Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Ballets Russes

The Untimely Ends of Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Coleridge’s Pleasure Dome

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree…”

Sounds good to me! As I sit here like Sardanapalus luxuriating amidst my musical treasures, I contemplate the short life and creative promise of Charles Tomlinson Griffes.

Griffes’ was a unique voice in American music. At the beginning of his life, our native composers mostly emulated Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms; by the end, they were starting to gravitate toward jazz. By contrast, Griffes, like the painter Mary Cassatt, was attracted to French Impressionism (oddly, he studied in Germany with Engelbert Humperdinck, of “Hansel and Gretel” fame), yet the weird incense of Scriabin also permeates his work.

He is best known for dreamy meditations like “The White Peacock” and “The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan,” after Coleridge.

Griffes was born in Elmira, NY, on this date in 1884. He died of influenza in 1920, aged only 35 years. (No flu vaccine then.) Elmira was Mark Twain’s home from 1870. Twain was in Elmira putting the finishing touches on “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” the year Griffes was born. I’ve sometimes wondered if the two ever met. It has been documented that Griffes saw Twain there when moving about the streets. They certainly adhered to very different aesthetics.

It was Pierre Monteux, who introduced Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloe,” Debussy’s “Jeux,” and Stravinsky’s “Petrushka” and “The Rite of Spring” with the Ballets Russes, that unlocked the Pleasure Dome for the first time, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1916.

You’ll recall Samuel Taylor Coleridge launched into his famous poem one night in 1797, after waking from an opium-induced dream, only to be interrupted by a knock at the door. When he returned to his desk, he was unable to pick up the thread. According to Coleridge, he envisioned the work as two or three hundred lines, but he found he’d forgotten the words! (Oh, how I can relate to this…) We can thank Lord Byron for convincing him to publish it, finally, in 1816.

Here’s Coleridge’s phantasmagoric fragment, to refresh your memory.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan

Give yourself over to absolute pleasure with Charles Tomlinson Griffes’ musical impressions of “Kubla Khan.”

________________________________________

IMAGE: Delacroix, “The Death of Sardanapalus.” It’s good to be the king.

September 17, 2026
“England à la Russe” on “The Lost Chord”

Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, commissioned some of the most enduring ballet scores of the 20th century, from such composers as Claude Debussy (“Jeux”), Maurice Ravel (“Daphnis and Chloe”), Manuel de Falla (“The Three-Cornered Hat”), and Igor Stravinsky (“The Firebird,” “Petrushka” and “The Rite of Spring”).

Less well known is the fact that two Englishmen were also approached.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll listen to works by Constant Lambert and Lord Berners – both men so diverse in their interests, and possessing such outsized personalities, it isn’t really possible to do justice to either in the time allotted.

Lambert was a brilliant polymath. In addition to his considerable talents as a composer, he was a conductor, arranger, and writer, as well as the lover of Margot Fonteyn. Alas, alcoholism and workaholism conspired with undiagnosed diabetes to hasten his demise at the age of 45.

His ballet, “Romeo and Juliet,” presented as a play-within-a-play, turns Shakespeare’s tragedy of star-crossed lovers on its head, with the leads falling hard in a backstage romance with happier results. Lambert would go on to greater things, but the ballet is undeniably an impressive piece of work for a 20 year-old.

Similarly, Lord Berners’ interests lie all over the place, but his was a much more relaxed character. Unfailingly productive as a composer, a painter, and a writer, nonetheless he never lost sight of the fact that life would be his magnum opus. And Berners lived well.

Furthermore, his fortune ensured that he would never be taken to task for any of his whimsical behavior. This included having a 140-foot folly tower constructed on his estate (partly to annoy the neighbors) and keeping a horse and a giraffe to invite to his indoor and outdoor tea parties.

Berners wrote novels, painted portraits (always sure to include a moustache, whether the sitter had one or not), and composed a respectable amount of music, especially for the ballet.

For the Ballets Russes, he wrote “The Triumph of Neptune,” which became a great favorite of Sir Thomas Beecham. Sacheverell Sitwell provided the scenario, which concerns a sailor who is shipwrecked en route to Fairyland, and George Balanchine supplied the choreography.

That’s a heady mix of hornpipes and pas de deux. I hope you’ll join me for “England à la Russe,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!

——-

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu

——-

PHOTOS: Berners, no doubt contemplating the placement of a moustache (right); and Lambert pushing Berners car

August 1, 2026
Ballets Russes’ Lost English Composers

Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, commissioned some of the most enduring ballet scores of the 20th century, from such composers as Claude Debussy (“Jeux”), Maurice Ravel (“Daphnis and Chloe”), Manuel de Falla (“The Three-Cornered Hat”), and Igor Stravinsky (“The Firebird,” “Petrushka” and “The Rite of Spring”).

Less well known is the fact that two Englishmen were also approached.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll listen to works by Constant Lambert and Lord Berners – both men so diverse in their interests, and possessing such outsized personalities, it isn’t really possible to do justice to either in the time allotted.

Lambert was a brilliant polymath. In addition to his considerable talents as a composer, he was a conductor, arranger, and writer, as well as the lover of Margot Fonteyn. Alas, alcoholism and workaholism conspired with undiagnosed diabetes to hasten his demise at the age of 45.

