Le Cygne 🦢 The Swan 🎼 Saint-Saëns 🩰

🦢  Le Cygne  🦢

🎼 Camille Saint-Saëns 🎼

🩰  Michel Fokine  🩰

André Rieu  The Swan

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Le Cygne, or The Swan, is the 13th and penultimate movement of The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns. Originally scored for solo cello accompanied by two pianos, it has been arranged and transcribed for many instruments but remains best known as a cello solo.

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Music 🎼

The piece is in 6/4 time, with a key signature of G major and a tempo marking andantino grazioso. The slow cello melody is accompanied by almost constant broken chord figurations on the pianos. When performed as a separate movement, not in the context of The Carnival, The Swan is frequently played with accompaniment on only one piano. This is the only movement from The Carnival of the Animals that the composer allowed to be played in public during his lifetime. He thought the remaining movements were too frivolous and would damage his reputation as a serious composer. Because of its slow tempo and mostly legato performance indications, the movement is suitable for performance on the theremin and has joined Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise and Jules Massenet's Méditation from his opera Thaïs among the classical works central to the theremin repertoire. 

 

The Dying Swan  🩰 Dutch National Ballet

 In this classic choreography full of elegant arm work, we see a swan at the end of her life. Choreographer Mikhail Fokine originally created The Dying Swan for ballerina Anna Pavlova, but last September, as a part of season opener Dancing Apart Together, this exceptional solo was performed phenomenally by one of our own Annas: principal Anna Tsygankova.

 

 🦢  The Dying Swan  🩰

📃 Comments
🗣️  Her arms are like water, I could watch het forever: fluid but so defined and strong. This and the emotion she conveys through her face make her performance so incredibly poignant for me ❤
🗣️   I don't quite know why Anna Tsygankova's performance feels different from all the versions I have been lucky enough to see, but there is something exceptionally convincing in her style and how she finishes each movement. She doesn't add drama or theatricals: she convinces by pure ability and class.  And as always the styling and camera-work are better than any ballet company in the world.  @Nationale Ballet thank you for always showing what true beauty and art look like.
🗣️ Anna Tsygankova one of the most incredible dancers of our time.  Her interpretation of the The Dying Swan with some nuanced arm movements that I have not seen before and that add layers to this plaintiff piece.
🗣️  This is a lovely interpretation. Her facial expressions throughout were so convincing and carried me along with her during this poignant look at the last moments of a creature's life. There was nothing forced about this interpretation, I didn't feel like she was just posing to look pretty in all of the key moments in this ballet - rather, the entire performance was all about the emotion from beginning to end. Beautiful.

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Uses in Choreography 🩰

Further information: The Dying Swan

Le cygne is often known as The Dying Swan, after a poem by Tennyson. Inspired by swans that she had seen in public parks, Anna Pavlova worked with choreographer Michel Fokine, who had read the poem, to create the famous 1905 solo ballet dance which is now closely associated with this music. According to tradition, the swan in Pavlova's dance is badly injured and dying. However, Maya Plisetskaya re-interpreted the swan simply as elderly and stubbornly resisting the effects of aging; much like herself (she performed The Swan at a gala on her 70th birthday). Eventually the piece came to be considered one of Pavlova's trademarks.

In 1949 the American synchronized swimmer Beulah Gundling created a routine inspired by Fokine's choreography and entitled The swan to Le cygne by Saint-Saëns. In 2018, Japanese figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu performed a program at the Winter Olympic Exhibition Gala to the song Notte Stellata by Italian trio Il Volo, with choreography by David Wilson (figure skating). The song is set to the music of Le Cygne and choreography is inspired by that of Fokine.

Transcriptions and adaptations

• In the 1890s, Louis van Waefelghem adapted Le cygne for viola or viola d'amore and piano. The edition was published by Durand in 1895.
• In Leonard Bernstein's famous recording of the piece with the New York Philharmonic the melody is performed on double bass by a 20-year-old Gary Karr.
• Montserrat Caballé recorded a version in which she vocalizes sections of the melody accompanied by a piano.
• In the early 20th century, Clara Rockmore, the renowned thereminist, performed it on theremin with her sister Nadia Reisenberg accompanying her on the piano.
• Steven Mead arranged the piece for Euphonium and Piano in 1995, in the key of E♭ Major.
• Tony Renis created lyrics for Le Cygne to create the song “Notte Stellata” that appeared on Italian pop-opera trio Il Volo’s self-titled debut album.
• A jazz version was created by the Italian ensemble No Trio for Cats in 2021 under the title O Cisne de Janeiro.

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The Dying Swan (originally The Swan) is a solo dance choreographed by Mikhail Fokine to Camille Saint-Saëns's Le Cygne from Le Carnaval des animaux as a pièce d'occasion for the ballerina Anna Pavlova, who performed it about 4,000 times. The short ballet (4 minutes) follows the last moments in the life of a swan, and was first presented in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1905. The ballet has since influenced modern interpretations of Odette in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and has inspired non-traditional interpretations as well as various adaptations.

