Minor Ballet Composers: Biographical Sketches of Sixty-Six Underappreciated Yet Significant Contributors to the Body of West

137 Pages·1997·3.47 MB·English

by  Bruce R Schueneman

Minor Ballet Composers:
Biographical Sketches
of Sixty-Six Underappreciated
Yet Significant Contributors
to the Body
of Western Ballet Music
Minor Ballet Composers:
Biographical Sketches
of Sixty-Six Underappreciated
Yet Significant Contributors
to the Body
of Western Ballet Music
by
Bruce R. Schueneman
conceived by, edited by,
and with contributions by
William E. Studwell
~~ ~~o~;~~n~~~up
NEW YORK AND LONDON
First published by
The Haworth Press, Inc.
10 Alice Street
Binghamton, N Y 13904-1580
This edition published 2012 by Routledge
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
711 Third Avenue 2 Park Square, Milton Park
New York, NY 10017 Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Minor Ballet Composers:
Biographical Sketches
of Sixty-Six Underappreciated
Yet Significant Contributors
to the Body of Western Ballet Music
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
A Note on Les Six 5
Composers 7
Arensky, Anton Stepanovich 7
Arnell, Richard Anthony Sayer 8
Arnold, Malcolm 9
Asaf'yev, Boris Vladimirovich 11
Auber, Daniel 14
Auric, Georges 17
Balakirev, Mily Alexeyevich 19
Banfield Tripcovich, (Baron) Raffaello de 21
Berners, Lord 22
Bernstein, Leonard 24
Bliss, Arthur 25
Burgmiiller, Johann Friedrich Franz 27
Chausson, Ernest 28
Cohen, Frederick (Fritz) 29
Constant, Marius 29
Damase, Jean-Michel 30
Deldevez, Edouard-Marie-Ernest 31
Delio Joio, Norman 32
d'Erlanger, (Baron) Frederic 32
Drigo Riccardo 33
Dutilleux, Henri 36
Egk, Werner (Werner Mayer) 37
Erlanger, (Baron) Frederic d' (see d' Erlanger) 32
Feldman, Morton 38
Fran~aix, Jean 38
Gabrielli, (Count) Nicolo 39
Gade, Niels Wilhelm 40
Gaubert, Philippe 42
Gide, Casimir 43
Gliere, Reinhold Moritzovitch 44
Gordon, Gavin Muspratt 45
Gottschalk, Louis Moreau 46
Gould, Morton 47
Heisted, Edvard 48
Henze, Hans Werner 48
Herold, Louis Joseph Ferdinand 50
Hertel, Peter Ludwig 51
Horst, Louis 52
Kay, Hershey 52
Lambert, Constant 54
Lecocq, Alexandre Charles 56
Liadov, Anatol Constantinovitch 56
Lovenskold, Herman 57
Lumbye, Hans Christian 58
Mader, Raoul Maria 59
Martinu, Bohuslav 59
Messager, Andre Charles Prosper 60
Minkus, Aloysius Ludwig (Leon Fedorovich) 61
Nabokov, Nicholas 64
Oldham, Arthur William 65
Paulli, Holger Simon 65
Pugni, Cesare 67
Rangstrom, Anders Johan Ture 71
Rieti, Vittorio 71
Riisager, Knudage 73
Roussel, Albert Charles Paul Marie 74
Satie, Erik Alfred Leslie 75
Sauguet, Henri 78
Schmitt, Florent 79
Schneitzhoeffer, Jean-Madeleine 80
Shchedrin, Rodion 80
Stolze, Kurt-Heinz 82
Subotnick, Morton 82
Tailleferre (Taillefesse ), Germaine 82
Tcherepnin, Nikolai 83
Toye, Geoffrey 84
Warlock, Peter (Philip Heseltine) 85
Glossary of Choreographers 87
Ashton, Frederick 87
Balanchivadze, Georgi (George Balanchine) 87
Bournonville, August 88
De Mille, Agnes George 88
de Valois (see Valois) 96
Fokine, Mikhail Mikhailovich (Michel) 89
Graham, Martha 89
Ivanov, Lev 90
Lifar, Serge 90
Massine, Leonid 91
Mazilier, Joseph (Giulio Mazarini) 91
Nijinska, Bronislava 92
Noverre, Jean-Georges 92
Perrot, Jules Joseph 93
Petipa, Marius 93
Petit, Roland 94
Robbins (Rabinowitz), Jerome 94
Saint-Leon, Arthur 95
Taglioni, Filippo 96
Valois, (Dame) Ninette de (Edris Stannus) 96
Index of Ballet Titles (Keyed to Composer Biographies) 99
Notes 113
Index 119
Bruce R. Schueneman, MLS, MS, is Head of Collection Services at
Texas A&M University in IGngsville, Texas. A violinist who studied
for 11 years with Thomas Pierson, Mr. Schueneman has a special in
terest in the French School composers. He has published a book and
several articles on Pierre Rode, one oft he leading French School com
posers, and has also penned a series of articles on minor composers.
He is currently working on the preparation ofn ew editions ofa quartet
by Rode and a sonata by the American composer Cecil Burleigh.
WilHam E. Studwell, MA, MSLS, is Professor and Principal Cata
loger at the University Libraries ofNorthern Illinois University inDe
K.alb. The author of The Americana Song Reader (The Haworth
Press, Inc., 1997), Mr. Studwell is the author of nine other books on
music including reference books on popular songs, state songs, ballet,
and opera. He has also written three books on cataloging and almost
300 articles in library science and music. A nationally known expert
on carols, college fight songs, and Library of Congress subject head
ings, he has made almost 260 radio, television, and print appearances
in national, regional, and local media. Mr. Studwell is the editor of
Music Reference Services Quarterly (The Haworth Press, Inc.).
