# Is P.I.T.'s "Sleeping Beauty" all good music or is there lots of "filler"/repetition?



## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

*Is P.I.T.'s "Sleeping Beauty" all good music or is there lots of "filler"/repetition?*

I love Tchaivoksky's music. All three of his ballets (I am pretty sure he wrote exactly three) are considered great by "experts", from what I hear, and from what I've heard of them, I have no reason to doubt that. The only one I've heard from beginning to end is the Nutcracker. I love it, I think it is amazing, packed with beautiful music without a measure of "filler". I read on Wikipedia that the music in "Sleeping Beauty" lasts about 3 hours (a performance takes longer because there are intermissions). 3 hours is an awfully long time in classical music. I am a little dubious that even Tchaikovsky could fill 3 hours with consistently beautiful, nonrepetitive music. The Wikipedia article also stated that the ballet is "nearly always cut".

So can anyone who is familiar with the entire ballet Sleeping Beauty fill me in? I am not suggesting that the ballet is not great, just maybe less than perfect (almost nothing is). Do people cut the ballet because the dancers get tired or the audience gets weary, or because there is too much repetition in the music? If there is indeed too much repetition in the music, why did Tchaikovsky write it that way? I detect no excessive repetition in the Nutcracker or any of his symphonies, for example.

By the way, I guess I am assuming that the performance of the Nutcracker I saw (I watched it on TV) was uncut.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

get a good video of it and find out.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

The whole Sleeping Beauty Ballet as it was originally written was approx. four hours long.  

Yes, being something of a Tchaikovskian myself, I'm interested in it as well....


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

It's not the filler so much as the quality of the filler. If you remove the repetition from Mahler, his symphonies would last about as long as a Mozart symphony.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Anmd then there's Wotans monologue from Walkure Act 2.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Swan Lake gets cut quite a bit as well. Most productions of Swan Lake also include some music written by another composer.

People cut the ballet because performances that long are expensive and undesirable for the audience (and performers I'd imagine). The pieces that are often cut from Sleeping Beauty, like Colin-maillard, Entr'acte, parts of the Pas de Six, and little scenes like Pas berrichon and Sarabande are not repetitive as much as they are not important to the story and are convenient places to make cuts. So I guess in a way they could be considered "filler". I wouldn't call the pieces that are cut the best parts of the ballet, but I certainly like the entire ballet and was disappointed in how difficult it is to find a complete recording. Some recordings leave out a couple small scenes to avoid putting the ballet on 3 discs. 

So yes, I am a biased Tchaikovsky fan and consider it all good. However, I recognize that when people cut the ballet, they do leave the best parts intact and they cut parts that people might consider more forgettable.


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## JCarmel (Feb 3, 2013)

I'm afraid that I cannot properly enlighten you, spradlig...as I tend to watch the same particular performance when I want to enjoy the dancing...& listen to the same vinyl/cd recording with Ansermet conducting, when I want to listen to the music.
In truth, the music is so embedded in my mind that I don't really listen' intelligently' to it any longer....I just get into a specific 'Bleeping Slooty' groove... & whistle, hum, tap & generally enjoy the rhythmic melodies until it all ends...or I start listening to something a little less 'obsessive'...


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Having sat in the pit through all these numerous times, the ballets are always aggressively cut. The driver is the audience and stage and not the music - as noted above the set pieces that don't advance the drama are usually first to go, and different productions will tinker with other bits of the action too
Beats me why anyone would want a complete recording of these - highlights are probably the way to go as there is a fair heap of undistinguished music, especially in nutcracker and beauty - but it takes all sorts ;-)


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

drpraetorus said:


> It's not the filler so much as the quality of the filler. If you remove the repetition from Mahler, his symphonies would last about as long as a Mozart symphony.


This is categorically false. Mahler's music contains almost no literal repetition whatsoever.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

In all ballets, even the great ones, there is good music and less good music (sometimes even bad music). Cuts are made for the reasons given above, but I think I can say without much disagreement that Sleeping Beauty is considered the least uniformly great of the three. That said, even long stretches of Act One of the Nutcraker can be considered "filler" and are musically uninteresting.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Tchaikovsky was repetitive in his music.  So yes, of course, I know the ballet well, and I cannot _count_ how many times, even in the cut version, the Lilac Fairy's theme comes in, sounding just a little different than the time before.

Can you imagine a 4-hour work by Tchaikovsky? By the end you would know all the themes so well it would be like studying instead of ballet!  The repetitiveness, I imagine, would be horrendous!

Even so, the cut version usually played today is certainly not very repetitive, perhaps because Tchaik had four hours to make up themes to.... So I'd just listen to the version used today.

