Sunday, November 25, 2012

Drama on a grand scale



Last night I saw "The Nutcracker" at Shea's. And at intermission, emboldened by a glass of wine, I mentioned to my friends how cool it is that the Grand Pas De Deux near the end of "The Nutcracker" is really just a simple scale, going down.

It is fun to play the game of what themes are just a scale. It is something you can think about while you are falling asleep.

I have two good examples of ascending scale but Blogger is defective when it comes to posting videos and I do not, alas, have all day. So they will have to wait till tomorrow. For now I have another descending scale. It is funny how a simple descending scale, nothing added, can sound so different from the pas de deux from "The Nutcracker."

It is "Joy to the World"!



There you go, Tchaikovsky and Handel.

A master knows how to work that scale!
Posted by at
Labels: , ,

1 comment:

  1. WardNovember 27, 2012 at 11:11 AM

    Best descending scale ever heard: End of "Blagoslovi dushe moya" ("Bless the Lord, O my soul") from Rachmaninov's All-night Vigil. The basses descend slowly to low C. You feel that you have heard echoing of the sounds of Creation.

    http://ohmytracks.com/#/music/Robert+Shaw+Festival+Singers

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)