Performed by Nick Ariondo at the MET Theatre, Hollywood, November, 2006.
Maestro Nick Ariondo, concert accordionist arranged the famous "Aufforderung Zum Tanz"(Invitation to the Dance)by Carl Maria von Weber.
The Dresden Cabaret performed to sold out audiences, needing to extend. Produced by Christina Linhardt and the Max Kade Institute for German- Austrian-Swiss Studies, USC. Sponsored in part by Bitburger Beer.
5 comments:
Funny, I rememberd the title as "Aufordnung zum Tanz." So it is Auforderung. I wanted to hear the music to renew my memory of it. Can't get it from this link. My computer don't do that. Anyhow still want to listen to it. So I ordered the CD from the library. It will be here by Monday.
Well, I need an excuse not to get to practical housekeeping yet. Call it procastination.
The CD came. Ofcourse I remembered the music from the first to the last note when I heard it. Lovely music. I let it soothe me to sleep last night.
Now I have a question for Larry, the music man.
The "Auffordering zum Tanz" music is only part of the CD. It is relatively short. There are ouvertures, and pieces like Euryanthe, Oberon, Der Freishutz(with an umlaut) Der Beherrcher der Geister and Peter Schmoll.
Now what I wonder about, and can't find any indication of on the CD or the Music encyclopedia: is "Invitation to Dance" part of an opera, (I know Weber wrote several operas)or is it an individual piece? I don't suppose that the other pieces on the CD belong? I read that Peter Schmoll was one of Weber's later in life music teachers.
W.T., here's what Answers.com has to say about it:
Weber's Invitation to the Dance tells the story of a couple at a ball, from the moment the young man politely asks the girl to dance to their equally polite parting after taking several turns around the room. Originally written for piano, this work has appeared in various arrangements for different ensembles, from violin and piano to full orchestra. The best-known orchestration is by Hector Berlioz. Berlioz, a great admirer of Weber, made his arrangement in 1841, to serve as the ballet for a production of Weber's opera Der Freischütz at the Opéra de Paris. At the time, the Opéra required a ballet in the second act of any opera it produced. (It allowed no spoken parts, requiring Berlioz to write recitatives for the opera.) And by this time, the orchestral waltzes by Josef Lanner and Johann Strauss Sr. were popular. Berlioz' orchestration loses none of the original version's charm. The slow opening, the young man's request for a dance, is an elegant, refined phrase performed by a solo cello, with the girl's response coming in the woodwinds. The instrumentation, including two harps, and the sparkling waltz sound is very similar to the "Un Bal" movement of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Berlioz programmed Invitation in his concerts almost as frequently as his own Roman Carnival Overture. In 1911, choreographer Michel Fokine took up the orchestral version for his ballet Le Spectre de la rose. The story of the ballet, based on a poem by Théophile Gautier (and, coincidentally, used by Berlioz for a song setting), resembles Weber's original program: a girl dreams that the ghost of the flower dances with her. ~ All Music Guide
I'm confused about why you can't get the YouTube link. You mean it won't play? It should. You were able to play the Theremin cats. It should work the same way. You really need to hear the accordion version. The guy's pretty damn good.
I got the best then from the library. It's on
"Deutche Grammaphon" label and the Invitation to Dance is arranged by Hector Berlioz.
Larry, I did get the cats. There was no music. I do get the video, the picture with the man playing acccordion. A few scratchy sounds, a hic up here and there, no music. I have not been able to hear the music of anything you ever put on the blog, on this computer.
Well, it led me to the library, and discover again some of the music I listened to so much in the past, enjoying it again.
Now you told me the story behind it, and what the instruments represent,I will listen to it more attentively.
I think Weber sat at our piano at home. To the left a bust of Beethoven, To the right a bust of Mozart, In the middle, sitting on a bench, Weber, with a barret on his tete.(Say barret the European way pronouncing the t at the end, then it rhymes with the French tete which should have an accent circonflex over the e.)
I practiced my piano lessons under their watchful eyes. Hmmmmm, actually the eyes were blank, no irisses, no pupils... You remember my dad was a pianist, right?
It was an upright piano a "Zimmerman". A runner over the top and on that the three biggies. Weber had sort of a sweeping cape draped over that bench. I thought I explain that since I wrote mistakenly, 'at the piano' instead of on the piano.
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