May 18th 2009
Dances from The Three-cornered Hat The Three-cornered Hat is that rare thing in ballet, a sexy farce. A buffoon of an official (the hat is his badge of office) fancies the wife of a fanatically jealous miller. He has the miller arrested to clear the way for love, and the miller’s wife dances seductively to lead him on, tumbles him in the river, then partly undresses him to dry him — at which point the miller comes back home … Continue Reading »
May 8th 2009
In 1897 Rachmaninov’s first symphony failed in the concert hall, and he plunged into a four-year depression, convinced that he would never work again. He was cured by a psychiatrist who built up his confidence with hours of patient praise and persuasion, and in 1901 he premiered this concerto. It was one of his finest works, and became the best-loved concerto in the entire piano repertoire. Continue Reading »
April 3rd 2009
After the death of Alexander Borodin in 1887, RimskyKorsakov helped to finish composing his Prince Igor. Delighted by the Polovtsian Dances, he planned an `Oriental’ work of his own, based on the Arabian Nights stories about Sindbad the Sailor. Rather than setting out to retell them in music, though, he preferred to give ‘the general idea of a story of fairy-tale wonders’, and the resulting piece is a ’symphonic’ suite, organized like a symphony, not a set of unconnected movements. Continue Reading »
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