Nevertheless, later on in life, the same composer also changed his second symphony almost entirely, but I definitely like the original better. He wanted it never played again. :lol:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I don't think it's a problem if a ballet that lasts, say, an hour or more has its share of musical filler - as ballet is a visual as well as a listening experience then as long as the 'filler' still augments or 'carries' the action then I guess it's job done. That's if you're watching, of course - if just listening then maybe some passages can drag to an extent if trying to imagine the action in the mind's eye with just the aid of a synopsis. 

I have to say I've never had that problem with Tchaikovsky's ballets, though. In fact, the only ballet I do have that kind of problem with is Shostakovich's The Limpid Stream - mainly because the plot is rather dull and the music itself isn't sufficiently inspired overall to make it interesting enough for its own sake.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

The Diaghilev revival of Sleeping Beauty of 1921 was a financial disaster. So the following year he mounted a balletic fantasy which consisted of the celebratory dances from Act 3 under the title "Aurora's Wedding", a one-act ballet.
I have Stokowski conducting this and the music is fabulous.
I note that it is available on CD with other additional non-Tchaikowsky pieces.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Fun Fact: In the Perrault original fairy-tale "Sleeping Beauty," Aurora was the princess's mother. The princess did not have a name.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

mstar said:


> Fun Fact: In the Perrault original fairy-tale "Sleeping Beauty," Aurora was the princess's mother. The princess did not have a name.


I am much relieved and fairly excited to learn that fun fact.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> This is categorically false. Mahler's music contains almost no literal repetition whatsoever.


How about illiteral repetition?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

bigshot said:


> How about illiteral repetition?


But that's known as variation. Are we faulting composers for that now?


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

Mahler's symphonies are quite long, but at least when I listen to them, they don't seem excessively long or repetitive. I would describe some of Schubert's works (e.g. 9th symphony) similarly. Schubert's melodies are so great I don't mind listening to them even if they are repeated quite a bit. I suspect the phenomenon of excessive inflation or repetition is more common in ballet and opera than it is in pure symphonic music. Maybe this is because composers have to or think they have to tell a story and just don't have enough musical material to do it well in the time required (personally, I don't care about the story, just the music, which is why I'm not a big opera fan. That's just my taste). From what I have read here and elsewhere, Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" is overinflated from a musical point of view, and I really doubt that all of Wagner's operas are 100% filled with nothing but great music from end to end, because they are so long and I doubt that anyone is capable of a 100% great ~4-hour long opera. Strauss's masterpiece _Der Rosenkavalier_ is extremely long and I've read that it used to be even longer before he made some cuts to it.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

spradlig said:


> From what I have read here and elsewhere, Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" is overinflated from a musical point of view, and I really doubt that all of Wagner's operas are 100% filled with nothing but great music from end to end, because they are so long and I doubt that anyone is capable of a 100% great ~4-hour long opera. Strauss's masterpiece _Der Rosenkavalier_ is extremely long and I've read that it used to be even longer before he made some cuts to it.


The style of composition in opera is very different, although Wagner and post-Wagner opera are very different from opera before Wagner, which was more or less a series of isolated short numbers with relatively inconsequential music in-between (of course, masterpieces could make the most of this format). Wagner moves very slowly, and the music's power is based far more on the cumulative effect than individual moments (which is why those moments aren't as good when excerpted from the larger works).

As for Tchaikovsky, I'm not really a big fan, but he's popular because he was great at what he did. His scores are melodically rich and feature vivid orchestration. There is prominent repetition (albeit usually with altered accompaniment) throughout his music, but he isn't trying to be a Brahms or Beethoven, so I don't fault him for not composing that way. Ballet was probably one genre where he was entirely in his element, able to give free rein to his melodic gifts without worrying about the traditional methods of development and contrast.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Mahler infiltrates every other conversation.... 

I like it.


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

I saw The Sleeping Beauty for the first time in February, by the NYC ballet. I had listened to the music at least a hundred times before going, so I thought I knew it all. However I was surprised and delighted when they played a few numbers I didn't recognize. I guess that having that "extra" music gives artistic directors the option of slipping numbers in and out to keep it from getting stale.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Pyotr said:


> I saw The Sleeping Beauty for the first time in February, by the NYC ballet. I had listened to the music at least a hundred times before going, so I thought I knew it all. However I was surprised and delighted when they played a few numbers I didn't recognize. I guess that having that "extra" music gives artistic directors the option of slipping numbers in and out to keep it from getting stale.


There are many different productions of the ballet that vary.


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## Karoll (Apr 11, 2014)

I recently heard the recording of Sleeping Beauty by Rozhdestvensky and BBC Symphony Orchestra (live recording) which is very good. I very liked it. I know that there is also studio recording but is very rare. Heard also it's even better than live recording. Anyone heard this studio recording? Any opinions?


