# The Complete Sleeping Beauty



## tahnak (Jan 19, 2009)

Though the tempi are a little on the swifter side, I still feel that this is a commendable effort by Gennady Rozhdestvensky


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Without checking it, the phenomenon of the faster tempo for recording vs. the tempi taken in a hall, and more so the tempi taken for ballet scores when actually performed, is almost always the case. 

This has nothing to do with "fitting it on the space the recorded medium allows" and everything to do with the fact that disembodied from its function in the hall, separated from its function in theatrical performance, there is nothing else to hold the attention, and the slower functional tempi, if recorded at the same speed for consumption as pure listening, almost always will feel like they are dragging along.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Without checking it, the phenomenon of the faster tempo for recording vs. the tempi taken in a hall, and more so the tempi taken for ballet scores when actually performed, is almost always the case.
> 
> This has nothing to do with "fitting it on the space the recorded medium allows" and everything to do with the fact that disembodied from its function in the hall, separated from its function in theatrical performance, there is nothing else to hold the attention, and the slower functional tempi, if recorded at the same speed for consumption as pure listening, almost always will feel like they are dragging along.


Fascinating post!


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## Marsilius (Jun 13, 2015)

PetrB said:


> ...the slower functional tempi, if recorded at the same speed for consumption as pure listening, almost always will feel like they are dragging along...


That is not true, of course, for those of us whose primary enjoyment of ballet comes from watching either live or recorded performances. We have those slower tempi fixed in our heads and so to us, picturing the dancers in our minds' eyes, they seem "normal".

Those, however, who usually listen to ballet scores on disc rather than watch performances - a preference that, if I do not share it, I can still entirely comprehend - have only the music to go on. Understandably, therefore, accounts of the score that reflect the need for realistic and steadily predictable tempi for dancers may well seem to them to lack something in the way of flashy excitement.


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