The Dying Swan
The Royal Ballet 🩰 Natalia Osipova

Royal Ballet Principal Natalia Osipova is joined by solo piano Kate Shipway and solo cello Christopher Vanderspar. The Dying Swan, which would become Anna Pavlova’s most famous role, was choreographed by Michel Fokine and set to music by Camille Saint-Saëns.

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Background

Inspired by swans that she had seen in public parks and by Lord Tennyson's poem "The Dying Swan", Anna Pavlova, who had just become a ballerina at the Mariinsky Theatre, asked Michel Fokine to create a solo dance for her for a 1905 gala concert being given by artists from the chorus of the Imperial Mariinsky Opera. Fokine suggested Saint-Saëns's cello solo, Le Cygne, which Fokine had been playing at home on a mandolin to a friend's piano accompaniment, and Pavlova agreed. A rehearsal was arranged and the short dance was completed quickly. Fokine remarked in Dance Magazine (August 1931):

It was almost an improvisation. I danced in front of her, she directly behind me. Then she danced and I walked alongside her, curving her arms and correcting details of poses. Prior to this composition, I was accused of barefooted tendencies and of rejecting toe dancing in general. The Dying Swan was my answer to such criticism. This dance became the symbol of the New Russian Ballet. It was a combination of masterful technique with expressiveness. It was like a proof that the dance could and should satisfy not only the eye, but through the medium of the eye should penetrate the soul.

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In 1934, Fokine told dance critic Arnold Haskell:

Small work as it is, [...] it was 'revolutionary' then, and illustrated admirably the transition between the old and the new, for here I make use of the technique of the old dance and the traditional costume, and a highly developed technique is necessary, but the purpose of the dance is not to display that technique but to create the symbol of the everlasting struggle in this life and all that is mortal. It is a dance of the whole body and not of the limbs only; it appeals not merely to the eye but to the emotions and the imagination.

The ballet was first titled The Swan but then acquired its current title, following Pavlova's interpretation of the work's dramatic arc as the end of life. The dance is composed principally of upper body and arm movements and tiny steps called pas de bourrée suivi.

French critic André Levinson wrote:

Arms folded, on tiptoe, she dreamily and slowly circles the stage. By even, gliding motions of the hands, returning to the background from whence she emerged, she seems to strive toward the horizon, as though a moment more and she will fly—exploring the confines of space with her soul. The tension gradually relaxes and she sinks to earth, arms waving faintly as in pain. Then faltering with irregular steps toward the edge of the stage—leg bones quiver like the strings of a harp—by one swift forward-gliding motion of the right foot to earth, she sinks on the left knee—the aerial creature struggling against earthly bonds; and there, transfixed by pain, she dies.

The swan song (Ancient Greek: κύκνειον ᾆσμα; Latin: carmen cygni) is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before their death since they have been silent (or alternatively not so musical) for most of their lifetime. The belief, whose basis has been long debated, had become proverbial in ancient Greece by the 3rd century BC and was reiterated many times in later Western poetry and art. Swans learn a variety of sounds throughout their lifetime. Their sounds are more distinguishing during courting rituals and not correlated with death.

🦢  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_song

🦢   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dying_Swan

The Dying Swan 🩰 Ballet Explained

Discover the story behind the iconic ballet, 'The Dying Swan', and the legendary ballerina, Anna Pavlova. In this  video, you will learn about the creation of this masterpiece of classical dance and the impact it has had on the world of ballet. Get ready to be transported back in time to the world of early 20th century ballet, where beauty and grace took centre stage.  

 I started "Ballet Explained" to make videos which focus on the narrative and meaning of famous ballets. I want to present ballet in a simple, entertaining, clear and concise way. 

🦢  The Dying Swan  🩰
🩰 https://youtu.be/5RoDggP7rng?si=wB83uoO2klA8TjPX

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https://youtu.be/Cx00XNidrLk

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Poems  The Dying Swan	Tennyson, 1843
The plain was grassy, wild and bare,	Of that waste place with joy
Wide, wild, and open to the air,	Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear
Which had built up everywhere	The warble was low, and full and clear;
An under-roof of doleful gray	And floating about the under-sky,
With an inner voice the river ran,	Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole
Adown it floated a dying swan,	Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;
Which loudly did lament.	But anon her awful jubilant voice,
It was the middle of the day.	With a music strange and manifold,
Ever the weary wind went on,	Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold:
And took the reed-tops as it went.	As when a mighty people rejoice
Some blue peaks in the distance rose,	With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold.
And white against the cold-white sky,	And the tumult of their acclaim is roll'd
Shone out their crowning snows.	Through the open gates of the city afar,
One willow over the river wept,	To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star.
And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;	And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds,
Above in the wind was the swallow,	And the willow-branches hoar and dank,
Chasing itself at its own wild will,	And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,
And far thro' the marish green and still	And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,
The tangled water-courses slept,	And the silvery marish-flowers that throng
Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.	The desolate creeks and pools among,
The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul	Were flooded over with eddying song.