Does ballet music have a life offstage? The tendency for the past hundred years or so has been to take famous excerpts from scores written for ballets and to include them in commercials, Disney films, promotional devices and even pantomime. The musical worth and beauty in the construction of Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake has arguably been diminished by the music’s over-popularity. Unfortunately it would be difficult and rare to imagine a music scholar or even a modern composer sitting and listening to the themes of these pieces in particular, and the vast majority of real music-lovers are very unlikely to sit down to listen to some bars from The Nutcracker.

But in the 20^th century a great change took place in ballet, though few would be able immediately to recognise it. Although we can name Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella as being ballets for which music was composed, the vast majority of 20^th and 21^st century ballets are now constructed from already made music; music which was never intended for ballet and which, for all we know, could have been burnt by its composers should they have ever learnt that it was being used for ballet. Sometimes this can have the effect of sounding cliched. In 2008 the modern choreographer Angelin Preljocaj used the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony for the finale piece of his Blanche Neige. Considering the fairy-tale music that Tchaikovsky used for his ballets to evoke their surreal atmosphere, it’s probably categorically impossible that Mahler would ever have permitted this precious movement to be used for Snow White. One would say it even goes against the rules of musical arrangement.

The Adagietto itself is actually opposed to the other four movements of the full Fifth symphony; the symphony itself is an explosive, polyphonic example of superfluous twentieth-century music, where the melodies intertwine in such a bizarre and hardly logical way that you wonder whether Mahler simply created his work to shock and prove that music had changed in this period. It doesn’t fit at all into its symphony, if our judgement over symphonies involve paying as much attention to the work as a whole as we do to its individual movements. Yet the Adagietto survives through time much more enduringly than its four other partners which slightly lost their place in musical history. But that’s not to say that it has anything to do with Snow White! A symphony – and even a few bars from a symphony – cannot especially be taken out of its concert hall context, unless used ingeniously.

Another example of music being applied to modern ballet is the lengths to which Kenneth MacMillan went so as not to relate Massenet’s Manon to his ballet, also called L’histoire de Manon and also by Massenet. Wisely choosing not to take the entire operatic score and apply it to dance, he chose sections of other operas at random and glazed the work with Massenet’s Elegy; again a cliché movement maybe similar to Preljocaj’s use of the Adagietto. It is also a very sentimental piece which has been used ubiquitously but has its home on a solo violin in a salon or chamber concert hall. Of course the insertion of the movement immediately conjures-up tears in the audience, though the individual piece bears no relation to the other Massenet family which makes-up this ballet: instrumental sections from Cendrillon, the overture to Le Cid, and parts from the lesser known Cléopâtre and Grisélidis. The music in the ballet overall is quite irregularly stuck together, with little being effective before the repetition of the Elegy. But when the Elegy does strike a chord in the audience, it does so not because it’s totally matched with the choreography, but because it’s a beautiful piece by itself; and one has to admit that any composer or choreographer can try this usage with a ballet and succeed. It takes an entire different effort to choose pieces exceptionally carefully and genuinely investigate what might suit the context and the action of a ballet.

But there have been major and minor successes. One of these is the Nureyev-Fonteyn vehicle Marguerite et Armand, choreographed in 1963 by Frederick Ashton. The ballet itself could probably only receive acclaim today if either performed by genius dancers or witnessed by a truly sympathetic audience. Marguerite et Armand was not only reflective of ballet’s attempt to have its own Traviata, but was reflective of a period in ballet – namely the Nureyev-Fonteyn period – which has no chance of revival (or at least not in the next fifty years). When interviewed, Ashton said that Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B Minor had conjured-up the whole vision of the ballet for him as he listened to it. It’s no more than an eighteen-minute ballet; but that’s not eighteen minutes to pass by quickly, but rather eighteen minutes to respond to a short sonata and make the audience believe that Marguerite Gaultier has transformed from a careless courtesan into a woman who has given-up her life for love and finished it by dying of tuberculosis. Ashton apparently forbade any other dancers from even attempting the work, but through his two ingénues he did achieve what he had dreamed of as he listened to this Liszt sonata. Marguerite et Armand is one of the few cases where we can believe that Liszt composed the music for a ballet (and not only because the heroine upon whom this character is based, the real Marie Duplessis, was Liszt’s lover).      

