Saturday, February 26, 2011

The dance master's kit

The kit, otherwise known as the pochette (Fr. small pocket or small fiddle), or sordine (It. mute), was a pocket-size violin widely used in Europe by dance masters during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Praetorius refers to the instrument as a gar kleinen Geiglein mit dry Siiiten bezogen, off Franzosiscli Pochetto genant (very small violin with three strings, often called the French pochetto) and illustrates two examples, one shaped like a medieval rebec and the other like a narrow boat, that are captioned kleine Poschen/Geigen ein Octav hoher (small pochettes/violins an octave higher). Mersenne refers to the instrument as la Poche (the pocket) and depicts a boat-shaped version fitted with four strings with the lowest string tuned to G.
Because of the kit's slender shape, a dancing master could slip it into his jacket or waistcoat pocket while demonstrating a step and then quickly withdraw it to play a tune. They were made in a variety of shapes, like that of a boat, medieval rebec, miniature viol, viol, or viola d'amore, the latter equipped with sympathetic strings. Because the kit was the essential accouterment of court dance masters, they were often made of exotic woods, ivory, or tortoiseshell, and had elaborately carved heads, festooned outlines, and staved backs. They were equipped with short bows and often tooled leather cases. Despite the efforts lavished on their appearance, kits produced a muted sound.


Stradivari by Stewart Pollens.  2010.  Page 136.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

An Ambassador's memory of Mathilde Kschessinska -- 1916

Thursday, April 27, 1916.

This evening, at the Marie Theatre, Tchechinskaïa was dancing Gisela and Paquita, masterpieces of old-time choreography, the conventional and acrobatic art in which the genius of the Fanny Elsslers and Taglionis once triumphed. The archaic character of the two ballets is heightened by the defects and qualities of the principal interpreter. Tchechinskaïa is entirely without charm, feeling or poetry; but her formal and cold style, the tireless vigour of her pivoting, the mechanical precision of her entrechats and the giddy agility of her pirouettes make all the enthusiasts wild with delight.

During the last interval I spent a few minutes in the box of the director of the imperial theatres, Teliakovsky, where the prowess of Tchechinskaïa and her partner, Vladimirov, was being celebrated in terms of rhapsody. An old aide-de-camp of the Emperor said to me with a subtle smile:

"Our enthusiasm may seem somewhat exaggerated to you, Ambassador; but Tchechinskaïa's art represents to us, or at any rate men of my age, something that you don't perhaps see."

"What's that? " He offered me a cigarette, and continued in a melancholy tone:

"The old ballets, which were the joy of my youth -- somewhere about 1875, in the reign of our dear Emperor Alexander II., alas! -- presented us with a very close picture of what Russian society was, and ought to be. Order, punctiliousness, symmetry, work well done everywhere; the result of which was refined enjoyment and pleasure in perfect taste. Whereas these horrible modern ballets -- Russian ballets, as you call them in Paris -- a dissolute and poisoned art -- why, they're revolution, anarchy ! . . ."

An Ambassador's Memoirs by Maurice Paléologue. 1923-5. Vol 2. Page 242.