Music-Theatrical Fairytales Fairytales for Narrator and

03/10
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magazine
Magical Music
and
Musical
Fairytales
Music-Theatrical Fairytales
Fairytales for Narrator and Music
Fairytales as Orchestral Works
without Narrator
editorial
Dear Reader,
In a fairytale there are strict rules
which determine the course of the
narrative; nonetheless, the fate of
only by the supernatural,
inexplicable and even the
unexpected. The music is also
dominated by mathematical rules
but, just like the fairytale, it
constantly goes beyond the
boundaries of reality. Music begins
where the word ends,
as the romanticist E.T.A. Hoffmann
once said.
Music and fairytales have a number
of points in common. Many
locations of fairytales – nature,
old castles or the huts of poor
people – can be illustrated by
music. But many moods can also be
expressed by music and the
obsolete breaks in the stories can
be overcome through music.
The genre of musical fairytales or
fairytale-like music, however, is
hardly limited to the area of music
for children. In this issue of our
Sikorski Magazine, you will find the
entire range of the ways in which
contemporary composers have
come to terms with this immortal
genre of world literature,
once referred to as “true poetry”
by the Swiss fairytale researcher
Max Lüthi.
Dagmar Sikorski
Dr. Axel Sikorski
CONTENTS
the hero of the tale is determined
03
Intro:
We All Need Fairytales
04
Music-Theatrical Fairytales
14
Fairytales for Narrator and Music
17
Fairytales as Orchestral Works
without Narrator
Quoted from:
Max Lüthi: Das europäische Volksmärchen,
Form und Wesen, DALP Taschenbücher,
Francke Verlag, 1968
(The European Folktale, Form and Essence)
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www.sikorski.de, contact@sikorski.de
Fotonachweis: Titel: MBphoto/istock / Illustrationen: E.V.B. / Gebrüder Grimm:
Dr. Meierhofer / Hauff: Wikipedia / Fatme: Ulrike Steinke / Kleiner Prinz: Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry / Bubbles: Axel Zajaczek / Jan Müller-Wieland: Iko Freese / Slawa
Ulanowski: Archiv Sikorski / Herbert Baumann: Archiv Sikorski / Rolf Zuckowski: Stefan
Malzkorn / Lera Auerbach: Christian Steiner / Dmitri Schostakowitsch: Archiv Sikorski /
Norbert Schultze: Archiv Sikorski / Sergej Prokofjew: Sergej Prokofjew Foundation /
Krzysztof Meyer: Christine Langensiepen / Sofia Gubaidulina: Archiv Sikorski / Moritz
Eggert: Manuela Hartling
Hinweis: Wo möglich haben wir die Inhaber aller Urheberrechte der Illustrationen
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2|SIKORSKI magazine
ARTWORK
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INTRO
We All Need FAIRYTALES
A FAIRYTALE HAS ITS TRUTH AND MUST HAVE IT,
OTHERWISE IT WOULD NOT BE A FAIRYTALE.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Compared to other literary genres,
the fairytale has a role of its very
own, indeed a very idiosyncratic one.
It does not only fascinate the children
of each new generation, but also
exerts a magical attraction on adults,
time and again. The Swiss fairytale
researcher Max Lüthi even believed
that he could name phases in the life
of each person in which his relationship to the fairytale was consolidated,
or even, with some adults, leading to
a rejection or passionate devotion up
until the end of one’s life.
The special quality of the fairytale is,
on the one hand, the way in which it
is interwoven with the fantastical,
and on the other hand, the extraordinary form and narrative method of
the genre. Some fairytales are
ancient, going back to a prehistory
steeped in mythology. It was the
Frenchman Charles Perrault who in
1696/97 first made the fairytale a
genre with a claim to literary aspirations, publishing individual tales in elaborately illustrated editions. After
Musäus published the “folk tale” in
German Rococo, Christoph Martin
Wieland composed entire fairytale
epics anew and the Brothers Grimm
manifested the deep love of
Romanticism for the fairytale with
their collection of Children’s and
Domestic Tales in 1818, authors ranging from E.T.A. Hoffmann to
Wilhelm Hauff and Hans Christian
Andersen to Theodor Storm created
individual, artistic forms of the
fairytale.
The fairytale has always remained y
unintentionally, the wondrous with
the natural, the near with the fara-
“
way, the comprehensible with the
incomprehensible, as if all this were a
matter of course. One should not,
however, look for the secret of the
fairytale in its motifs alones – the
search for riches, travelling or the
omnipresent struggle against the
overpowering – but especially in the
way in which these motifs are used.
Fairytale-like events are not necessarily arranged in a logical succession,
but follow their own rules. Again and
again, we encounter the three-step
approach – three brothers, for example, who set off into the world, or
three tasks which must be solved.
And this tendency towards magic
numbers like three or seven (seven
ravens, seven Swabians, etc.) is deeply rooted in superstition and/or religious contexts.
No classical fairytale loses itself in
details. On the contrary, its narrative
style is extensive. “The folk tale is
utterly free of in-depth structure, in
every sense,” writes Lüthi. “Its characters are figures without physicality, without an inner world, without an
environment; they have no relationship to the past or to posterity, or to
time at all.” Musicians of all periods
have been fascinated by and enthusiastic over the firmly established
plot frequently found in fairytales
and described here, on the one
hand, and by the strange suspended
state of characters and situations on
the other hand. Strictly speaking and
despite its proximity to the spirit of
Freemasonry,
Mozart’s
“Magic
Flute” is already a fairytale opera in
the classical sense. “Undine,” composed by E.T.A. Hoffmann based on
de la Motte-Fouqué’s mermaid fairytale can be viewed, in retrospect, as
the very first Romantic opera. Later
on, Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairytale opera “Hänsel and Gretel” based
on the Brothers Grimm enjoyed an
uninterrupted success extending to
the present day. The twentieth century added the fairytale opera “The
Little Elf of Christ” by Hans Pfitzner.
Humperdinck’s classic “Hänsel and
Gretel” had a lasting influence on the
genre of the fairytale opera with its
polyphony reminiscent of Wagner
and masterly art of instrumentation,
but especially through its incorporation of folksongs and children’s
songs in a through-composed musicdramatic work. Contemporary composers have approached the subject
of the fairytale opera under completely different conditions. They either
treat the text, scenic events and
music on equal terms, inserting lieder and songs (as did Jens-Peter
Ostendorf in his fairytale opera “The
Fake Prince”) or they create throughcomposed forms which consciously
avoid echoes of romanticism or of
child-like qualities, creating unfamiliar sound-worlds by means of new
compositional techniques (as did
Krzysztof Meyer in his “Enchanted
Brothers”).
Taking selected works from our catalogues as examples, we wish to provide a glimpse into the wide variety
of fairytale adaptations in the twentieth century and in the current music
of our time. These include ballet
music, operas, musicals, works for
speaker and ensembles and purely
orchestral works.
The effect made by a fairytale’s clear, purposeful plot, with its colourful, sharply
„
rawn characters and the pure, expansive presentation of the storyline, is also of the
greatest inner acuity.