Though not one of the most memorable Ashton ballets if we exclude Fonteyn and Nureyev, it certainly served Liszt much better than another ballet choreographed fifteen years later – Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling. This work has some incredible physical depictions of schizophrenia; broken movements, wild eyes and uncertainty of movement – all contained within the choreography. But its usage of Liszt sometimes purports to very little. At one point there is a salon scene in which we are shown nothing but the Prince Rudolf’s guests gathered around, as though waiting for some entertainment, and the orchestra play an arrangement of Liszt’s Consolation in E – perhaps one of the dullest and most meaningless Liszt pieces ever written (and not many of them were either dull or meaningless). There is no action on stage, and not much musically. Ashton had taken the right decision to leave Liszt’s Piano Sonata for piano, rather than melodrama-tising the Dame aux Caméllias story into even more of a melodrama than it already is.

In 1976, Ashton succeeded surprisingly and bewitchingly with musical arrangement again, this time with his A Month in the Country, based on the Turgenev play. It would even not be going too far to say that he used Chopin’s music in a way in which the composer himself would not have guessed. He took the theme from Chopin’s Kujawiak: Vivace, the third movement from his Fantaisie Brillante on Polish airs, originally played on clarinet and then with variations on piano, and had John Lanchberry, frequently the conductor for ballets of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, arrange it for piano and orchestra. The result was actually a much more memorable and sentimental romantic reverie than Chopin’s original version. Chopin’s choice to have the clarinet originally play it at a presto tempo had almost transformed it into something ugly and unnecessary. When he does transpose it for piano about one and a half minutes into the piece, it is covered and flourished with trills and ornaments which does the melody no justice because one feels it hasn’t been sufficiently played out and expressed independently. The ballet also included variations on Chopin’s Là ci darem la mano, which he had varied from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and his Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brillante, but it was the little theme from the Fantasy on Polish Airs which became the characteristic of the ballet. Audiences often speak of proving an opera or ballet’s quality by seeing how many melodies one can carry back home after the performance is finished. After seeing A Month in the Country for the first time, this particular theme stuck with me for three and a half years, and continues not to be forgotten – even when so many others fly their nest and ask for a reintroduction.

Continuing to explore the ingenious usage of orchestral arrangement, one of the most striking and greatest opuses in ballet music is a Tchaikovsky ballet with origins not from Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky may have had the fate and genius to compose Eugene Onegin, but, having put the opera aside, he didn’t think to do a ballet alternative. And why should he have? But luckily we were left far from deprived. In 1966 the South-African choreographer John Cranko, who is hardly remembered today, choreographed his own Onegin from music from Tchaikovsky’s Seasons, Francesca da Rimini, and the opera Eugene Onegin. The arrangement by pianist and composer Kurt-Heinz Stolze, one might say, could have taught Tchaikovsky some novel and inspiring things. Francesca da Rimini is a great work; The Seasons less so.

In the final six minutes of the ballet Stolze combined the two to make an abridged version of Francesca da Rimini with layers of The Seasons, as though to make the perfect version together from both. It was like taking two cakes, one with plain, tasteless filling and the other with a tasteless sponge, and deciding to mould the most delicious in both desserts. This was the music to Onegin, which, one could argue, set the scene and feeling as perfectly as Tchaikovsky had for his opera. Whereas Francesca da Rimini spends twenty-three minutes revolving around the same theme, straying away from it, wavering around a diminuendo and returning to crescendo, the same theme unravelled in six minutes at the end of this ballet, yet reached its conclusion just as dramatically. Sometimes one wonders whether some composers (even geniuses) might not still be in need of some assistance.

