ROCOCO VARIATIONS

This ballet is dedicated to Antonia Franceschi and Patricia Neary.

Appropriately enough, for this neo-classical ballet commission, Renato Paroni has chosen Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra, which in turn was inspired by the composer's admiration for Mozart's 18th century classicism. Scored for a reduced "Mozartian" orchestra entirely untypical of the lush, late 19th century resources we expect of Swan Lake's composer, it was a rare excursion by Tchaikovsky into the formal, structurally complex, demanding and highly disciplined concerto format associated with a Theme & Variations: a classical exercise indeed.

The Variations, its elegant grace in complete contrast to Tchaikovsky's immediately previous work (the intense, emotional tone poem Francesca da Rimini), was premiered in Moscow 30 December 1877 by the German cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, who commissioned it, was closely involved in its inception, and promptly cut and edited it, to his own taste and the disgust of Tchaikovsky's publisher. "Horrible Fitzenhagen wants to 'cello' it up and claims you gave him permission. Good God! Tchaikovsky revised and corrected by Fitzenhagen!". Tchaikovsky's response ("Oh, the hell with it! Let it stay the way it is") has established Fitzenhagen's as the generally-performed version. Perhaps Liszt was right to comment on the premiere "Now there, at last, is real music!"

Just as Tchaikovsky referenced the 18th century classical tradition, so Renato Paroni's ballet takes the form of a series of choreographic exercises linked to each other by "walking" sessions, emulating the 18th century courtly manner, in its turn the source of the classical ballet vocabulary, deriving from the relationship between the dancers and the formal arrangement of the steps.

Renato Paroni pays specific homage to the great choreographer and ballet master George Balanchine, who, more than anybody else, inspired him to create ballet pieces, especially with Mr B's motto "God creates, women inspire, men assemble" (which Mr Paroni has kept close to his heart and mind in creating this ballet).

©Tim Tubbs