Working on the music of this ballet programme was definitely a challenging feat for our musicians, having to bring out the massive sound of an entire orchestral score (with an original size of at least 50 players) condensed into four parts for our string quartet! As such with the condensed ballet score, our musicians’ fingers are always kept busy for this programme, playing at almost every moment with little ‘breaks’ to be had throughout the hour.
Another unique discovery was that musical choices could have big differences across various professional recordings, as there often exists different versions of music for a ballet score! With the ‘original’ ballet score written by the composer for a full-scale ballet production, there also exists a shortened version we know as the ‘Suite’ or orchestral suite, such as in the the Nutcracker Suite or Swan Lake Suite, both of which our quartet scores for this concert were arranged from!
This ‘suite’ score is written by the original composer or another arranger, and presents the main themes of a ballet in a shortened version suitable for a concert hall without dancers, as well as versions of the original music made possible to be played by smaller scale instrument arrangements, such as ourselves – the string quartet!
How is this interesting for our ballerinas, and for our collaboration in this unique Candlelight concert?
Understanding these differences, we had specially worked through differences in timing and duration, as well as the differences in the ballerinas’ requirements for this music. This involved being conscious of sectional and tempo differences in the orchestral suite versions and the original ballet versions, as well as the visual differences on stage, in order to conceive a collaborative result which best suited our two-ballerina stage!
It was an exciting process that kept us intrigued as we worked through it together, and we are so fortunate to be able to make this performance come to fruition with our talented ballerinas.
This has been both a fulfilling and fruitful experience for our artistes, and it would not have been possible without your overwhelming support.
We look forward to performing our ballet shows for you again in Jan 2022!