(Max Lüthi)
SIKORSKI magazine|3
MUSIC-THEATRICAL FAIRYTALES
THE BROTHERS GRIMM
“Rumpelstilzchen”
- BALLET MUSIC BY
HERBERT BAUMANN
- MUSICAL FAIRYTALE FOR
NARRATOR AND ORCHESTRA
BY HERBERT BAUMANN
Berlin-born Herbert Baumann is a true
institution in theatrical music; during the
course of his career, he has provided
about 500 plays with music. As former
director of incidental music at the
Deutscher Theater Berlin, he has had a
great deal of practical experience. Thus
he has come to write ballet music, the
first work of which was “Alice in
Wonderland” composed in 1984, to
which we shall return later.
Baumann wrote his second ballet,
“Rumpelstilzchen,” in response to a
commission from Helge Thoma,
Director of the Augsburg State Theatres
and it achieved genuine success with
the public. The Augsburg premiere took
place on 9 November 1986. Further productions followed, and the work has by
now been performed more than 170
times. “Herbert Baumann had the courage to write a markedly dance-like,
melodic, beautiful-sounding music
strong in moods, illuminating the given
situation with taste and also allowing
folksong motifs to come bubbling to the
surface at the appropriate places [...],”
wrote the “Schwäbische Neue Presse.”
The ballet owes its charm not least to
the skilfully ironical-comic adaptation of
the original story to modern living conditions. The original plot, limited more
or less to three persons, is coloured by
the addition of further characters: the
king is replaced by a dream-dancer of a
prince. The royal addiction to gold is
transformed into a monetary emergency
4|SIKORSKI magazine
for the kingdom, which is why he must
by all means marry a rich princess. Three
ladies willing to marry are found – of
Russian, Arabian and Spanish origins
respectively, musically represented
through exotic-distorted rhythms and
sounds. The Finale evens uses hopping
dishes and dancing food, such as the
wedding cake, the entrance of which is
lovingly accompanied by the children’s
song “Backe, backe Kuchen.” Leitmotifs
lead the young audience through the
ballet - never in an exaggerated way, but
always clearly and comprehensibly
through melodies full of instrumental
colour and rhythmic spirit.
In the year 2000 Baumann adapted his
ballet music into a Suite for Narrator and
Orchestra.
“Puss in Boots”
FAIRYTALE OPERA FOR
CHILDREN IN 2 ACTS BASED
ON CHARLES PERRAULT
AND THE BROTHERS GRIMM
BY CÉSAR CUI
A miller bequeaths his three sons a mill,
a donkey and a cat. The youngest of the
three inherits the cat and thinks he has
drawn the short straw. But the clever,
speaking animal wants to make himself
useful provided he is given a pair of
boots. After that, the cat in the boots
slyly catches a young rabbit which he
brings to the King as a gift from the
Marquis de Carabas, as he calls his
master. The next day, the cat takes his
master to bathe in the river at the spot
where the King goes walking with his
beautiful daughter and thinks that all his
master’s clothes have been stolen.
Under these pretences, the miller’s son
comes to own magnificent clothes. To
top off his well-planned, clever tricks,
the cat eats the fearsome monster after
the latter has transformed himself into a
mouse in order to prove his powers.
Thus the miller’s son or the Marquis von
Carabas comes to own a splendid castle
and marries the Princess in the end.
The St. Petersburg composer César
Antonovich Cui, one of the group “The
Mighty Handful” (The Mighty Five) formed around Balakirev since 1857 and
whose ideas he also vehemently supported as a critic, composed four children’s
operas altogether, including “The Snow
Prince” (1904) and “Little Red Riding
Hood” (1911). During the same year as
“Little Red Riding Hood” he wrote “Puss
in Boots” based on Charles Perrault and
the Brothers Grimm. Cui’s musical
language owes much to Robert
Schumann, Hector Berlioz and Franz
Liszt while, among Russian composers,
he was particularly close to Alexander
Dargomyzhski, the creator of the operas
“The Stone Guest” and “Russalka.”
Russian national colouring is much less
frequent in Cui’s music than in that of
Borodin,
Rimsky-Korsakov
or
Mussorgsky.
“Little Red Riding
Hood’s Lullaby”
DUET / CHILDREN’S OPERA
SCENE FOR SOPRANO,
MEZZO SOPRANO AND
CHAMBER ENSEMBLE
BY JAN MÜLLER-WIELAND
Jan Müller-Wieland is one of four composers of the children’s opera project
“Klonk 3 – Red Riding Hood Run, Run“,
MUSIC-THEATRICAL FAIRYTALES
THE BROTHERS GRIMM
which received its premiere on 17 May
2007 at the Osnabrück State Theatre.
The result, according to the organisers,
is a chamber opera for three singers in
constantly changing roles, in which fantastic games bustle humorously in the
land between wakefulness and sleep within the framework of one of the most
famous fairytales. Different facets of the
Red Riding Hood story are reflected like
a kaleidoscope.
The musical mini-dramas of the four
composers can be performed as individual works or in combined form under
the title RED RIDING HOOD, RUN. Jan
Müller-Wieland’s contribution is a scene
with the title “Red Riding Hood’s
Lullaby.” After the world premiere at the
emma-theater of the Osnabrück
Theatre, the production went on to
Munich.
“Cinderella”
BALLET IN 3 ACTS BY
NIKOLAI VOLKOV. MUSIC
BY SERGEI PROKOFIEV
The sensational success of the Soviet
premiere of “Romeo and Juliet” was
decisive for the composition of Sergei
Prokofiev’s second large ballet. The
Kirov Theatre in Leningrad asked the
composer for music to the famous fairytale, which had become known round
the world especially through the
French fairytale collection of Charles
Perrault and later through the adaptation by the Brothers Grimm. Prokofiev
worked particularly intensively on this
ballet during the first months of the
year 1941. It was premiered in 1945
with Galina Ulanova in the title role.
“What I especially wanted to set to music
in ‘Cinderella’ is the romantic love of
Cinderella and the Prince, its budding
and development, the hindrances during
its course and its fulfilment,” Prokofiev
once said. His Cinderella music is also less
illustrative than incredibly lyrical, drawing
upon the aesthetic that the composer
had already attempted so successfully in
Shakespeare’s romantic drama “Romeo
and Juliet.” Before the poor girl and her
prince find each other, Prokofiev at times
uses a melancholy, gloomy melodic
language. He sometimes concentrates
the ensemble parts with larger dance
groups into a leaden heaviness. The fairytale scenery with all its colourful figures
becomes a dreamlike world accompanying the events out of which the love of
the protagonists is brought into relief all
the more impressively.
“Snow White and
the Russian
Prince”
BALLET FOR CHILDREN
BY SLAVA ULANOVSKI BASED
ON THE FAIRYTALE OF THE
BROTHERS GRIMM
(WITH THE USE OF MUSIC BY
THE FOLLOWING COMPOSERS:
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN,
CARL CZERNY,
HENRY PURCELL,
LEONHARD SCHADY,
SLAVA ULANOVSKI AND
RUSSIAN FOLKLORE)
This is probably the most frequently
adapted fairytale of the Brothers Grimm
in a choreographic narration based on a
libretto by Sophie Fürstenau. The ensemble has been considerably enlarged with
gardening maids, fisherwomen and Gypsy
women and the Prince is from Russia.
