Thursday, August 26, 2010

Great Galloping Gottschalk!

I was first turned on to Louis Moreau Gottschalk when I was in college and went to see the Pennsylvania Ballet's "Carmina Burana" and they performed Great Galloping Gottschalk as an opening act. I loved it (so did the NYTimes) and I especially loved "Manchega."

I used the tune for the piano duet scene in my JANE EYRE in the 2008 production even though it was an anachronism - JANE is set in the 1820s and Gottschalk wasn't even born until 1829. But I wanted something that was catchy and up-tempo, with a certain flashiness, since this was a duet that Rochester plays with Blanche, Jane's rival - at least Jane thinks so because Rochester is trying to make Jane jealous. Rochester's kind of a jerk, really.

Anyway, I actually like the piano-only version best - you can hear a midi version here, although it's a little slow and creaky - I had to punch this up with GarageBand for the JANE show.

To my delight, I discovered a performance of Manchega from GGG on Youtube. The orchestration is very reminiscent of the Spanish dance from The Nutcracker, although the dance is very different - I especially like when the ballerina in magenta catches a ride from the ring dancers.



Ooh bonus - Souvenir de Porto Rico!

Unfortunately there are no clips on Youtube even close to the Pennsylvania Ballet's version of Carmina Burana, but I did find this orchestra version - THIS is the way Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi should be done - pyro-goddam-technics - move over 1812 Overture!

Hysterical comment on the thread under the video:

i walked in the house one day and this randomly started playing from my ipod. and i felt like i had jesus powers for a few seconds