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Tristan said:


> Swan Lake gets cut quite a bit as well. Most productions of Swan Lake also include some music written by another composer.
> 
> People cut the ballet because performances that long are expensive and undesirable for the audience (and performers I'd imagine). The pieces that are often cut from Sleeping Beauty, like Colin-maillard, Entr'acte, parts of the Pas de Six, and little scenes like Pas berrichon and Sarabande are not repetitive as much as they are not important to the story and are convenient places to make cuts. So I guess in a way they could be considered "filler". I wouldn't call the pieces that are cut the best parts of the ballet, but I certainly like the entire ballet and was disappointed in how difficult it is to find a complete recording. Some recordings leave out a couple small scenes to avoid putting the ballet on 3 discs.
> 
> So yes, I am a biased Tchaikovsky fan and consider it all good. However, I recognize that when people cut the ballet, they do leave the best parts intact and they cut parts that people might consider more forgettable.


Yep. Even Raymonda got its share of butchery.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

By its very nature, ballet uses repetition. Dance is often repetitive so that it can be easily learned and memorized. Sleeping Beauty uses it in healthy doses, but Tchaikovsky keeps us interested and doesn't (at least in my opinion) overdo it.

Even the Rite of Spring uses repetitive phrases that, although they aren't exactly identical, help the dancer to match his or her movements with the music.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

I'm not sure what is meant by the term "filler"; the word seems to imply music just thrown into the work to bulk it up and add onto the running time. I don't believe any of the music in Sleeping Beauty is of this character. It was all composed with a purpose and has a role in telling the story. If by "filler" one means the ballet contains some numbers that are less inspired than others then yeah, sure, I guess it has "filler". But I'm not aware of too many scores, especially of comparable length, that don't contain "filler" by that definition. In my opinion the overall quality of the music in Sleeping Beauty is very high, and it is definitely worth listening to the entire uncut ballet.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Faustian said:


> I'm not sure what is meant by the term "filler"; the word seems to imply music just thrown into the work to bulk it up and add onto the running time. I don't believe any of the music in Sleeping Beauty is of this character. It was all composed with a purpose and has a role in telling the story. If by "filler" one means the ballet contains some numbers that are less inspired than others then yeah, sure, I guess it has "filler". But I'm not aware of too many scores, especially of comparable length, that don't contain "filler" by that definition. In my opinion the overall quality of the music in Sleeping Beauty is very high, and it is definitely worth listening to the entire uncut ballet.


Yes to all that. Stravinsky agreed too, and said that if anyone doubts Tchaikovsky's creative power they should listen to _The Sleeping Beauty._ The ballet is a sensual delight, filled with inspired melody, infectious rhythms, inventive orchestration, and Romantic fantasy colored - but never inhibited - by a Perrault-inspired classical formality. Profound? Maybe not, but it is "light" music of the highest quality and the very essence of dance, and along with _Swan Lake_ represents 19th-century ballet at its grandest. I enjoy every minute of this wonderful score, even though I'm not sure I've heard every scrap of music Tchaikovsky composed for it.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

What must be remembered about most music composed as part of creating a new ballet is that the format is generally specified by the choreographer prior to composition. In some cases it is as detailed as a 'x' bars for this, 'y' bars for that and specifying the time signature. In the case of _The Sleeping Beauty_, Marius Petipa, the choreographer gave Tchaikovsky a detailed set of instructions for the ballet which Tchaikovsky used as the framework for the music. What this means is that where there is repetition, it is often because it was necessary to fill out the score to match the choreographer's intent. Some times the choreographer would realize during the rehearsals that he needed a bit more time in a given place so the composer would add a few extra bars.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> What must be remembered about most music composed as part of creating a new ballet is that the format is generally specified by the choreographer prior to composition. In some cases it is as detailed as a 'x' bars for this, 'y' bars for that and specifying the time signature. In the case of _The Sleeping Beauty_, Marius Petipa, the choreographer gave Tchaikovsky a detailed set of instructions for the ballet which Tchaikovsky used as the framework for the music. What this means is that where there is repetition, it is often because it was necessary to fill out the score to match the choreographer's intent. Some times the choreographer would realize during the rehearsals that he needed a bit more time in a given place so the composer would add a few extra bars.


Tchaikovsky doesn't seem to have suffered from these precise requirements. Stravinsky, who composed scores for Balanchine, asked the choreographer to be very specific about the exact number of bars he wanted in what rhythm and tempo. In my own work as a piano accompanist for ballet, in which I improvised music for classes for some thirty years, I always told instructors that the more specific they were, the better the music they would get out of me. Stravinsky said that strict limits - whether self-imposed or imposed by a collaborator - were not an inhibition on, but a stimulus to, musical thought. I agree, and I suspect Tchaikovsky did as well. His dance music certainly sounds as if he did!


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## Karoll (Apr 11, 2014)

LOL... Thanks...


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

drpraetorus said:


> It's not the filler so much as the quality of the filler. If you remove the repetition from Mahler, his symphonies would last about as long as a Mozart symphony.


I think this statement is quite wrong, as Mahlerian already pointed out.


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