{"id":10006,"date":"2013-02-24T08:09:54","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T13:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=10006"},"modified":"2013-02-24T08:09:54","modified_gmt":"2013-02-24T13:09:54","slug":"benjamin-britten-at-100-part-ii-dance-a-fine-window-into-this-composers-eclecticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/02\/24\/benjamin-britten-at-100-part-ii-dance-a-fine-window-into-this-composers-eclecticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Britten at 100, Part II: Dance a fine window into this composer’s eclecticism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kenneth<\/a>
Kenneth MacMillan’s staging of Benjamin Britten’s ballet The Prince of the Pagodas<\/em> for the Royal Ballet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We think of Benjamin Britten as an opera composer, but he wrote for ballet as well, and the rhythmic vitality of much of his instrumental music continues to inspire choreographers.<\/p>\n

According to the excellent background information on Benjamin Britten and his music published by the Britten-Pears Foundation<\/a>, the would-be composer produced his first ballet score, Plymouth Town<\/em>, at age 17.<\/p>\n

It is described by the Foundation as, “A dockside morality tale slightly indebted to Stravinsky’s Petrouchka.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

Throughout his life, Britten was not shy about adapting music from other times and places. This is an hourable, centuries-old English tradition that would have earned scorn from a Mid-Century Modern North American or German composition professor.<\/p>\n

Dance music is a great window into this eclecticism. I also think this is a fine way to begin appreciating why Britten’s creations resonate so well a century after his birth — at a time when the rest of culture is open to borrowing and adapting across cultures in musical mashups and kitchen fusions.<\/p>\n

In 1938, Britten took some music he had appropriated for a film score from Gioachino Rossini and turned it into the ballet score Soir\u00e9es musicales<\/em>. It was so well received that he then wrote a companion, Matin\u00e9es musicales<\/em>. (Publisher Boosey & Hawkes says Balanchine turned both suites into a new ballet, but it doesn’t show up on the official George Balanchine Trust list.)<\/p>\n

Here is conductor Desar Sulejmani at a concert in D\u00fcsseldorf two years ago, taking us through the first two-thirds of Matin\u00e9es musicales<\/em>:<\/p>\n