George Balanchine Research Articles

THE EXAMINATION OF ETUDES USED IN PIANO EDUCATION

In the literature, there is a considerable number of piano etudes written by different composers for various proficiency levels. However, when the etude books are examined, it is observed that the technical studies are not listed in a systematic way. Piano teachers choose the etudes to be studied taking into consideration both the levels of their students and the techniques that could be challenging in the etudes they give to their students. In the present study, the etudes were examined in terms of the technical studies they included. This research was conducted in order to create a database according to the technical difficulties in the etudes. Therefore, the etudes were classified as study groups according to the type of studies they included. In the research, literature review method was used and Czerny op.599, Czerny op.299, Czerny op.136, Czerny op.636, Duvernoy op.176, Berens op.61, Burgmüller op.100 which are used in piano education were examined. The research was limited to the determined study books and 354 etudes were examined. The research was initiated by classifying the works in the etude books according to their tones. The etudes were then grouped according to their technical difficulties. After this grouping, each etude is classified in three levels according to the technical difficulty, as beginner (1), intermediate (2) and advanced (3). While making this leveling, the piano education course levels in Marmara University Music Education Department were taken as a basis. It has been observed that some etudes have more than one technical difficulty, and this type of etudes are included in the group by considering which study they are focusing more on.

Handling Hazardous Biographical Materials: Dealing with Questionable Character Traits through Poetic Biography

ABSTRACT As a (poetic) biographer who has dedicated considerable time to wading through archives and other research materials, I have often found myself wanting my biographical subjects to reveal themselves not only to be interesting, intelligent, accomplished, but to be ‘good people’ also, perhaps sharing my own artistic and political views of the world. Occasionally, however, I have been confronted with information that has stopped me short. And I have asked myself ‘How do I deal with that?’ Percy Grainger, for example, thought that blue-eyed composers were superior. And George Balanchine’s name is frequently associated with poor treatment of female dancers (though many have jumped to his defence). Of course, life stories are much more complex than a singular focus on such details will allow, and a biographer must consider all angles. As this article will discuss – through reference to my own work and that of other poets – I am interested in how poetry’s many affordances have enabled me to approach difficult material in ways that adequately distance my own moral judgement from the text and instead encourage a more active readerly engagement with facts and/or ambiguous information.

The semantics of the names of Luo Maishuo’s Piano Etudes as the transformation of traditional national images

The semantics of the names of Luo Maishuo’s Piano Etudes as the transformation of traditional national images

“New Ballet Criticism” (1993–2003) About “Soviet” Ballet: Forms of Cultural Recycling

In post-Soviet Russia ballet criticism, similar to opera criticism, has an almost 30-year-old history, but the period perceived as the brightest and most significant is the first period, spanning the 1990s and the early part of the first decade of the 21st century. For this New Ballet Criticism (as it has been labelled by Vadim Gaevsky), as a part of New Russian Music Criticism (as defined by Olga Manulkina and Pavel Gershenzon), a number of features have become normative: provocative styles and titles, a demythologization of works and of choreographers, the use of comparisons with mass culture in narratives, and ironic subtext. Similar to opera, political discourse has become important in ballet receptions of that time. Reviews of Soviet-era ballet productions (as well as other types of performance) often refer to the main elements of Soviet mass art — Soviet films, as well as symbols of the totalitarian culture, such as sculpture and ideological materials. The styles and headlines exploit numerous Sovietisms that are familiar and recognizable by the audience. Just like in opera reviews, the recent “Soviet” element in ballet receptions is synthesized with Soviet mass culture and fashionable trends in the country via the cult of Western cinema and the influence of domestic and foreign literary, scholarly and epistolary texts. But unlike opera criticism, ballet narratives clearly record the diversity of genres of “Soviet” ballet (ranking Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich among them); ballets since 1961 have been interpreted as a transformation of the “Soviet” element under the influence of George Balanchine’s choreography; the concept of “Soviet choreography” also implies the unreachable, for example, in the embodiment of heroic moods and the creation of mass scenes. Four forms of cultural recycling in ballet receptions are identified: recycling, recycling à la ballet, double recycling and quasi-recycling.

