MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Essential Ballet
CD1
Pyotr Il'yich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Swan Lake – Acts 2 and 3 extracts (1876) [14:30]
Sleeping Beauty – Act 1 extracts (1890) [11:38]
The Nutcracker – Act 2 extracts (1892) [12:29]
Ludwig MINKUS (1826-1917)
Don Quixote – Act 3 Pas de deux (1869) [7:03]
Ferdinand HÉROLD (1791-1833)
La fille mal gardée – Act 2 extracts (1828) [6:24]
Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Cinderella – Acts 1 and 2 extracts (1945) [10:48]
Aram KHACHATURIAN (1903-1978)
Spartacus – Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia (extract) (1956) [4:42]
Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Romeo and Juliet – Act 1 extracts (1938) [10:35]
CD2
Adolphe ADAM (1803-1856)
Giselle – Acts 1 and 2 extracts (1841) [8:24]
Riccardo DRIGO (1846-1930)
Le Corsaire – Pas de deux (1887) [6:39]
Léo DELIBES (1836-1891)
Coppélia – Act 1 extracts (1870) [6:23]
Jacques OFFENBACH (1819-1880)
Gaîeté Parisienne (ballet, arr. Rosenthal)overture (1938) [2:17]
Léo DELIBES (1836-1891)
Sylvia – Pizzicati (1876) [1:48]
Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Petrushka – Russian dance (1911/1947) [2:29]
Apollo – Coda (1928) [3:26]
Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Les Sylphides (ballet, arr. Douglas) Grand valse brillante in E flat op.18 (1936) [5:00]
Francis POULENC (1899-1963)
Les Biches – Rondeau (1924) [3:34]
Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937)
Daphnis et Chloé – Danse général – bacchanale (1912) [4:54]
César FRANCK (1822-1890)
Symphonic variations – conclusion (1885) [4:09]
Erik SATIE (1866-1925)
Monotones (orch. Lanchbery) – Gnossienne no.1 (1965) [2:49]
John LANCHBERY (1923-2003)
Tales of Beatrix Potter – Mrs Tiggy-Winkle’s laundry (1970) [2:21]
Sir Arthur SULLIVAN (1842-1900)
Pineapple Poll (ballet, arr. Mackerras) – opening dance (1951) [3:42]
Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990)
Rodeo – Hoe-down (1942) [4:12]
Pyotr Il'yich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Serenade – Valse (1880; ballet, 1934) [3:38]
Gabriel FAURÉ (1845-1924)
Jewels – Emeralds (ballet, 1967) [3:56]
Georges BIZET (1838-1875)
Symphony in C – Finale (1855) [8:20]
see end of review for performer details
EMI CLASSICS 6486502 [78:49 + 79:12]

Experience Classicsonline



Surely something of a misnomer? After all, the only essential element that distinguishes ballet is that we see someone dancing or, at the very least, moving, on stage. Music is not actually necessary, let alone essential, as was discussed a few years ago on an interesting Ballet Alert! forum page – see here.

Nonetheless, taking the double-CD set’s title as really meaning “extracts from some of the scores it is essential to be aware of if you are interested in ballet” (which, had it been used, wouldn’t, I imagine, have left much space on the cover for a picture), this is a pretty good job.

John Lanchbery’s idiomatically theatrical recordings of the Tchaikovsky ballets with the Philharmonia have been much admired since their original release and still sound very impressive, in spite of coming up to their 30th birthday. The well chosen extracts on disc 1 showcase, in passing, some especially beguiling playing from violinist Christopher Warren-Green and cellist Robert Truman. André Previn was something of a Prokofiev advocate when he headed the London Symphony Orchestra (I seem to recall Alexander Nevsky featuring on BBC TV’s André Previn’s Music Night) and the Cinderella and Romeo and Juliet extracts are, as might be expected, very well done here. Shorter extracts from Minkus’s Don Quixote - Robert Irving conducting an arrangement of his own that I find far preferable to Lanchbery’s as heard on other discs in this EMI series - and Hérold’s La fille mal gardée as winningly conducted by Barry Wordsworth round off a hugely enjoyable first CD.

The contents of the second disc may well be “essential” in the eyes of EMI, but I suspect that not all tracks will necessarily be immediately appealing to a large part of the target market. When I played the discs on a long car journey, for instance, my passengers who described themselves as “enjoying a good tune” and who had loved the Tchaikovsky, the Minkus, the Khachaturian and the Romeo and Juliet (the jury remained out on the Cinderella), found Stravinsky, Poulenc and Ravel to be rather harder work. Once again, however, the performances have clearly been chosen with care and, if the repertoire appeals to you - and with the regular caveat that you should check for unnecessary duplications if collecting other issues in this series - you will certainly enjoy them a great deal.

The very nature of releases like this suggests that they are most likely to be listened to casually rather than with great concentration. Bearing that in mind, it is worth observing that the dynamic range on these discs is very wide indeed and that, when listened to in a car, the ambient noise of the vehicle forces one to turn up the volume for quiet passages only to have to turn it down again regularly whenever a dramatic and musical climax hoves into view.

Rob Maynard

Performer details
Philharmonia Orchestra/John Lanchbery (Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Robert Irving (Don Quixote Act 3)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth (La fille mal gardée )
London Symphony Orchestra/André Previn (Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella and Daphnis and Chloé)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Yuri Temirkanov (Spartacus)
Philharmonia Orchestra/Robert Irving (Giselle and Les Sylphides)
London Festival Ballet Orchestra/Terence Kern (Le Corsaire)
New Philharmonia Orchestra/Sir Charles Mackerras (Coppélia and Sylvia)
Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo/Manuel Rosenthal (Gaîté Parisienne)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (Petrushka and Apollo)
Philharmonia Orchestra/Georges Prêtre (Les Biches)
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse/Michel Plasson (Symphonic variations and Jewels)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/John Lanchbery (Tales of Beatrix Potter)
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Charles Mackerras (Pineapple Poll)
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra/Leonard Slatkin (Rodeo)
City of London Sinfonia/Richard Hickox (Serenade and Symphony in C)

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.