Musicon / Musical education / Ballet music
-Ballet music
The Suite has come back into favor as an orchestral piece, but the term no longer has the fixed significance which once it had. It is now applied to almost any group of short pieces, pleasantly contrasted in rhythm, tempo, and mood, each complete in itself yet disclosing an aesthetic relationship with its fellows. Sometimes old dance forms are used, and sometimes new, such as the polonaise and the waltz.
The ballet music, which fills so welcome a place in popular programmes, may be looked upon as such a suite, and the rhythm of the music and the orchestral coloring in them are frequently those peculiar to the dances of the countries in which the story of the opera or drama for which the music was written plays. The ballets therefore afford an excellent opportunity for the study of local color. Thus the ballet music from Massenet’s “Cid” is Spanish, from Rubinstein’s “Feramors” Oriental, from “Aοda” Egyptian-Oriental rhythms and colorings being those most easily copied by composers.
From: H. Krehbiel’s, How to Listen to Music; excerpts, edited by Musicon
Maria Callas, Massenet – Le Cid – Pleurez, pleurez mes yeux