Ballet Highlights For Piano Solo

SKU: FA.MFRO001P

8.27 x 11.69 inches.

Over the years 1908-16, Debussy had produced a viable scenario for Usher on his third attempt. Butwhen he came to making a complete draft of the music, he seems to have lost interest during Roderick Usher's long monologue, even though he was setting his own text. As in No-ja-li he jumped to the next passage that interested him, in this case the exciting final melodrama and the collapse of the Usher house itself. In the process of completing the missing half of the score, I discovered that by reusing Debussy's material for similar psychological situations across the opera, and by metamorphosing existing ideas (as Debussy does with Melisande's theme in his opera Pelleas et Melisande), the only things I really needed to add were linking material and any passages where fast music was required. So the 'nightmare scherzo', and Lady Madeline's escape from her coffin and her final bloody revenge on her brother are all mine, but most of the rest is existing Debussy in changing contexts (in which the Russian technique of 'changing backgrounds', both harmonic and textural, proved extremely useful, as it did to Debussy in his Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune). Eventually, both my completed ballet No-ja-li and the House of Usher were successfully premiered in 2006 and the latter soon began to find its way into the established repertoire in Europe and the US. To further support this, I transcribed some of the highlights of Debussy's score as A Night in the House of Usher for organ, and subsequently piano--with a focus on Scene 2 and the final, horrific and maca-bre melodrama. This climaxes in the double deaths of Roderick Usher and his Sister Madeline, together with the disintegration of the ill-fated House of Usher into the stagnant lake-all beneath a blood-red moon.In this form it was first performed by Ian Buckle in the Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds in 2010.

SKU: HL.50603661

ISBN 9781705127827. UPC: 840126952285.

This work is a reworking of the music written by Nino Rota for the film of the same name by Federico Fellini, Oscar winner in 1957. In 1967 Rota composed the music for the ballet La strada for the Teatro alla Scala, in collaboration with the choreographer Mario Pistoni, where Carla Fracci was expected to play the role of Gelsomina. This show has always remained alive in my memory since in those years I began the profession of flutist at La Scala, where I also had the opportunity to perform ballet. The transcription traces the salient moments of the plot, highlighted by the captions taken from the original score. Free of virtuosity, so appreciated by the flutists, it is conceived with the intention of restoring the dramaturgical tension of the Fellini-Rota masterpiece. (C. Tabarelli).