His ballet, “Romeo and Juliet,” presented as a play-within-a-play, turns Shakespeare’s tragedy of star-crossed lovers on its head, with the leads falling hard in a backstage romance with happier results. Lambert would go on to greater things, but the ballet is undeniably an impressive piece of work for a 20 year-old.
Similarly, Lord Berners’ interests lie all over the place, but his was a much more relaxed character. Unfailingly productive as a composer, a painter, and a writer, nonetheless he never lost sight of the fact that life would be his magnum opus. And Berners lived well.

Furthermore, his fortune ensured that he would never be taken to task for any of his whimsical behavior. This included having a 140-foot folly tower constructed on his estate (partly to annoy the neighbors) and keeping a horse and a giraffe to invite to his indoor and outdoor tea parties.

Berners wrote novels, painted portraits (always sure to include a moustache, whether the sitter had one or not), and composed a respectable amount of music, especially for the ballet.

For the Ballets Russes, he wrote “The Triumph of Neptune,” which became a great favorite of Sir Thomas Beecham. Sacheverell Sitwell provided the scenario, which concerns a sailor who is shipwrecked en route to Fairyland, and George Balanchine supplied the choreography.

That’s a heady mix of hornpipes and pas de deux. I hope you’ll join me for “England à la Russe,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTOS: Berners, no doubt contemplating the placement of a moustache (right); and Lambert pushing Berners car

August 3, 2024
Rite of Spring Joffrey’s Reconstruction

On the first full day of spring, while the season is still prone to brutal mood swings, it’s a good time to revisit this Joffrey Ballet restoration of the original 1913 production of Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du printemps” (“The Rite of Spring”). The savagery of the scenario – to appease the gods, a prehistoric Slavic tribe elects a maiden to dance herself to death – was bolstered by Nicholas Roerich’s barbaric designs and Vaslav Nijinsky’s aggressively anti-balletic choreography. It certainly stirred the passions of the opening night audience, stoking one of classical music’s most infamous riots.

The ballet was danced only eight times as it was originally conceived. Nijinsky and impresario Serge Diaghilev had a falling out, and when the Ballets Russes revived the work a few years later, it was with new choreography by Léonide Massine. By then, Nijinsky had already been admitted to an asylum, and not for the last time. His increasing instability and death in 1950 led many to believe that his revolutionary conception of the original “Rite” had been lost forever.

Joffrey’s was the first attempt at a reconstruction. It took 16 years and a lot of detective work to bring it to fruition.

How was it accomplished? You can read more about it here.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2013/03/15/rite-of-spring

And watch the video, as I did when it first aired, here.

March 20, 2024
Ida Rubinstein Sultry Sugar Heiress

The actor and dancer Ida Rubinstein specialized in strong, often sultry heroines. A remarkable figure, this sugar heiress from a family of Ukrainian Orthodox Jews essentially willed herself onto the Parisian stage, where her acting ability and natural magnetism more than compensated for her limited ability as a dancer.

She was welcomed into the Ballets Russes in 1909, where she assumed the roles of Cleopatra and Scheherazade. Later, for her own company, she introduced Ravel’s “Bolero” and Stravinsky’s “Le Baiser de la fée” (“The Fairy’s Kiss”).

She gained notoriety for her often racy sensuality, stripping naked for the “Dance of the Seven Veils” in a production of Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” in 1908. Her performance in the title role in Gabriele d’Annunzio and Claude Debussy’s “The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian” generated further scandal in 1911. The Archbishop of Paris prohibited all Catholics from attending, on account of Saint Sebastian being portrayed by a woman and a Jew.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we salute Rubinstein with music that supported two of her lesser-known characterizations.

In 1924, she appropriated the symphonic variations “Istar,” by Vincent d’Indy. Originally composed in 1896, the subject was a natural fit for the Rubinstein image, with the Assyrian goddess of love and war descending into the underworld to rescue her lover. Along the way, she passes through seven doors. At each door, she removes a piece of jewelry or an article of clothing, until, as she passes through the last, she stands unadorned. So does the music arrive finally at a complete statement of the theme, turning the usual structure of theme and variations on its head to suit the narrative.

We’ll also hear “Sémiramis,” from 1934. This time Rubinstein played an Assyrian queen with insatiable carnal appetites. The music was by Arthur Honegger, and the instrumentation is quite striking: female narrator, vocal soloists, five-part mixed chorus, with orchestra including double bass clarinet, saxophone, two harps, two pianos, celesta, and two ondes Martenot – electronic keyboard instruments sounding very much like a couple of theremins.

This was the fifth commission the composer was to receive from Rubinstein. The sixth and last brought forth his magnum opus, “Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher” (“Joan of Arc at the Stake”).

“Sémiramis” was not a success, and the work remained unpublished during Honegger’s lifetime. In particular, a 15-minute monologue toward the climax, written by Paul Valéry, took all the air out of the room. This spoken interlude has been omitted from the recording we’ll hear of the piece’s first modern performance in 1992.

I hope you’ll join me as we celebrate Ida Rubinstein, with “Ida Danced All Night,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Diaphanous dancer Ida Rubinstein

February 5, 2023

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