Tuesday, November 08, 2005 headache.Watching the reproduction of Nijinsky's choreography of Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du Printemps, has just about killed/ruined/annihilated any ability of mine to listen to the music on its own merit. When I listen to bits of it, especially The Augurs of Spring, I can see garishly-attired Russian barbarians leaping about on stage against an absolutely cheesy mountain landscape for a stage drop, and the mad old crone scuttering back on forth like a twitchy squirrel hunting twigs for nuts. I can envision every single movement of the dancers, superimposed onto the blocks across the road, and accurately tell you which dance movements are to come next. Now, when I hear some particular woodwind themes, instead of thinking: "That's the folk-like theme which represents the girls", I'd think: "Oh, there's where the girls dance with that odd two-dimensional fashion, with their arms crooked at 45 degrees and their face tilted upwards at the same slant." And I've only watched it in its entirety once! After having seen such grotesque yet alluring images like these, who can forget them? Btw, imagine these dancers in these very same costumes on Parisian stage in 1913. 1913. Is it any wonder why it incited a riot? How am I to analyze the music on its own, without any influence from the damned choreography? [It makes a hell lot of difference.] It's a ballet, true, it's not meant to be heard as a 'concert' repertoire, as it were, but still! Oh, the pain of having a near-perfect photographic memory! she procrastinated @ 23:46 | |
blueprint I will like to spend my days, as though they are my own, which I mostly end up doing in halves, for duty beckons, and I am answering its clarion call. Soon enough! I am also a veteran procrastinator. fresh monodies and it all fuses together. previous rants August 2004 treatises on life arty jen frivolous pursuits for shallow ppl mulling over "One is wicked, because one see things clearly." - Beaumarchais's Le nozze di Figaro.And there were phlegmatic souls.
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