Of course the possible damage which orchestrators and conductors might do to music composed one-hundred, two-hundred or more years ago, can be significant. When we look at (or hear) music composed by Tchaikovsky or Chopin, we often think that spoiling any parts of their music would be a criminal act. This is true, for ninety-nine per cent of cases, and the music we have should be left as it is. But the later ballets have occasionally succeeding in improvising with this ballet, whilst squeezing nothing Tchaikovsky-like or Chopinesque from it. There are many ballets which we never had and could only dream of; a ballet of Shakespeare’s Othello, for instance; or of Turgenev’s First Love or the Torrents of Spring. Sometimes Romantic composers’ music simply resembles the period. And, as some choreographers and arrangers have proven, sometimes a vraisemblance to a period and atmosphere is all that’s necessary.

‘So, you think electric music is boring? You think it’s stupid? You think it’s repetitive? Well, it is repetitive.’

There aren’t many nominees from the global Institution of Chemical Engineers who moonlight as MCs for cutting-edge ‘electronic chamber music’ groups. Actually, there aren’t many ‘electronic chamber music’ groups. MC Ssegamic, with a gorgeously unusual voice, is an undeniably sexy ‘lovely man’ in ‘chinos’, who fronts six-piece set Clean Bandit, previously seen at lesser known alternative music venue Christ Church Commemoration Ball. Their second single Mozart’s House went on sale on iTunes earlier this week, and is an absolute delight. Warner Brothers and Mercury Records have both given them enthusiastic nods, but been eschewed in favour of more songwriting time, and the development of their own production label, Incredible Industries.

The six-piece set (for whom Jesus College, Cambridge is alma mater) boasts between them five to seven Cambridge degrees, excellent balance (see the second half of the ‘Telephone Banking’ video) and a fascinating blend of classical strings, electronica and hip-hop. It sounds like a recipe for disaster – and indeed, it definitely should be – but somehow, they pull it off with a great deal of style. This is hip-hop with intelligent design.

Born of four-piece strings group ‘The Chatto Quartet’, with a background in everything from Russian to Architecture to alternative-fuel research; Clean Bandit could be misconstrued as being a little highbrow. Fortunately, their sound is fresh and easy to listen to, with a real sense of fun. The video for Telephone Banking, their first single reflects as much, with an infinite number of Japanese schoolchildren providing background sounds on both cellos and Sega Game Gears.

So, what’s it like? Nothing, really – and it’s so much the better for it.

The video for ‘Telephone Banking’ can be found here.

Beyond the tinsel and the presents, the carols, and even the nativity, lurks the true heart of Christmas. It is, of course, the selection box of chocolates; cloistered in its golden cardboard sanctuary lies a multifarious feast, truly evocative of the yuletide season. Before you complain, I concede that I’m stretching it a bit, but the token gifts shared between those whom we know well enough to warrant some sort of seasonal offering, yet not well enough to have the inclination to tramp along a high street in pursuit of something meaningful nevertheless prove a useful festive metaphor through which to briefly examine some of the dramatic exploits of last Michaelmas. Now shove a praline in your mouth and read on.

Truffle – Posh

Laura Wade’s Posh was unlikely to disappoint. It exuded class – both in its thematic content and in the superbly slick manner of its delivery. Rich, satisfying, and dark, the production at the Union was hard to fault.

The Chewy Caramel – Antony and Cleopatra

Any production of Shakespeare is likely to have a bit of a leg-up, just from the sheer quality of the writing. It is, undoubtedly, why the playwright’s work remains ubiquitous on the drama scene. Yet Tara Isabella Burton’s refusal to cut enough of the script meant that this term’s Anthony and Cleopatra simply became tedious. Unlike its chocolaty counterpart, there was no option just to spit it out – it had to be endured to its very end.

Sickly Strawberry – The Two Cultures

In The Two Cultures, writer and director David Kell managed to create a production that sounded intriguing and appealing, yet was a painful disappointment. Like the confectionary to which I liken it, it seemed to have a lot of promise, innovation, and appeal, until it was actually experienced. Patronising in both writing and staging, the play was saved only by some good acting performances.

The errant Smartie – Noughts and Crosses

Though enjoyable (and perhaps for all the wrong reasons) the shambolic Noughts and Crosses seemed out of place amongst the other dramatic offerings. The actors had their work cut out for them trying to make something of what felt like a dreadfully juvenile script. It was certainly colourful, yet the production was of a much lower quality to the rest of the selection of drama seen last term. It was, however, a light-hearted way to look back at a classic of the ‘pre-teen’ genre.