Otherwise, the story of the hassled girl
with the skin as white as snow, hair as
black as ebony and lips as red as blood
takes its familiar course. In line with the
great Russian ballet tradition, there is a
whole series of brilliant dances for the
ensemble and the soloists.
“Mister Meow”
FAIRYTALE MUSICAL IN
4 SCENES BY
FRITZ RÜGAMER. MUSIC
BY OTTO-ERICH SCHILLING
This is a wonderful parody of the famous
fairytale of “Puss in Boots” provided
with the following notes by Otto-Erich
Schilling: “Mister Meow requests that
the gentlemen and theatrical board of
directors read, produce and perform
this fairytale musical which, due to
its simplicity, any theatre could accept
as a fairytale of the 20th century. Mister
Meow desires a delightful mixture of
modernity and the magic of a fairytale
in the decorations and costumes without any cheap modern clothes! Jockel,
Seppel and Sabine are our present-day
enlightened, fresh youths within the
framework of a fairytale. Ino is the
sympathetic, carefree ‘young rowdy’
who also sometimes lies on purpose for
a
good
cause.
Jammerlapp,
Kullerinchen and Ulrike belong to the
previous
generation,
whereby
Jammerlapp is a stubborn subordinate,
while Kullerinchen and Ulrike of the following generation are more open.
‘Wamsetoll’ is a genuine fairytale character who can only be a joy to any
comedian.”
SIKORSKI magazine|5
MUSIC-THEATRICAL FAIRYTALES
HANS CHRISTIAN
ANDERSEN
“The Little Mermaid”
BALLET BASED ON A FAIRYTALE BY HANS CHRISTIAN
ANDERSEN. MUSIC BY LERA AUERBACH
The fairytale of the Little Mermaid is one of the best known works of Hans
Christian Andersen. It is about the unhappy love of the mermaid Arielle for
Prince William, whom she saves from drowning and in whom she then falls
hopelessly in love. This love goes so far that she ultimately sacrifices her
identity for the Prince, who, tragically, does not return her love.
The Hindemith Prize winner Lera Auerbach, in cooperation with choreographer John Neumeier, has captured the mythical-magical connection between the worlds of water and earth, making it sound with the help of polystylistic stylistic means: tender, lyrical phrases for the water fairy are juxtaposed with escalatory rhythmical elements and thus frame the so many-sided
differences between the paradise-like underwater world and the down-toearth earthly world. Auerbach uses unusual instruments like the Theremin,
for example, the ethereal buzzing of which symbolises the voice of the mermaid under water. The music alternates between melancholy and hope. “The
Little Mermaid” received its world premiere on 15 April 2005 in
Copenhagen. In 2007 the ballet was performed in Hamburg in a slightly shortened and tightened version.
Production 2010:
20.03.2010
SAN FRANCISCO BALLET US premiere
Auerbach/Neumeier, Ballet
“The Little Mermaid”
(Adoption of the Hamburg
Production)
Revival in 2011
“The Snow Queen”
BALLET IN 2 ACTS BASED ON HANS CHRISTIAN
ANDERSEN’S FAIRYTALE OF THE SAME NAME.
MUSIC BY TIGRAN MANSSURIAN
Little Gerda has a friend in Kai who is as dear to her as her own brother. She
plays and dreams with him until a terrible misfortune separates the two from
each other. With wild decisiveness and unapproachable hardness, the Snow
Queen abducts little Kai from real life. She steals from him the warm heartedness that she does not have and forces him to live in her kingdom, fulfilling unsolvable tasks there. If it had not been for Gerda, Kai would not have
been able to return. The girl, strong and fearless, set out on a journey into
the icy realm of the Snow Queen. This was Hans Christian Andersen’s most
grisly and thrilling fairytale that he had so far written at the time. The famous
“Snow Queen” is also one of the longest fairytales of the Danish author,
almost resembling a novel. So far, Manssurian’s ballet has only been premiered by the Armenian National Ballet at its guest performance in
Wiesbaden.
6|SIKORSKI magazine
MUSIC-THEATRICAL FAIRYTALES
WILHELM HAUFF
will find a needle in the box labelled
“Happiness and Riches” that he selects,
but Omar will find a sceptre in the box
labelled “Fame and Honour.” The real
prince has been found and Labakan is
hounded out of the court.
“The Cold Heart”
OPERA BASED ON
WILHELM HAUFF
BY NORBERT SCHULTZE
“The Fake
Prince”
CHILDREN’S OPERA IN
9 SCENES BY ULRIKE WENDT
AND FLORIAN ZWIPF
BASED ON THE FAIRYTALE
BY WILHELM HAUFF.
MUSIC BY
JENS-PETER OSTENDORF
The tailor Labakan would have liked to
be a prince and decides to change his
role in life. His costuming is the cause of
some confusion at the palace, for even
the Sultan-Mother no longer recognises
her own son. In her desperation, she
turns to her servant lady Melechsalah,
who suggests a test: the one who sews
the most beautiful caftan will be revealed as the tailor. The test takes place
with the approval of the Sultan. Labakan
delivers a magnificent example of his
art, while the real Prince Omar throws
his sewing equipment at the feet of the
Sultan. In his doubt, the Sultan takes the
advice of the fairy Adolzaide, who also
suggests a test: both subjects are to
choose between two boxes. Labakan
The poor charcoal-burner Peter gives
his mother his last ducats to help pay
the rental debts. But now he cannot go
to the dance with his sweetheart
Lisbeth, who then follows the other
boys. Peter falls asleep by the king pine
tree and dreams that the treasurer
wants to fulfil three wishes for him.
Since his first two wishes are foolish, the
forest spirit denies him the third one.
But Peter can now dance better than the
dance-floor king and has just as much
money as the rich Ezekiel. When the latter loses all his money to Peter, however, Peter’s pockets are also empty.
Hollander Michel now appears to save
the situation and promises him lasting
wealth if he exchanges his heart for a
stone. Peter agrees to this. He becomes
the richest wood merchant in the whole
district. All the trees except the king
pine tree have been chopped down.
Peter refuses to chop down this tree
down, since one would have to die at
the third blow and he is afraid to die
without a heart. Nor can the treasurer
help him. Only with cunning can Peter
regain his heart. The Hollander Michel
promises it to him, if he chops down the
tree. When Peter strikes the third blow,
he awakens. Lisbeth and the boys come
back. She gives Peter a stone in the
form of a heart. He sells it to Ezekiel for
19 ducats and can now pay for his
mother’s cottage.
Norbert Schultze created music for this
subject which is clearly reminiscent of
early romantic opera. Memorably rich in
melodies, he creates a colourful atmosphere of times past, illustrating the
story and its many-sided characters in
sound with highly imaginative orchestration. A murmuring tam-tam expressing
impending disaster and sombre, scurrying clarinet or bassoon figurations contribute to an intense atmosphere.