Piano etudes by Lo Maisho: trends in the development of the genre

In the modern professional piano art of China, the genre of piano etude is an important part of musical culture and occupies a special place in the history of Chinese music. The first samples of etudes for piano by Chinese composers date back to the 20s of the last century and were created as pieces for the development of the pianist's technical skills. During the development of the genre, the artistic value of the sketches has increased: from a play of a technical nature, the sketches have become independent, dramaturgically constructed compositions. The composers rely on the intonation features of national music, use the melodies of traditional Chinese songs, and resort to modern writing techniques. However, innovation is usually limited to this. The young Chinese composer Luo Maisho created a series of etudes in which, on the one hand, he inherits traditional methods of composition, on the other, he violates the established foundations. For the first time, the metrorhythm region becomes a donor for structural transformations. The author of the article introduces the work of the young composer, offers an excursion into the history of the development of the piano etude genre in China, provides an analysis of the metrorhythmic organization of Lo Maisho's etudes. Thus, the purpose of the study is to analyze new trends in the development of the piano etude genre in China, the subject is the metrorhythmic organization of the musical fabric. In piano studies, Lo Maisho reaches a new level in the progression of the genre. He identifies new trends in Chinese piano music, introducing elements of folk songs, imitation of the sounds of traditional musical instruments, reflecting the imagery and various cultural characteristics of the peoples of various regions of China, introduces new techniques of metrorhythmic organization. The composer does not limit himself to the use of pentatonics, but resolutely strives for innovations in the genre of etude. It is noteworthy that the author departs from the established tradition, which is based on the use of Western European techniques combined with the intonation culture of Chinese melodies, he offers new forms of compositional solutions.

Black Dancers and White Ballet: Case of Cuba

Throughout the XX century, the hard-fought battle of blacks and dark-skinned dancers to perform the classical repertoire on professional stages (including “white ballets”) was a part of the struggle for citizens’ equality. Cuba is a clear example of creating a national ballet school in a country where the fight for social equality was closely connected with overcoming racial segregation. But some researchers have noted that the majority of dancers in the Ballet Nacional de Cuba belong to the Caucasoid phenotype, which means they do not represent the Cuban nation which includes a large variety of phenotypes. We pose the question in what way is the history of Cuban ballet and the artistic experience of its founders connected with the struggle of blacks to have professional dancing careers, and is there actually racial discrimination in Cuban ballet? We demonstrate that the Alonso triumvirate was a good indicator of the problem: Alicia and Fernando as performers, and Alberto Alonso as a choreographer, participated in a cultural movement directed at the rebirth of Cuban identity, they performed African American dances, and they worked together with George Balanchine, who adapted black dance and invited black dancers into his company. However, due to various reasons and circumstances, Alicia Alonso, first for herself and then for the Nacional ballet school and theatre, took a different path, that of entering, on equal footing, the domain of classical ballet, of European art in its essence, in which the white aesthetic is inherent. We would like to demonstrate that the main explanation of the paradox of Cuban ballet became the aesthetic dictatorship of the classics, the dictatorship within “white ballet” which is accepted voluntarily. Classical ballet is an art of subordination to rules and images that are thought of as absolute pinnacles.

О способах репрезентации китайского стиля в этюдах для фортепиано

The authors focus on ways to embody the Chinese style in etudes for piano. Piano etudes in the Chinese style represent an important experience of the interaction between the traditions of Chinese culture and European academic music. Etudes by Chinese and Russian composers from the collection "Sixty Etudes in Chinese Style" (editor-compiler Dou Qing) became the material for the study. The main ways of representing the Chinese style in piano etudes are identified and determined, their great potential for solving urgent problems that exist today in music education is noted. In particular, work on etudes in the Chinese style is able to reduce the imbalance between the artistic and technical sides of the performance. An assumption is made about the high technical potential of the pentatonic scale, the modal and melodic basis of etudes in the Chinese style. As an example of an ethno-cultural genre sketch (one of the ways of representing the Chinese style), the study "Let's look at Yangge" by Se Gongchen is analyzed.

