Birmingham Royal Ballet on Classic FM, April 2008

Transcript (part one)

Audio | Transcript part one | Transcript part two

The Classic FM Arts Daily Pod Cast with Bob Jones.

In April, HearHear, the UK's first classical project dedicated to listening turned its attention to how vision influences the way we listen. We live in an intensely visual age. Because of the dominance of film and TV perhaps, its becoming incredibly difficult to find musical performances which are that alone, without some kind of visual stimulus added on.

Even some orchestral concerts now have added images for the audience to look at as they listen to the players. But is that a good thing or a bad thing? Can movement and images add to the enjoyment of the piece, or is there a danger that the pictures will distract from the enjoyment of music?

Take the example of ballet, for example. The listening focus this month was Tchaikovsky's masterpiece Swan Lake, which was performed by the Birmingham Royal Ballet at the Lowry in Manchester. David Bintley is the Company's Artistic Director. He feels that where ballet is concerned, great music and great dance are in harmony.

'There is great music which has been written for ballet, which has been written with a visual stimulus inside it, yes, I'm thinking of The Nutcracker or something like that. If you get a really fantastic production of that, where the visual complete what Tchaikovsky had inside his head; when the tree transformation is so breath-taking on stage that it matches the breath-taking nature of what the score is doing, then that's fantastic, and for an audience that is seeing that and an audience that can't imagine that neccessarily, but it's a choreographers job to imagine that and to see, and a designers job to see how that can happen.

'In that sense I think that's sometimes a little bit like film music, in that it fits visuals so well that the two together produce something that, either one of them apart, wouldn't be as great as.'

Feargus Campbell is at the sharp end, he is a dancer with Birmingham Royal Ballet. He says music and dance have a complex and inconsistent relationship in their artform.

'Well the music exists on its own, so you can just go and listen to the music, and it's fantastic. But then the ballet can't exist on its own really. You get some pieces that are in silence, but the music definitely enhances ballet, I can say that.

'The other way round is different, I think it varies from piece to piece. I think sometimes perhaps it helps to give it a structure, for accessability, but I think also it varies from - you'll get some pieces of choreography and it depends on whether it's got a story or not. So if it's a story ballet then the music will probably be designed to try and help tell the story. In which case it's really aiding the dance and not the other way round. Whereas if it's quite abstract, sometimes the music will be rolling on, but you'll have very obvious sections to the dance. I think sometimes if you break things up then it makes it more accessible for an audience. But then, you know, I always think Romeo and Juliet has an absolutely fantastic score, but also equally amazing choreography; they just fit so well and I think that when you really appreciate something you get those shivers up your spine - I don't know that I get those as intensely with just the music on it's own. But then the music obviously is designed to tell a story, and then the ballet really does, with the movement and the dance and the action. It means that you know exactly what part of the story is being told at that specific point. Rather than being left with your imagination to think and rethink, you know, you know what that theme is saying, it's being re-enforced.'

Click here to read the second half of the transcript.