“The Salvation
of Fatme”
COMIC OPERA FOR YOUNG
PEOPLE IN 4 ACTS BY
WALTER TRELLE BASED ON
WILHELM HAUFF’S
FAIRYTALE OF THE SAME
NAME BY HANS BITTNER
Fatme, daughter of the rich merchant El
Hamid, is robbed by pirates and sold as
a slave to the rich Bassa of Thinli-Koss
for his harem. With the help of essentially good-natured Orbassan, the ringleader of the desert thieves, Fatme’s
brother Mustapha succeeds in freeing
her and the other female slaves as well.
After adventurous and also humorous
entanglements, three happily united
couples ultimately triumph over the
resigned Bassa.
SIKORSKI magazine|7
MUSIC-THEATRICAL FAIRYTALES
FOLKTALES
FROM ALL
OVER THE
WORLD
8|SIKORSKI magazine
“The Singing Tree”
OPERA IN 2 ACTS BY
BO CARPELAN.
MUSIC BY
ERIK BERGMAN
This is a fairytale about the love of the
Prince of the Underworld for the Princess of
Light. Prince Hatt, hidden in the roots of an
ash tree, confesses his love for the daughter
of the King of Light in a song, but his
mother, a witch, arranges things so that the
lovers can only meet in the dark. The
Princess of Light cannot resist the wish to
see her beloved. She creates light in the
darkness and is caught by the witch, who
banishes her in the world of daylight without further ado. The loving Princess searches for a path to the underworld and promises at a new encounter with the queen of
the underworld the light as a means to
power. The witch, however, burns when she
sees the light. While dying, she strikes the
Princess blind.
Contemporary Finnish opera has meanwhile
acquired an outstanding position on international stages. The Finnish composer
Jouni Kaipainen postulated the thesis that
Bergman’s first opera is a “grand synthesis,” more or less a compositional summary
of previously founded expressive means.
“Bergman’s most personal area is always
the discovery of the endless possibilities of
the human voice and its unbiased use, for
which his decade-long activities as a choral
conductor gave him the best prerequisites.
It was also only a question of time before
the Finnish avant-gardist would turn to
opera.”
Unlike the beloved Rusalka or Un-dine
material, Bergman’s opera takes place
exclusively in the world of magical beings;
there is no contact with the realm of human
beings. The protagonists are archetypes
situated between good and evil, intricately
enmeshed in the tragedy of the mystical
power struggle. Bergman’s music illustrates
this archaic magical realm not so much with
the help of motivic classifications as with
lyric mood painting full of colours and exciting drama. The score of the “Singing Tree”
is highly complex and works with refined
polyphonic sound-fields, unusual vocalises
and melismas. This music is romantic in the
modern sense in that it confronts the lyricism of the material with incredibly gripping
emotionality and vivid imagery.
MUSIC-THEATRICAL FAIRYTALES
“The Little
Hump-Backed
Horse”
BALLET IN 4 ACTS (8 SCENES)
AND AN EPILOGUE
BY VASSILI VAINONEN AND
PAVEL MALYAREVSKI
BASED ON MOTIVES OF THE
FAIRYTALE OF THE SAME
NAME BY PYOTR YERSHOV.
MUSIC BY
RODION SHCHEDRIN
The story of the little hump-backed
horse is one of the best-loved Russian
fairytales, to which the adaptation of the
subject by Pyotr Yershov has surely
made a significant contribution. “The
Little Hump-Backed Horse,” published
in 1831 and reprinted countless times
since, has become a favourite book of
Russian children. It belongs to the established repertoire of theatre and film in
Russia and artists have also repeatedly
turned to this subject. The composer
Rodion Shchedrin, who now lives in
Munich, whose ballet “Anna Karenina”
has already become a classic in Russian
ballet music, created the ballet music to
this tale in collaboration with Vassili
Vainonen and Pavel Malyarevski.
In order to get to the bottom of the
nocturnal destruction of his wheat
fields, an old farmer has his sons Danila
and Gavrila guard the wheat at night.
Out of fear, they get drunk and fall
asleep. Ivan, the farmer’s youngest son,
who has secretly followed them, observes a beautiful mare who is trampling
down the wheat. He catches her but
sets her free again when she promises
him two horses with golden manes and
a hump-backed colt. His two brothers
steal the beautiful horses and sell them
to the Tsar. Ivan keeps the hump-bakked horse. But since he also defends his
right to the other horse, the Tsar
employs him as a stable boy. He then
gives him various tasks to fulfil: Ivan
must first bring the beautiful Princess
from the glass mountain, for the Tsar
wishes to marry her. The he receives the
task of obtaining the Princess’s ring
from the magic lake. He is able to fulfil
all the tasks with the help of the hump-
backed horse. In the end, the Princess
asks the Tsar to have Ivan immerse himself in the magical spring. When Ivan
emerges from the water more beautiful
than before, the Tsar follows him to the
spring, but emerges as a black, ugly
being. Laughed at by the Princess,
he curses. Ivan and the Princess marry
happily.
“The Enchanted
Brothers”
FAIRYTALE OPERA, OP. 72
BASED ON YEVGENI SCHWARZ
BY KRZYSZTOF MEYER
Krzysztof Meyer’s opera “The Enchanted
Brothers” fulfils many expectations that
one generally has of a fairytale opera.
Although Meyer uses Slavic folk music
and melodic motifs from children’s
songs, he does not create children’s
theatre from them but instead an opera
for children and adults. The work was
composed in 1988/89 and was premiered with great success in Peznan in
March 1990.
The play by Yevgeni Schwarz is based
on a classical European fairytale that has
become popular in many modifications,
particularly in the East. A mother loses
two of her adolescent sons after they
have set out into the world and not
returned. In her desperation, she starts
looking for them, leaving her youngest
son behind. She soon comes to the
notorious house on stilts and enters into
the service of the evil witch who has cast
a spell on the sons. Two neighbouring
maple trees murmur at the mother,
claiming to be her sons Theo and
Georg, and shedding tears in the form
of morning dew. To get her sons back,
the mother must fulfil difficult tasks for
the witch and is supported in this by the
bear, cat and dog. When the youngest
son then joins them, there is nothing
more standing in the way of victory
against evil. Because the witch assigns
the mother the task of building a padlock for the house on stilts, she is herself
locked in and must reveal the secret of
breaking the spell. With the help of
“water of life,” the brothers are transformed back into boys while the witch
remains locked in her hut.
TALES
OF THE
ARABIAN
NIGHTS
“Bright Nights”
OPERA
BY HELMUT KRAUSSER
BASED ON MOTIVEN FROM
“TALES FROM THE
ARABIAN NIGHTS”
AND “MYSTERIES” BY
KNUT HAMSUN.
MUSIC BY
MORITZ EGGERT
The well-known composer Moritz
Eggert, always making spectacular
appearances with his football oratorio “Out of the Depth of the Room”
and his opera commissioned by the
Salzburg Festival entitled “From the
Tender Pole,” made a new revision of
his opera “Bright Nights,” premiered
in 1997, for a premiere at the Hagen
Theatre in the summer of 2006. The
dramaturge of the Hagen Theatre has
written the following about the
opera:
“In their first joint stage work, Eggert
and his librettist, the renowned novelist Helmut Krausser (bestsellers:
‘Melodies,’ ‘Thanatos’ and the Maria
Callas
novelette
‘The
Great
Bagarozy’), narrate three colourful
episodes from the brilliant ‘Tales of
the Arabian Nights.’ These internal
parts, at times poetic and probing, at
times tantalising and bizarre, are
framed by a refined general plot
which takes up narrative motifs by
Knut Hamsun. The opera owes its title
to the chapter ‘Bright Nights’ from
‘Mysteries’ by the Nobel Prize winner
for literature. ‘I wanted to write an
opera,’ explains Eggert, ‘that speaks
to the listener and spectator, which
tells him something about himself
and human imagination. An opera in
which the composer does not have to
explain beforehand what he wanted
to express in it. My opera is about
story-telling. It is about beauty
functioning and not functioning. It is
about language, and the language of
music is above all melody.’”