Будущее русского балета: взгляд из начала ХХ века

At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth many thought that ballet was in crisis. An opposition could be observed between the “old” classical ballet and the “new” ballet, represented in the first place by Michel Fokine and Alexander Gorskii. In books and magazines critics discussed what should happen to Russian ballet in the future. Many of these predictions were later fulfilled. The critics managed to “foresee” the advent of abstract ballet (pioneered by George Balanchine), the epoch of so-called “dramballet”, and the gradual independence of character dance in 1930–1940.

Dancers on a Grid: Musical Minimalism Arrives at New York City Ballet in 1983

AbstractOn May 12, 1983, New York City Ballet became the first major ballet company to perform a work to minimalist music: Jerome Robbins's Glass Pieces, titled after its score by Philip Glass. The premiere came at a turning point for both minimalism and ballet. The dance world was reeling in the wake of the death of choreographer George Balanchine. Simultaneously, minimalist music was in the process of moving from countercultural avant-garde venues to wealthy, high-status institutions. Although previously minimalist music had helped postmodern choreographers create works that celebrated everyday movement and equality among dancers, for Robbins minimalist music conjured a sense of urban propulsion. In each of the ballet's first two sections, Robbins choreographed to Glass's music in two ways simultaneously: A group from the corps de ballet used the egalitarian techniques from postmodern dance to create a modern urban backdrop, while another group of soloists used virtuosic techniques from modernist ballet. This allowed audiences to shift their focus at any given moment between the anonymity of the corps and the heroic subjectivity of the soloists. In the third section of Glass Pieces, Robbins staged a virtuosic group dance for the corps de ballet, using Glass's exoticist music for Akhnaten to create an escape from the relentless modernity of the first two sections. Altogether, I argue that Glass Pieces is one of the earliest works of contemporary ballet and an important step in minimalist music's transition from its earlier heyday as a music representing countercultural egalitarianism to one representing the modern city.

Dancers, Mountains, and People in the Fields

Dancers, Mountains, and People in the Fields

Greek and Roman Mythologies Within the Dance Classroom: An In-Depth Description of a Cross-Curricular Unit Plan

This article provides an in-depth look into a unit plan I crafted as a student teacher based on Greco-Roman mythologies and how I have since modified it and applied it to various grade levels. My inspiration for this unit is based on the connection between ballet and modern dance pioneers (George Balanchine, Isadora Duncan, and Martha Graham) and the Greco-Roman mythologies that influenced them when creating some of their masterworks. Along with explanations of successfully tested lesson plans and templates of rubrics and assignments, I include descriptions and short analyses of four myths I have used in the high school and middle school setting. This unit could easily be adapted to embrace mythology from other areas of the world and modified for any pre-K–12 setting.

About the Contributors

About the Contributors

Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange

Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange

Analysis of CHOPPIN’s ETUDE Op.25，No.2

Choppin is one of the most influential and popular piano composers in history. He was a representative of Europe in 
 romantic music. He composed 27 piano etudes, which took the piano art to a higher level. Op. 25, No. 2 is the second etude in 
 Choppin’s Etude Op. 25, which is an etude in F minor.

Queer Shadows of Balanchine’s Orpheus (1948)

This article examines the ballet Orpheus (1948), choreographed by George Balanchine, and the cultural milieu of queerness surrounding the ballet’s creation. Although Orpheus is known for helping to formally establish the New York City Ballet, the undercurrents of homosexuality in the ballet’s development have received less attention in the historical narrative. Additionally, the dancer Nicholas Magallanes, a gay Mexican American immigrant who starred in the title role, is similarly overlooked. Thus, through choreographic analysis and archival research, I elucidate the collective influence of a constellation of queer men to assert that the significance of Orpheus lies in its queer past.

