos) (Anderson and Roe Piano Duo)

Philharmonix–The Vienna Berlin Music Club

Chamber ensembles give us a different reflection, but we’re still lacking that solo sound. This one, German/Austrian group Philharmonix (The Vienna Berlin Music Club) add an intro by Bach with curious modulations.

United States Air Force Band of Mid-America

As good as the United States Air Force Band is, their version is just a little feeble and too square.

David Garrett

When the soloist is not a vocalist but an instrumentalist, some interesting versions start to emerge. With violin soloist David Garrett, who, after his childhood start as a classical player, turned to the crossover side to add pop and rock music to his repertoire, we have a virtuoso player taking on a virtuoso apart. For his performance he is backed not only by a rock band but also a chamber orchestra, who seem to be adding all the parts previously played on synthesizer.

Rick Wakeman

The final version we’ll look at, although it’s certainly not the end to all the versions of Bohemian Rhapsody, is one done by Rick Wakeman. Wakeman, who has his own reputation as a progressive rock musician, being part of the group Yes on and off for more than 30 years, is also a formidable keyboardist. His solo channels not only Freddie Mercury’s original music but also adds in a bit of Mozart, a bit of his own music, a bit of prog-rock, and re-orchestrates the piece sometimes in the style of the Beatles. It’s a curious mix of classical and pop styles.

There are still other versions out there for clarinet ensemble, marching band, for full symphony orchestra, and so on, even the Muppets complete with singing chickens, singing bananas, and explosions.

The work itself was radical on so many fronts. Its video was credited by Rolling Stone as ‘practically inventing the music video seven years before MTV went on the air.’ Its construction without a refrain chorus that was the standard for pop music at the time, its ballad section, its operatic section, its hard rock section, the coda and its length of nearly 6 minutes were all unique at the time. Initially, Queen’s label EMI, didn’t want to release it as a single due in part to the length, but the work has gone on to be considered (and voted) as the greatest song in popular music.

Jodie Devos (photo by Domique Gaul)

Belgian soprano Jodie Devos closes her 2021 album of love songs, And Love Said…, with You Take My Breath Away, a track from A Day at the Races. She’s able to give the song a musical and vocal drama using rubato and other tempo changes that are effective in making this a classical vocal work. It’s a lovely, delicate performance.

The King’s Singers (2019)

From the same Queen album, the British ensemble The King’s Singers change another song, Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy, into an a cappella version that just comes across as slightly smarmy and too cute.

Stephanie Szanto and Simon Bucher

One way that Freddie Mercury’s songs were rarely taken was into a much more operatic style. He didn’t have the voice for it and few of the classical versions of his music want to take it in that direction, However, in their over-the-top version, Swiss mezzo Stephanie Szanto and pianist Simon Bucher transform Bicycle Race into a number of other vocal styles. It is nearly indescribable. We open with Chopin and close with a bit of Mozart and in the middle, a whole lot of other composers get channeled.

2Cellos

Freddie Mercury’s final song, written by all of Queen together, was The Show Must Go On, recorded in 1990 and released just 6 weeks before his death of AIDS. A reference to his own illness and his efforts to maintain a performance presence, the work has moved through other performers with Queen, such as Elton John and Adam Lambert, each of whom fail to reach Freddie Mercury’s impassioned performance level. However, the Slovenian cellist Luka Šulić and the Croatian cellist Stjepan Hauser, who make up the duo 2Cellos, bring back some of that emotion we miss in the other performance.

Their video for the work is set in an end of the world scenario – even while the Earth is doomed to destruction from a collision with an asteroid…but the show must go on.