SIKORSKI magazine|9
OSCAR WILDE
“The Nightingale
and the Rose”
CHAMBER OPERA IN ONE ACT
BASED ON A TALE
BY OSCAR WILDE.
MUSIC BY JAN MÜLLER-WIELAND
Oscar Wilde’s stories which move one to tears, the tragedy
and melancholy of his characters, his motifs orientated
equally towards death and love and the mutual dissolution
of these terms almost cry out for a musical setting, design
and commentary. That this is happening with the compositional means of our time makes this operatic project all the
more exciting.
Jan Müller-Wieland’s opera calls for seven singers, string
quartet, piano and percussion. “These are very sensuous
instruments” says the composer, and are therefore fitting
for a tale that he also refers to as very sensuous. The student
in Jan Müller-Wieland’s stage work of 1996 is in a similar
situation to that of Faust: he has read everything that clever
men have written, but he lacks the experience of love. It
appears unattainable for him, for the girl with whom he has
fallen in love promised to dance with him only if he brings
her a red rose. But roses have not grown in his garden for
years. It does not occur to him to make a pact with the devil,
but he receives unexpected help from outside without noticing it. A nightingale, who still believes in true love, sings to
a bare bouquet of roses of the student’s love. There is only
one possibility: whilst singing at night, the nightingale must
press one of its thorns so hard against its breast that a red
rose with its heart’s blood can grow on the bouquet. The
nightingale sacrifices itself in vain: the rose that grows as a
result of paying the price of death is spurned by the girl, for
she prefers the jewels that she gets from another admirer.
“How foolish is love,” thinks the student in the end, “it is not
half as useful as logic.”
“The Ghost of
Canterville”
- OPERA IN 3 ACTS
BY ALEXANDER KNAIFEL
- ROMANTIC SCENES FOR SOPRANO,
BASS, NARRATOR AND CHAMBER
ORCHESTRA BY ALEXANDER KNAIFEL
The American ambassador Otis has purchased Canterville
Castle. Despite all warnings regarding the ghost living there,
the entire family moves in. The Otis family treat the ghost
utterly without respect: they treat (in vain) the mysterious
blood stain in the library with spot remover. To dampen the
noise of his rattling chains, they recommend lubricating oil
to the enervated ghost, and the twins throw cushions at him.
Instead of his scaring the Americans, they turn the tables on
the ghost and carry on their shenanigans with him. When
Virginia meets the ghost on the rear stairway behind her
room, she feels deep sympathy for him – and wants to help
him. While the entire family desperately looks for her,
Virginia is able to free the ghost from his restless existence
due to an old prophecy.
10|SIKORSKI magazine
MAGICAL
TALES
“Alice in Wonderland”
- MUSICAL FOR CHILDREN BY
HELMUT POLIXA FREELY ADAPTED FROM
THE TALES “ALICE IN WONDERLAND” AND
“THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS” BY
LEWIS CARROLL. MUSIC BY
JENS-PETER OSTENDORF
- BALLET BY HERBERT BAUMANN BASED ON
BOOKS OF LEWIS CARROLL
It is not so easy to explain how one comes to Wonderland.
When staging Jens-Peter Ostendorf’s music theatre based on
Lewis Carroll, each Alice and each theatre must find their own
way, for a series of turbulent adventures is in store for the little girl. Alice meets strange figures in Wonderland and is confronted with situations which she, always gaining in confidence, learns to master. In the beginning there is the strong
Goggehoggel who looks likes a dinosaur, with whom the little girl fights and struggles. Here, Alice is still at a disadvantage. And there are Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, whom
catch the girl in order to bring her to the Queen. But she can
no longer intimidate Alice.
The poet Lewis Carroll fled into a world of fantasy and dreams
from his gruelling existence as a college teacher who had to
put up with insubordinate and unruly pupils. He has Alice
undergo a journey through Wonderland accompanied by the
White Rabbit. The experienced music-theatrical composer
Jens-Peter Ostendorf succeeds in creating a complex form of
musical theatre reflecting his close relationship with spoken
theatre, with musical-orientated songs and just a three-piece
instrumental ensemble reflecting the scenic events with a
plethora of sounds, noises and effects. After all, he was occupied with composing and arranging incidental music at
Hamburg’s Thalia Theatre for nine years.
Herbert Baumann finally created his first great ballet music
from the world-famous subject in 1984. Variegated instrumental numbers which congenially accompany the story carry
off the listener into a musical-poetic dream world.
MUSIC-THEATRICAL FAIRYTALES
“Russalka”
“The Little Ring”
“The Little Prince”
OPERA IN 4 ACTS (6 SCENES)
BY ALEXANDER
DARGOMYZHSKY BASED ON
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN’S
POEM OF THE SAME NAME
MUSICAL FAIRYTALE IN 2
ACTS FOR CHILDREN AND
ADULTS BASED ON A TEXT
BY BIRGIT MÜLLERWIELAND. MUSIC BY
JAN MÜLLER-WIELAND
OPERA
BY NIKOLAUS SCHAPFL
BASED ON
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY
The miller’s daughter Natasha maintains
bonds of love with a Prince. When she
becomes pregnant, however, he leaves
her and gets married befitting his social
status. Natasha’s father, greedy for
money, beseeches his daughter to console herself with the offered settlement,
but the desperate girl throws herself into
a river. The Prince’s wedding is disturbed by the singing of a mermaid, who is
Natasha transformed; he cannot forget
this singing. The Princess senses the
threat and complains of her husband’s
unrest and his tendency to be lonely. He
feels irresistibly drawn to the scene of
his former love. He thinks he hears female voices on the river bank. He unexpectedly meets the miller, who has
meanwhile gone insane, and who
reports of Natasha’s fate in confused
hints.
In her underwater palace at the bottom
of the Dneipr, the river mermaid
Russalka (Natasha) assigns her twelveyear-old daughter Russalochka the task
of luring the Prince to the river. The girl
meets him, informs him that he is her father and that Natasha is waiting for him.
In the search for her husband, the
Princess must witness the Prince being
pushed into the river by the miller and
drawn down into its depths by the two
mermaids.
Subjects based on the world of water
spirits have fascinated romantic composers in particular, at the latest since de la
Motte-Fouqué wrote his tale “Undine.”
In Russia, where the fairytale opera has
blossomed in many forms, Alexander
Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869), a composer
of the so-called “Mighty Handful,” dedicated himself to this theme. He based
his work on the Russalka poem by
Alexander Pushkin written in 1832,
which unfortunately remained a fragment. Pushkin turns the customary motif
on his head. It is not the wish to become
a human being out of love and to turn
one’s back on the spirit world, but the
fate of a dishonoured girl who looks for
death in the water and still cannot break
off with earthly life.
