Ballet movies are scary

Just watched Black Swan. I missed this one in the cinema as the Craziemob didn't really want to see it (can't remember actually, it could have been part of the summer/winter film glut). I like to catch up with the major films I've missed, films like Thelma & Louise where I need to know the background to a couple of new codenames :-)

Thought I'd do a classical music post in honour of Black Swan. How about Black Swan ? This is a seriously brilliant, crazy, beautiful, insane movie showing the descent into madness of a ballerina. It's scary and one reason for that is the doubt on screen. I'm sure everyone reading this will recognise how inner doubt can be crippling and how it can drive you deeper under a cloud of "is what I'm doing right ?".

Black Swan - see it, at least once. The soundtrack is amazing too with it complementing the acting on screen, I'm thinking about buying it just for that. But ... I don't think I will as it's one of those movies I'd only want to watch once.

Anyway - classical music. I have a decent amount of this in the library and I thought I'd pick out 10 of the favourites :

1 - In The Hall Of The Mountain King by Grieg. This is one of the highlights from Peer Gynt and is a favourite of many, being seen in games, movies, ads, you name it. If you've missed it, here it is performed by the Lego Symphonic Orchestra.

2 - In all my years of gaming, only one game has come close to provoking a tear. That game is Homeworld and the opening mission ends with you returning to your home planet to find it in ruins and burning. All you can do is escape with the few colonists you can rescue. Where the emotional impact really kicks is with the soundtrack, it's Adagio for Strings by Barber. In fact, I returned to this game for another go a few years ago. And I felt the tears again at that sequence.

Music can do that to you.

Third on my list is Raindrop by Chopin. I admire elegance over almost everything else and the timing of the piano of this piece is just pure elegance. That's from the raindrop like timing of the individual notes, through the counterpoint of the two piano parts and into the movement between parts of the piece. Here's Raindrop played by "Anonymous passionnée"

4th is for the fourth planet in our solar system, Mars. This opens the Planets suite by Holst. I'd agree with a few of the comments for the YT video "How can you listen to this and not burst into applause immediately?"

5th is for the Doctor and the season where the best modern Doctor came in. Here's his theme from the start of season 6 "I am the Doctor in Utah". Ok, it's not Classical in the purist sense but I'd be inclined to term soundtracks as New Classical. It's just that instead of having ballet as a backdrop, they form the counterpoint to action on screen.

6 - Talking of ballet and remembering what prompted this post showing my occasional love for Classical, here's the American Ballet with the finale to Swan Lake.

7 - Is going to be from Carnival Of The Animals by Saint-Saëns. But which one ! This has many favourites including Aquarium, Fossiles and the cd I have with it also has Dance Macabre. Meh - I'll nominate the whole piece, a collection of fourteen movements that are all classics in their own right.

8 - If I'm including soundtracks, I have to include something from Scifi that had me caught in the Star Trek universe. The original Star Trek Motion Picture came with a Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack, who has been one of the gods of soundtracks for years. Here's the introduction to the refitted Enterprise. Delicate, Grace & Majesty combined. The Star Wars theme is good but this is better. Sorry Mr Williams !

9 - Claire de Lune by Debussy. I doubt many non-classical fans could name this but they will recognise it instantly. It's one you can close your eyes and drift away to.

10 - Lastly, from Last Night of The Proms is the Pomp and Circumstance March from Elgar. If anything sums up the pride and character of Britons, this is it. This is the Land of Hope and Glory, straight from the Royal Albert.

Hope you enjoy those as much as I have digging them out of Youtube :-) I shall have to queue them up on iTunes later as listening to them on laptop speakers with badly compressed sound does them no justice whatsoever.

And there's far too much that's missed this random selection of 10, no Bach, no Tchaikovsky, no Beethoven, no Mozart, no Mussorgsky. I shall have to investigate record shops ...