Music for Ballet Class Volume Four
Charles Mathews
I’ve always found it helpful for artistry and musicality to dance to melodies from ballet classics in class. Also, it’s just plain fun. I was delighted to discover that Charles Mathews’s Music for Ballet Class Volume Four is mainly made up of such selections, including pieces from Don Quixote, Swan Lake, Coppélia, Giselle, Napoli, and others.
You can channel your inner Osipova, or its as-humanly-close-as-possible approximation, when you fouetté to Kitri’s Act I variation. You’ll be tempted to add Odile-ish accents to your barre work as you frappé to the less frequently performed, though more evocatively sinister, version of the Black Swan variation (which is not to imply that there’s anything inherently evil about frappé at barre; in center, that’s another story, but I digress…) And Raymonda’s dream/vision variation may inspire a royal grace in your pirouettes en pointe; or perhaps draw you into uplifting daydreams of dancing in the Prix de Lausanne where this piece is often performed–as you likely know from regular intervals of artistically edifying YouTube ballet binges.
You may not (or you may) be a prima someday, but it’s a joy to point your toes to memorable tutu-and-tiara tunes on stage or off.