Historical schooling: ballet style and technique

ABSTRACT Aiming to challenge the notion that the ballet lexicon is ahistorical, this study focuses on the ballet classroom. Training plays a vital role in how ballets are performed, and past choreography needs a different approach from that of contemporary ballets. Previous studies of classroom movement, while acknowledging different Schools, have not dealt with the effect on the dancer of diverse training systems. To explore this, I filmed three students from the Royal Ballet School, who learned sections from a syllabus, constructed by Ninette de Valois in 1947, to investigate how aesthetic values, implicit in the syllabus, differed from those of today. Contemporary source material was used to examine the values of the era revealing the extent to which those principles significantly influenced the syllabus. To test this, the study compared the English values with those of George Balanchine and contemporary American writers. Balanchine’s classroom technique was also largely constructed at about the same time as de Valois’s. The findings show that embodying the past through earlier values can be an effective way of communicating with today’s dancers, highlighting how such principles change.

The Dance Company Film

The Dance Company Film

English

In this study, the American pianist and composer Jeff Manookian's "Etudes for the Intermediate Pianist" method was examined. In this qualitative study, the descriptive research model was employed and the literature was scanned through document review. As a result of the examination, no study was found on Manookian's piano etudes. To that end, Jeff Manookian's "Etudes for the Intermediate Pianist" method was examined by considering the characteristics and differences of the etudes, and the elements that the composer aimed to use in the etudes were stated. It is seen that each etitude in the method includes practices that will enable to overcome a different technical difficulty. Including the nuances of musical expression in the etudes and emphasizing the musical terms reveal that the composer adopted an approach that aims to care and increase musicality as well as technical development. Manookian etudes also have a writing style that supports pedal use and performance improvement. As a result of the study, it is thought that Manookian's etudes for intermediate pianists can be used as an alternative source in piano education.   Key words: Jeff Manookian, piano education, piano etudes.

How to Capture Movement

How to Capture Movement

Monument und Monopoly. György Ligetis erstes Stück für zwei Klaviere und Spieltheorie

Motivated by the exchange of ideas with the biologist and chaos researcher Manfred Eigen and Douglas R. Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979), György Ligeti’s later compositions refer explicitly to mathematical phenomena (e.g., in the Piano Etudes since 1985). Ligeti himself recognized scientific models also in his works that were composed before this period. One of the significant pieces during the transition to his late works is Monument (the first movement of the Three Pieces for two Pianos from 1976) which points clearly in the direction of the late compositional style. Monument does not follow rigid mathematical rules, but rather a flexible set of game rules. A simple starting point and a clear goal cause continuously ramifying rules. Their complexity forces the composer to exert a maximum of control over the conception and the compositional process. Monument starts with six layers of tones, played in different dynamics, different cycles of varying durations and different “instrumentations”, i. e., the distribution of pitches over the octaves. Several processes like lowering the notes and dynamics, diminishing the duration cycles and changing the “instrumentation” interact with ideas of game-like fluctuations, ramifications and the aesthetic idea of wellformedness. There are several points during the course of the composition where the composer has to decide how he wants to change the rules. Whereas the over-all formal plan obviously was conceived graphically or spatially (thus being connected to Ligeti’s synaesthesia), the developmental character of the music stands somewhere between architectonic form and process form. This article develops an analysis in relation to game theory that tries to synchronize the conception with the creative process as far as it can be reconstructed from the score. Even though at first glance Ligeti’s compositional method seems to be axiomatic and mathematic, it contains many playful elements including “trial and error”. “I do not have a computer, not even a pocket calculator”, was one of his catch phrases – another one, as a consequence: “I always had to start anew because it didn’t work.” This way of working with game-like rules is significant and shows that Ligeti’s music cannot be thoroughly understood in the tradition of serial or process-like music; an important connection leads to Béla Bartók whose conceptions often lead in similar directions.