Adam: Giselle (excerpts)

Of his many works for the stage, Adolphe Adam’s ballet Giselle ou Les Wilis is the best known. The story is based on a legend in which the Wilis, or ghosts of unmarried girls, seek revenge on the living. Speedily written amidst a hotbed of Parisian infatuations and given a timeless parochial setting, this archetypal romantic ballet has everything from unrequited love to deceit, drama, tragedy, and conciliatory resolution. Andrew Mogrelia has been acclaimed for conducting of ‘warmth, grace and vitality’. (The Penguin Guide on Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty 8550490-92)

Premiered in 1841, Adolphe Adam’s Giselle stands as one of the most important French dance creations – a rare masterpiece of lyric theatre that is particularly renowned for the extraordinary beauty of its music. This compilation is dedicated to highlights of the fantastical ballet, performed by one of music’s most iconic conductor-orchestra partnerships: Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Set in Rhineland in the Middle Ages, the work takes its name from the peasant girl Giselle, who falls in love with a young Duke as he wanders the German landscape.

Complications arise when we discover that Albrecht, who has passed himself off as a simple lad to Giselle, is already engaged, and after his fiancée Bathilde arrives to confirm this, the peasant girl dances herself into madness and dies. In the second act, the scene shifts to the spirit world of the Wilis – vengeful ghosts of brides who, jilted before their wedding day, prey on young men by dancing them to their death. Although Hilarion, a long-standing admirer of Giselle, falls victim to their enchantment, Giselle – now herself a Wili – uses her love for Albrecht to protect him from the same fate.

Realising that she has saved him,Albrecht breaks down into tears at her grave. Adam was a prolific ballet writer at the height of his powers when composing Giselle, and his innate feeling for dramatic progression is perfectly mirrored in the work’s wealth of orchestral colour – which ranges from brilliantly sparkling to darkly dynamic, according to the developments on stage. Paying close attention to the ballet’s individual instrumental sonorities, Marriner brilliantly evokes the dichotomy between everyday life and the otherworldliness of the second act to deliver a first-rate performance of this iconic work.

A collection of music from the five most popular ballets of all time – Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Sylvia and Giselle as well as three of the most popular single dance works of all time – Khachaturian’s ‘Adagio’ from Spartacus, Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and the ‘Waltz’ from Khachaturian’s Masquerade.

Over 2 hours and 15 minutes playing time.

Full liner notes with synopsis of the featured ballets.

Le Ballet Français is a collection of some of the most beautiful music of all time, featuring the ballet suites from Coppelia, Giselle and Les Sylphides.

This delightful selection features Sir Neville Marriner conducting his Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Ballet was born from the late Renaissance movement in Europe, combining the classical skills of music, dance and drama. Its origins can be traced back to the dance traditions of the nobility in the French and Italian courts of the fifteenth century. The creation of classical ballet as we know it was developed under the auspices of Louis XIV, and was then further refined in France and Russia in the nineteenth century into the hugely influential and highly skilled concert dance form with which we are familiar today.

Fittingly this collection starts in France, with one of the most haunting and memorable examples of the ballet form: Adam’s Giselle. We are then swept along in a whirlwind tour of some of the greatest Russian ballets by such great composers as Prokofiev, Khachaturian and Shostakovich, while no ballet anthology would be complete without Tchaikovsky’s three Romantic masterpieces Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. From Delibes to Stravinsky, this collection amply demonstrates why ballet remains one of the most loved musical genres.