The composer and Professor of
Composition Jan Müller-Wieland relates that the Regensburg Singing and
Music School asked him in the summer
of 2008 if he would write an opera to
celebrate the occasion of their centennial. It was to be composed for children
(their pupils) and a few adults (a few
teachers to lend support). “Since I had
meanwhile assimilated sufficient craftsmanship and experience, I thought I
could handle the technical limitations
and work within them empathically –
not at all an easy task. Put another way:
by concentrating on the point ‘children
making music with my notes’ I did not
feel at all limited.”
The original idea was to more or less
retell Wagner’s gigantic trilogy “The
Ring of the Nibelungs.” “Hardly with
violence,” as Müller-Wieland comments, “without consecration or an
ideal world, but as an odyssey of a little
ring that gives love and trust to a youthful couple.” Müller-Wieland’s music to
this idea contains not a single note of
Wagner. Nature, the animals and the
final fire are all represented by large
children’s choirs. Older music-school
pupils sing the parts of a sleepy King,
his brother Sly Fox, a somewhat crazy
Queen and her sister (an Apple
Goddess). Alpha-Strich, on the other
hand, is a child actor; his name can be
understood as a pun relating to the
Schwarzalben and ring-thief Alberich.
He is the leader of the robots. These
are both semi-dwarfs and semi-machines. In the second act (after a break)
Alpha-Strich is bringing up another
boy-actor. He is called Siggi and
doesn’t know who or where his parents
are. Siggi finally falls in love with the
cheeky girl-actress Schönwilde. Three
mermaids (Walla, Wella, Walle), a
forest-bird and an apple tree are represented by five girls’ voices. They form a
natural world which ultimately helps the
young people – despite technology and
the belief in technical progress – to find
happiness.
The “Little Prince” is by now a very
great Prince indeed and has been one
for some time. When Antoine de SaintExupéry invented the mysterious story
of the Little Prince, he had no idea of
the effect that it would have all over the
world. The utterances of the little fellow
appearing out of nowhere are wise; his
manner is endearing and somehow one
has the impression that an inner voice
from one’s self is speaking through the
Little Prince.
It is thus a completely natural idea to
transform this profoundly poetic story
into music, into sounds that would
reflect and provide associations with the
deep philosophy of its thoughts.
Nikolaus Schapfl’s opera, premiered in
2006 at the Badisches State Theatre in
Karlsruhe, shows, in parts, typical characteristics of grand opera – seen from
the point of view of a contemporary
composer – and also contains
approaches reminiscent of film music.
Through his skilfully orchestrated long
lines, Schapfl surprises the listener with
intimate, reserved inward views almost
reminiscent of chamber music. The composer has taken up the dialogues of
Saint-Exupéry almost literally. In the
manner of programme music, many
small details are reflected by the orchestra, e.g. the indignant expression of
the Little Prince looking at the sheep
drawn by the pilot, or the shimmering
delirium of the drinker. “Everything is
there in this colourful music,” was the
verdict of a commentator writing about
one of the preliminary versions in the
newspaper Wiener Zeitung.
SIKORSKI magazine|11
MUSIC-THEATRICAL FAIRYTALES
MAGICAL TALES
“The Nose”
OPERA IN 3 ACTS (10 SCENES)
AND AN EPILOGUE
BY YEVGENI SAMYATIN,
GEORGI LONIN,
ALEXANDER PREIS AND
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
BASED ON THE NOVELETTE
OF THE SAME NAME BY
NIKOLAI GOGOL.
MUSIC BY
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
GERMAN BY HELMUT WAGNER AND
KARL HEINZ FÜSSL
Council assessor Kovalyov awakes to find himself without a
nose. The nose is found by an almost constantly drunk barber in his bread; he immediately gets rid of it by throwing it
into the river. Kovalyov, looking for his nose, encounters it
in the form of a state councillor in the church, where it escapes him. Kovalyov tries in vain to place an ad in the newspaper: the only result is laughter. Meanwhile, the police are
also looking for the nose. It comes by in order to catch a
departing coach. A fight takes place, in which the nose
shrinks down to its original size. The police officer can now
return it to the relieved Kovalyov. Overjoyed, he wants to
return it to his place, but it proves impossible to fasten the
separated body part to his face. Meanwhile, the entire city
is busy looking for the nose. Then Kovalyov awakens from
his tortuous nightmare and is relieved to find his nose on
the right place.
“Pure mischief is done on earth,” Gogol once said. “I try to
represent this mischief to the best of my ability.”
Shostakovich once insisted that he did not consider “The
Nose” to be a comic story, but rather a horrible story. “I
would add that the music does not intentionally have a ‘parodistic’ colouration. No! Despite all the comedy that occurs
on the stage, the music is not comic. I consider this justified,
because Gogol presents all the comic occurrences in a
serious tone. That is where the strength and quality of
Gogol’s humour lies. He doesn’t crack any ‘jokes.’ The
music also tries not to crack any ‘jokes.’” (Dmitri
Shostakovich).
12|SIKORSKI magazine
MUSIC-THEATRICAL FAIRYTALES
Not only do the persons of the fairytale possess no inner world, neither
“
do they have an environment. The person of the saga lives and works in
his home village. The fairytale tells us nothing about the city or village in
which its hero grew up.
(Max Lüthi)
”
“The Soldier’s Tale”
“The Little Day”
MELODRAMA BY CHARLES
FERDINAND RAMUZ FOR SPEAKER
AND SEPTET. MUSIC BY
IGOR STRAVINSKY
A SINGSPIEL BASED ON A FAIRYTALE
BY WOLFRAM EICKE
BY WOLFRAM EICKE / HANS NIEHAUS /
ROLF ZUCKOWSKI
A soldier wanders home during his leave from the
front. While resting, the devil appears to him, disguised as an old man, and convinces him to trade his violin for a book about magic. Whoever possesses the
book will become rich. In addition to that, the devil
promises the starving soldier ample food, luring him
to come with him for three days and teach him the
violin. When the soldier returns to his home town after
these three days, he is faced with the fact that it was
not three days, but three years that have passed. No
one knows him any more. Now he has only his magic
book, thanks to which he becomes a rich merchant,
but not a happy one. Then the devil reappears, this
time as a lady peddler, offering him his old violin,
among other things. The soldier seizes the violin but it
remains silent. He casts it aside in desperation and
tears up the magic book, for now he is really a poor
devil, betrayed and sold.
He follows a call to a royal court in order to heal the
sick Princess there. This is only possible with the violin, however, which the devil triumphantly holds in his
hand. There follows a struggle between the soldier
and the devil in the form of a card game. The soldier
defeats the prince of darkness and wins back his violin. Now fully cured, the Princess is to be his wife. The
devil, the loser at this point, casts another spell on the
soldier: the soldier may not go beyond the boundaries
of the kingdom. If he does so, he will become a slave
to the devil. The longing for and memories of his
homeland drive the soldier to nevertheless cross the
boundary. The devil stands here in the pose of the victor. The devil, who has regained possession of the violin, drives him from the stage into hell with a wild triumphal march.
