The Paper Reporter Liao Yang Intern Zhou Jingyi
Bang, the pointe shoes of ballet dancers knock on the ground and make a sonorous sound, what is hidden in the toe?
Answering one after another, some people answered wood, and some answered silicone, “Silicone is excessive, silicone is soft, can’t stand up!” Daniel, a young dancer, laughed and said that the toe of the shoe is actually cloth, a layer of cloth, a layer of glue, dozens of layers overlapped, and finally dried, “If it is wood, it will sweat, it will be damp, it will be moldy.” ”
Such an interesting scene happened on January 16, the third lecture of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra’s “Music Map Class”, “Dance Music”. This is a popular class that takes the audience freely through the world of dance and music, and ballet dancers wearing pointe shoes and tutu skirts dance ballet in the concert hall.
Young dancer Daniel and ballet dancers popularize ballet
How to distinguish between romantic and classical ballet
What country did ballet originate from? At the scene, the audience’s answers were also enthusiastic, answering France, Italy, and Russia.
“Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance, but flourished in France. The movement terminology of ballet all over the world is French, so many people mistakenly believe that it originated in France. ”
Daniel said slowly, speaking of France, I have to mention King Louis XIV of France, who loves ballet and plays an important role in the history of ballet development. In 1661, Louis XIV founded the world’s first royal ballet school in Paris, and developed a systematic syllabus, laying down the norms of hand position, foot position and many ballet movements. It was only after the 17th century that ballet left the court, entered the theater, and entered the public eye.
“Before the 17th century, the heroines in ballet were all male skewers, because no women danced ballet, which was also a manifestation of the artistic inferiority of the French imperial power to men and women.” Pointe shoes also appeared later, and in 1832, Tarioni starred in “The Fairy”, which was later hailed as the “romantic ballet debut” at the Paris Opera, becoming the first female dancer to wear pointe shoes and dance using the pointe technique.
So, how do you distinguish between romantic ballet and classical ballet? Daniel shared a tip, in romantic ballets such as “Fairy” and “Giselle”, female dancers wear knee-length skirts, while in classical ballets such as “Swan Lake”, “Sleeping Beauty” and “The Nutcracker”, female dancers wear tutu skirts, like small round tables, showing two long legs.
“First there was romanticism, then there was classicism. In the beginning, female dancers were not allowed to show their legs, so they had long skirts and could only show their foot bones. Later, everyone slowly opened up to the aesthetics of art, tutu skirts can better show the body line, and it is lighter, female dancers can do more rotation, bounce, and show more skills. Daniel said.
Subsequently, many children were invited to the stage, and under the leadership of a ballet dancer, they learned ballet one move at a time, and laughter.
Shanghai Symphony Orchestra performs “Swan” and “Vienna Temperament Waltz”
How did Saint-Saëns’ “Swan” come about
In the performing arts category, dance and music are always deeply integrated and deeply bound.
The Russian composer Tchaikovsky wrote countless heirloom works in his lifetime, including music for “Swan Lake”, “Sleeping Beauty” and “The Nutcracker”, which are easy to understand and widely circulated. The character of these music is distinct, which not only retains the elegance and beauty of traditional ballet music, but also has rich symphony and plot.
The French composer Saint-Saëns also wrote a “Swan”, soulful, pure, and sad, and countless ballet dancers danced on this short piece for a few minutes, and even adapted it into the ballet solo “Death of the Swan”. “The Swan” comes from Saint-Saëns’ orchestral suite “Carnival of Animals”, and its birth is also very interesting, and the proud Saint-Saëns flows it from the tip of the pen with displeasure.
“Saint-Saëns is smart and proud. Once went on tour, but I didn’t expect that everyone didn’t know him, and he was very angry. The return trip was just in time for the carnival, and he began to write, writing into all the composers he hated and turning them into animals, such as the composer Ramo turned into a rooster. The host’s words amused everyone.
The work was written in 1886, but it did not premiere publicly until 1922. Because of the ridicule, Saint-Saëns did not dare to make it public, hiding it and forbidding it to be played or published during his lifetime, with the exception of The Swan.
Many great composers have also used the ancient genre of dance music. A famous example is Bach, whose Cello Suite is composed of an overture and some ancient dance pieces, such as Gig, Sarabande, and Kurante.
Austrian composer Johann Strauss Jr. is known as the “King of Waltzes”, and his waltzes have been transmitted to families through New Year’s concerts. Originally, his father did not want him to become a musician, but rather a banker, because the latter had a higher social status. Unexpectedly, Johann Strauss Jr. studied music and formed a band behind his father’s back, and later surpassed his father in musical achievements and prestige.
Principal Huang Beixing, cello voice, popularizes cello
Why is there a hole hidden behind the cello?
In order to give the audience a more intuitive impression of the work, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra performed Johann Strauss Jr.’s “Viennese Temperament Waltz” live. Huang Beixing, principal of the cello section, and harp player Sun Zhiyang, accompanied by the dance steps of the ballet dancers, presented Saint-Saëns’ “Swan”, two of the most romantic instruments colliding romantically, which is mesmerizing.
As early as the Baroque period, the cello was one of the most popular instruments. “For hundreds of years, composers have written many beautiful pieces for the cello. If you’re going to learn the piano, the cello is a great option. When popularizing this “big man” to the audience, Huang Beixing said that from the shape, string pitch to the number of roots of the strings, and the method of playing, the cello in the earliest days is completely different from the present.
In foreign countries, Huang Beixing likes to look at the piano everywhere, and found that many old pianos have a hole in the back, and they are all in the same position, and the senior piano repair masters do not repair it, so it is left like this. He didn’t understand it, and later a luthier told him that in the early years, the priests of the church liked to travel, and in order to play the piano while walking, they cut a hole in the back of the piano and hung a rope in the hole to facilitate hanging the piano.
“The leg support was also developed later. In the earliest days, people used to hold it between their legs, so it was also called ‘knee cello’. “It took hundreds of years of flux before the cello finally took shape into what it is today.
String instruments are the foundation of the symphony orchestra, without string instruments, the orchestra seems to have no roots, very ethereal, and the low-sounding cello is the most important one of the string instruments. Interestingly, the cello is not only indispensable in Western symphony orchestras, but also plays an important role in China’s national orchestra, and the playing principle of the national musical instrument Gehu is very similar to the cello, but due to various reasons such as timbre, it is gradually replaced by the cello.
At the scene, several lucky spectators were invited to the stage, holding the chief cello to try their skills, and the chief hand in hand led to the entrance, feeling this soulful instrument closely.
Chinese New Year special poster
【Program Trailer】
Since last September, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra’s “Music Map Class” has been held three consecutive lectures, and the venue has been full, attracting countless audiences of all sizes. The fourth lecture, “Nourishing the Temple of Hearts Music Sitting Meeting,” will be held in March this year.
During the Spring Festival, from February 3rd to 6th, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra will also pack four lessons and deliver them to the children under the name of the Chinese New Year special “Concert for Children”.
Responsible editor: Chen Shihuai
Proofreader: Xu Yijia