Introduction
SUMMARY. Ballet possesses a rich tradition of music written for
the dance (though in some cases the music was appropriated for
the ballet from other original designs). While every music-lover is
familiar with the famous scores ofTchaikovsky, Delibes, and Stra
vinsky, many other lesser known composers also wrote for the bal
let. Several of these composers (Leon Minkus and Cesare Pugni,
for example) wrote almost exclusively for the ballet; all enriched
the world of dance. This work presents biographical sketches,
along with selected ballet stories from the ballets they helped
create, of 66 lesser known ballet composers. An introduction, a
glossary of selected choreographers, and an index of ballet titles is
also included. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Doc
ument Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: getinfo@
haworth. com]
Ballet is a curious art. While telling a story, it uses no words,
and while starkly modem in its twentieth-century incarnation, it
originated in an attempt to revive the pantomimi of ancient
Rome. These attempts at revival began in fifteenth-century Ita
ly. The great Italian courts sought entertainment for marriages
and other special occasions, and the first phase of modem ballet
was born. Though early ballet sometimes used songs or cho
ruses, the pantomimic character of ballet was evident from the
beginning.
Ballet was entirely aristocratic in its origins. It was carried to
France from Italy by Catharine de Medici. In France ballet devel-
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: "Introduction." Schueneman, Bruce R Co-published simulta
neously in Music Reference Services Quarterly (The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 5, No. 3/4, 1997, pp. 1-4;
and: Minor Ballet Composers: Biographical Sketches of Sixty-Six Underappreciated Yet Significant
Contributors to the Body of Western Ballet Music (Bruce R Schueneman with William E. Studwell) The
Haworth Press, Inc., 1997, pp. 1-4. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The
Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-342-9678, 9:00 am. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address:
[email protected]].
© 1997 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 1
2 Minor Ballet Composers
oped in three stages. At first it was only performed at court. Lully
was the first great composer of ballet music, as well as the first to
insist on women dancers as well as men. Ballet was even used for
political purposes by Richlieu. Louis XIV was a keen dancer and
danced many roles. One of the best known was as the Sun King in
Le Ballet de la Nuit. Louis appeared at the end of the work with
Aurora, and was accompanied by allegorical representations of
honor, love, grace, riches, victory, fame, and peace. 1 Eventually
Louis became too fat to dance and ballet fell out of favor at the
French court. Ballet moved to the colleges and was used for special
occassions (the ballets of Lully and Quinault were often per
formed). Finally ballet moved onto the stage, where it has remained
ever since. 2 Louis XIV greatly aided the profession of ballet with
the founding, in 1661, of the Academie Royale de Danse. 3
Jean George Noverre was the first great choreographer of ballet
d'action (ballet that tells a story). His genius was to codify an art of
movement and gesture that was also dramatic, and to explain this art
in several treatises. Garrick's comparison of Noverre with Shake
speare was not mere hyperbole.4
Carlos Blasis, director of the Milan Academy of Dancing
(founded 1813), took up Noverre's ideas in two books, Treatise on
the Art ofD ancing and The Code of Terpsichore. Blasis' system of
training influenced every ballet school after him. After Blasis, Fo
kine was the great modem reformer, who took his ideas to Russia
and later back to Europe. Both Noverre and Fokine emphasized that
ballet must express a human story above all, and not become a mere
vehicle for virtuosity.
Ballet has striven throughout its history to be accepted as equal
among the other arts. Often its aristocratic background worked
against it. Ballet has been seen as fatally compromised by its aristo
cratic milieu, or (in more democratic terms) as hopelessly elitist.
Despite the great tradition ofballet in Russia (and because it was so
closely identified with the court), ballet "(which did not preach
anything 'useful,' where nothing for the improvement of society
was advocated, and people were only busy with such nonsense as
dancing, and in very scanty costumes at that)" was considered
unworthy of serious people. The balletomanes were viewed as ec
centric and depraved; ballet deserved little more respect than the