Stravinsky’s bizarre, poly-rhythmical music in the
unusual instrumentation of clarinet, bassoon, cornet,
trombone, violin, double bass and percussion illustrates these scenes, building up strong contrasts and
playing with the listener’s expectations.
Behind the stars in the shining realm of light there lives a little day. All
days live there as light-beings before they come to earth and they return
there in the evening.
The little day has to wait a long time until it is his turn. He listens, deeply impressed, when others tell of the earth: glorious deeds, inventions,
catastrophes, historical events ...
“The Little Day” is convinced that something special will happen during
his journey to the earth, something that will make him unforgettable.
And finally it’s time... This delightful present-day tale received the rating
“Good Music for Children – recommended by the Union of German
Music Schools” as well as the children’s prize of the papageno children’s
jury of the WDR “POLDI 2001.”
The album for voice and piano contains all the songs and interludes in
their original keys and is thus well-suited for learning and performing as
well as for playing for oneself. The moderately difficult adaptations are
provided with chord symbols, thus making it possible to accompany with
keyboard and guitar.
“The Little Day”
On the Light Beam to the Earth and Back. The piano
album to the CD/MC of the same name.
SIK 1391
Double-CD (Radio Play Version and Songs)
SIK 1391 A
The Textbook
SIK 1392
The Band Set
SIK 1394
The Orchestral Playbacks / CD
SIK 1394 A
The Midi-Files
SIK 1394 B
SIKORSKI magazine|13
FAIRYTALES FOR
NARRATOR AND MUSIC
FAIRYTALES FOR NARRATOR AND MUSIC
THE BROTHERS
GRIMM
“Rumpelstilzchen”
- A MUSICAL FAIRYTALE FOR
SPEAKER AND ORCHESTRA
BY WOLFGANG SÖRING
(BASED ON THE BROTHERS
GRIMM)
- MUSICAL FAIRYTALE FOR
SPEAKER AND ORCHESTRA
BY HERBERT BAUMANN
The fairytale about the evil dwarf who
laid claim to the Queen’s baby is one of
the truly archaic tales from the Grimm
collections. Except for the dwarf himself,
the protagonists have no names. They
are acting types with fixed role characters. The fairytale of Rumpelstilzchen is
found all over the world in many modifications. In order to be able to keep her
child, the Queen must guess the name of
the evil gnome within three days. By
chance, the poor woman is able to listen
to him during his activity and thus to find
out the secret; Rumpelstilzchen then
sinks into the ground out of pure fury.
Wolfgang Söring’s music, rich in imagery, goes far beyond the illustration of the
actual fairytale and provides much room
for individual interpretations.
In addition to his ballet music
“Rumpelstilzchen,” Herbert Baumann
has also prepared a version for speaker
and orchestra.
LA AVENTURE
DI PINOCCHIO:
STORIA DI UN
BURATTINO
NEW IN THE
PROGRAMME
“Pinocchio”
- CHILDREN’S MELODRAMA
FOR SPEAKER AND
ORCHESTRA
14|SIKORSKI magazine
BY MARTIN BÄRENZ
BASED ON CARLO COLLODI
- VERSION FOR SPEAKER
AND ENSEMBLE
Who doesn’t know the story of the wooden puppet Pinocchio who desired nothing more ardently than to be a real
boy? Carlo Collodi’s story of the
meanwhile world-famous marionette is
an artistic tale, but reveals many traits of
the classical fairytale. There is the
medieval atmosphere of the location,
the presence of a magic fairy with darkblue hair, a talking cricket and much
more. Collodi made a small, adventuresome didactic play out of the moving
story about a talking piece of wood that
contained a body and didn’t know how
to cope with it – a story that should
encourage all children to be honest and
practice moderation.
It all began with the master carpenter
Cherry who found a log that started to
talk. Since he feels uneasy about the
matter, he gives it to his friend, the
woodcarver Geppetto. Geppetto is
enthusiastic over the block of wood and
immediately starts to carve a wooden
puppet.
Instead of going to school, Pinocchio
prefers a puppet theatre. He later
encounters the sly fox and the evil cat,
whom he tells of the thalers he earned
by chance in the puppet theatre. They
suggest that he bury the money,
where it will automatically increase.
Fortunately, the fairy with the dark-blue
hair always has an eye on the scallywag.
She urgently warns him to stay on the
right path and sends him home to his
father. With the help of a dove and a
talking cricket, Pinocchio starts to
return to his father, but the latter has
meanwhile been worrying about
Pinocchio and has built a boat with
which to look for him. Pinocchio hurries
after his father, but when he arrives at
the sea he sees only how Geppetto has
been caught in a great wave.
The composer and cellist Martin Bärenz
was born in 1956 in Fürth. An important
aspect of his work is the series of
family concerts organised by him since
2007, at which a large number of melodramas for children have been
premiered.
FAIRYTALES FOR NARRATOR AND MUSIC
WILHELM
HAUFF
“Caliph Stork”
FAIRYTALE FOR SPEAKER
AND ORCHESTRA BY
TORSTEN LINDNER BASED
ON WILHELM HAUFF
Torsten Lindner wrote “Caliph Stork” in
1983 at the age of fourteen. He got the
idea for it when he received a picture
book of fairytales as a present. He was
inspired by the desire to bring together
his romantic idols Wagner, Mahler and
Weber with his interest in pentatonic
and oriental scales. Wolfgang-Andreas
Schultz, today Professor at the Hamburg
Academy of Music, took the protégé
under his wing and supported him with
praise and criticism. “Caliph Stork”
received its world premiere during the
course of the children’s concerts at the
Great Hall of the Musikhalle in Hamburg,
performed by the Hamburg Symphony
Orchestra under the direction of
Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg.
In this fairytale, Wilhelm Hauff tells of
Caliph Chasid of Baghdad and his Grand
Vizier who bought a powder from a grocer with which they could turn themselves into animals. However, they both
broke the rule of not being allowed to
laugh. They had to remain storks because they had forgotten the magic words
by laughing. The Caliph notices, however, that they have been taken in by his
old enemy, the magician Kashnur. They
set out on a journey on which they join
the owl Lusa. This owl claims to be a
princess on whom the magician has cast
a spell, and can only be turned back into
a princess if someone proposes marriage to her. Under the condition the one
of the two must propose to her – despite her ugliness as an owl – she shows
them the secret meeting place of the
magician and his cohorts. Those present
tell of their misdeeds and the two storks
are able to pick up the magic word that
they need – “Mutabor.” Transformed
back into human beings, the Caliph and
his two companions return to Baghdad,
where the officiating son of the magician
has been overthrown and now himself
transformed into a stork. The magician is
hanged and Chasid is once again Caliph
of Baghdad. The beautiful Lusa remains
by his side.