The wrapped up one – Clytemnestra

In every selection box there seems to be an obligatory outsider, a chocolate encased in its own coloured wrapping. For those that can resist immediate gluttony and have the bravery to forestall their pleasure by taking the time to unwrap it, the rewards of finest quality are often revealed. So it was with the Greek play – Clytemnestra – performed in its original classical language at the Playhouse. Though at first daunting, it proved an evening of surprisingly excellent entertainment.

Before my tenuous conceit becomes even more dilapidated then when I began, I shall wrap it up there, and simply bid you all a very merry Christmas: and a happy new year to boot.

Though South Africa’s history has been propelled more by legal writ than literary experimentation or success, its few illustrious persons of letters are starkly noticeable and world-renowned, belonging now to a ‘commonwealth’ (or postcolonial) literature rather than a unique tradition. Perhaps this is right; but in the process South Africans have become disenfranchised from their literary history. As Churchill could tell you, refusing to learn from history might cause history to repeat itself. This is a problem at which the currently much-debated secrecy bill – the notorious ‘Protection of Information Bill’ which was passed this November by the South African National Assembly without a public interest clause – might hint.

Though South Africa’s history has been propelled more by legal writ than literary experimentation or success, its few illustrious persons of letters are starkly noticeable and world-renowned, belonging now to a ‘commonwealth’ (or postcolonial) literature rather than a unique tradition. Perhaps this is right; but in the process South Africans have become disenfranchised from their literary history. As Churchill could tell you, refusing to learn from history might cause history to repeat itself. This is a problem at which the currently much-debated secrecy bill – the notorious ‘Protection of Information Bill’ which was passed this November by the South African National Assembly without a public interest clause – might hint.

I was educated at a provincial English high school in South Africa, where we read a bit of Wordsworth, a smidgen of Blake, and Shakespeare yearly. But no Schreiner, Paton, Coetzee, or Gordimer. The high school library was closed the year I entered. It seems a hostile climate to suckle a literary culture.

When I visit home, I look for signs that this is changing: for literary magazines on the shelves (there are still none) and larger local fiction sections in bookshops. Yet the grand dames and messieurs of South African fiction whose works criticized the apartheid regime: Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing, and J.M Coetzee (who has since emigrated to Australia) and Athol Fugard, have won Nobels and other international prizes and have passed into the pantheon of laureates.

While still thin on the ground, local fiction under democracy is slowly gathering speed, and it too has a voice of protest. Amongst the new generation of South African writers, Damon Galgut, twice nominated for the Man-Booker Prize, is the predominant figure. Galgut is carrying J.M. Coetzee’s mantle with his lean unsentimental prose and its hidden resonances, and his aimless male protagonists in strangely hostile circumstances. The Good Doctor (2003), a novel about a man in an ineffectual hospital in the hinterland haunted by a past occupation, is especially recommended. Ivan Vladislavic, whose Keys of the City was an unexpected paean to the unlikeable city of Johannesburg, is on the rise. Like Galgut, Vladislavic works in the male province of Paul Auster, but turns his pen to the puzzles and inconsistences posed by the new South Africa: its petty corruption, racial tensions, and bureaucracy.

Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat, the story of a paralyzed woman and her fraught relationship with her coloured nurse, once something of a daughter, yields in translation from the Afrikaans a surprising richness and unexpected lyricism. It seems the story of this country’s fiction is mistaken underestimation. Yet this novel too is ‘about’ race.

One wonders whether or not South African fiction is destined for topical restriction. Will it always be ‘about’ something? Or conversely, is it possible to tell a story in South Africa without it being corralled by issues: colonialism and history, apartheid, racism, and crime?

If the secrecy bill – the ANC’s method of silencing government critique, punishing offenders with up to 25 years in prison – continues, South African fiction may have to replace journalism as it did under apartheid. As the bill circulates in parliament, writers and editors are watching carefully to see the fate of the written word in the New South Africa.

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