“PETER AND
THE WOLF”
“Peter and
the Wolf ”
MUSICAL FAIRYTALE FOR
SPEAKER AND ORCHESTRA
BY SERGEI PROKOFIEV
There is hardly a piece in the history of
music that represents the field of music
for children more impressively than Sergei
Prokofiev’s masterwork “Peter and the
Wolf,” composed in 1936. This composition for narrator and orchestra is the
unchallenged favourite at children’s concerts and on the recording market, and
one may certainly maintain that an entire
genre during the following decades was
marked by Prokofiev’s compositional
ideas and vivid language. Composers
such as Harald Genzmer, Francis Poulenc,
Wolfgang Söring, Jens-Peter Ostendorf,
Mark Lothar and Stanley Weiner have
found their own ways, but can in no way
deny the influence of Prokofiev and his
ideas.
Sergei Prokofiev composed “Peter and
the Wolf” during the period when his ballet “Romeo and Juliet” and the Violin
Concerto No. 2 were composed. At that
time, the unmistakeable Prokofiev style
was consolidated with his dark, lyrical passages and the ever-appearing motor
rhythms. The transparent chamber-music
texture of his children’s piece “Peter and
the Wolf” is a bit different from his large
symphonic works and operas from this
period and the years preceding it. In particular, Prokofiev’s expressive ambitions
reminiscent more of Stravinsky represent
a more typical way of handling large forms
than those of the late romantic ones of his
opera “The Love of Three Oranges,“
Symphonies Nos. 2, 3 and 4 and the last
three piano concertos. These are concen-
trated into miniatures in “Peter and the
Wolf.”
In his preface to “Peter and the Wolf,” the
composer emphasised the pedagogical
aspect of his work: “Each acting personage in this tale is represented in the orchestra by one or several instrument: the little bird by the flute, the duck by the oboe,
the cat by the clarinet in a low register
(staccato), the Grandfather by the bassoon, the wolf by chords on the horns, Peter
by the strings, the shooting of the hunters
by tympani and a bass drum. It is appropriate to show the children these instruments before the performance and play
the leitmotifs for them. In this way, they
learn to distinguish a large number of
orchestral instruments without any effort
during the performance.”
Editions of
“Peter and the Wolf” by
Sergei Prokofiev
Peter and the Wolf for Speaker
and Mixed Choir a cappella
SIK 1633
for Speaker and Mixed Choir a
cappella. CD (Original Recording)
SIK 1633 A
Easy Adaptation for Piano
SIK 1634
Study Score (with German Text)
SIK 2291
Piano Reduction (with German Text)
SIK 2292
Suite for Piano
SIK 2295
for Woodwind Quintet
Instrumentation/
Parts: Fl., Ob., Clar., Hn., Bsn.
SIK 2397 (Score / Set of Parts)
Piano Reduction (with English,
French and Spanish Text)
SIK 6899
for Children with Nine Easy Piano
Pieces
SIK 6922 (with English Text)
Prokofiev, Sergei /
Saint-Saens, Camille
Peter and the Wolf /
Carnival of the Animals
With Rolf Zuckowski as Narrator.
SIK 8077 A (CD)
SIK 8077 B (MC)
SIKORSKI magazine|15
FAIRYTALES FOR NARRATOR AND MUSIC
It is as if
the fairytale
characters were
paper figures
from which one
could cut
something away
at will without
causing any
essential change
to take place.
“
”
(Max
Lüthi)
(Max Lüthi)
16|SIKORSKI magazine
“The Story of the Lazy Bear”
A MUSICAL TALE FOR SPEAKER, BASS TUBA
AND ORCHESTRA, OP. 87
BY MARK LOTHAR
TEXT: ROLF BADENHAUSEN
A long time ago, not all wild animals and tame house pets has the
tails which suited them. They had to really take pains, for in the
spring and especially in the summer they were so much bitten by
flies and mosquitoes that they could hardly defend themselves. Only
the lion, the King of Beasts, had a beautiful long tail with a tassel, as
befitted his appearance and dignity. When he learnt of the suffering
of his subjects, he tried to think of a way how he could help them.
He sent for a selection of the most beautiful tails from all different
countries and announced that each animal could select the tail he
preferred. Well, King Lion’s good intentions were most praiseworthy, but they were not observed by every animal. The lazy bear lay in
his cave, growling. Of course, he did not get a tail. Rolf
Badenhausen thought up this whimsical story which Mark Lothar
imaginatively and colourfully set for orchestral instruments. The solo
instrument is a bass tuba, as befits a growling bear.
“Dying for Beginners”
A MUSICAL CHILDREN’S PLAY FOR
SINGER/NARRATOR AND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
BY LINARD BARDILL AND FORTUNAT FRÖLICH
It is dull in Blue Wonderland, for the grumbling bear Beltrametti is
taking his winter’s nap and the dwarf Gimli is writing the Blue
Wonderland Chronicle. It is deadly boring. “Dying can’t
can’t be
be as
as
boring as what I’m going through right now,” said the rabbit to himself. “It would be better for me to die a little, then at least I’d have
something to do.” He then lay with his stomach over the branch of
a large pine tree and died, as rabbits do. Then a chicken came along
and, finding dying somehow cool, asked if he could do it too, and
then finally the grumbling bear appeared. ... The story is told with
songs and orchestral music. The orchestra plays the journey into
Blue Wonderland on the dragon Spucko. It is a wild, stormy flight.
Then the music tells how a rabbit could die like that- or a chicken,
or a bear. The composer Fortunat Frölich, who also arranged
Bardill’s “Mondlieder” (Moon Songs) for classical chamber orchestra, gets just about everything possible out of the orchestra, from
Hollywood soundtrack to experimental New Music. It is an adventurous journey into the world of music rich in images for children and
adults alike.
FAIRYTALES AS ORCHESTRAL WORKS WITHOUT NARRATOR
FAIRYTALES AS
ORCHESTRAL WORKS
WITHOUT NARRATOR
“Fairytale Poem”
for Orchestra
by Sofia Gubaidulina
“Fairytale Poem” composed in 1971 in the
music to a radio broadcast for children based
on the fairytale “The Little Chalk” by the
Czech author Mazourek. “I liked the fairytale
so much and it seemed to me so symbolic for
the fate of an artist that a very personal relationship to this work arose for me,” explains Sofia
Gubaidulina. The music, written with great
joy, can also be performed independently without spoken text. The main character in this
fairytale is a small piece of chalk used for writing on school blackboards. The chalk dreams
of drawing wonderful castles, beautiful garden with pavilions and the sea. But it is forced,
day in and day out, to write dull words, numbers and geometrical figures on the blackboard. In so doing, it becomes smaller and smaller, in contrast to the children who grow each
day. The piece of chalk gradually despairs,
giving up all hope of ever being allowed to
draw the sun or the sea. Soon it becomes so
small that it can no longer be used in the
classroom and is thrown away. After this happens, the chalk finds itself in total darkness
and thinks it has died. This ostensible deadly
darkness, however, proves to be a boy’s trouser pocket. The child’s hand takes the chalk
out into the daylight and starts drawing castles, gardens with pavilions and the sea with
the sun on the asphalt. The chalk is so happy
that it hardly notices how it disintegrates whilst drawing this beautiful world.
Many instrumental works of Sofia Gubaidulina
have a programmatic approach, as does the
Fairytale Poem. The urgency of the tale, the
special musical language of Gubaidulina and
the clear structure of the work also make it
possible for children to quickly find an intuitive way of approaching the sound-spaces of
the New Music.
SIKORSKI magazine|17