Cesare Pugni
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Categories: 1802 births | 1870 deaths | Italian composers | Romantic composers | Ballet | Russian ballet | Ballet composers
Cesare Pugni (Chezaré Puñi) (Russian: Цезарь Пуни) (born 31 May 1802 in Genoa, {Italy – Napoleonic Italian Republic}; died February 2 [O.S. January 26] 1870) in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire) was an Italian composer of ballet music and an accomplished violinist and pianist. In his early career he composed opera, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Cesare Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre in London (1843-1850), and as Ballet Composer to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres and to the Court of His Imperial Majesty in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire (1850-1870). Cesare Pugni is the most prolific composer of the genre of ballet music that has ever lived — by the end of his life he had composed close to 100 known original scores for the ballet and adapted and/or revised many other works. He also composed a myriad of incidental dances—such as divertissements and variations—many of which were added to countless other works. Nearly all of Pugni's scores were published in piano reduction, and sold very well—the majority of these works spawned incidental dances which were much celebrated in thier day. Of Cesare Pugni's original scores for the ballet, he is perhaps best-known today for Ondine, a.k.a. The Naiad and the Fisherman (1843); La Esmeralda (1844); Éoline, ou La Dryade (1845), Catarina, ou La Fille du Bandit (1846); The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862); The Little Humpbacked Horse (1864); and Le Roi Candaule (1868). Of his incidental dances, etc., he is most noted for the Pas de Six from La Vivandière, a.k.a. Markitenka (1844); the Pas de Quatre (1845); the Carnival de Venise from Le Diable amoureux, a.k.a. Satanella (1859); the Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux (1868); and his additional music for the ballet Le Corsaire (c. 1856, 1863, 1868). Pugni's works were written for the most influential choreographers of the 19th century from Milan, Paris, Berlin, London, and St. Petersburg. Among them were Jules Perrot, Arthur Saint-Léon, Paul Taglioni, and Marius Petipa. Nearly every great Ballerina of the Romantic era, from Marie Taglioni to Fanny Cerrito, Lucile Grahn, Fanny Elssler, Carlotta Grisi and Carolina Rosati, danced the majority of their legendary triumphs in ballets set to his music. BiographyEarly life and educationCesare Pugni was born in Genoa, Italy on May 31, 1802. His father, Filippo Pugni, was a well-known clock and watchmaker with, for a time, a successful shop in the Via Rebecchino in the neighborhood of the Palazzo del Duomo, near Milan's cathedral.[1] Pugni is the Italian word for fists. Pugni began his musical studies at a very young age by way of private lessons. At some point the Pugni family became acquainted with the noted composer Peter Winter, whose reaction to the seven-year-old Pugni's first symphony prompted him to take the boy under his tutelage.[1] Image:Pugni - Symphony -1.JPG
It was Winter who arranged for the young Pugni to be admitted into Milan's Royal Imperial Conservatory of Music (known today as the Milan Conservatory). At that time Milan was the capital of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, then part of the Austrian Empire. Since the Milan Conservatory was in the territory of the Kingdom known as Lombardy, only Lombards (residents of Lombardy) were allowed to be admitted as pupils. Thanks to Winter's recommendation the thirteen year-old Pugni was accepted into the institute in 1814 as a non-Lombard at the expense of the state.[1] During his instruction at the conservatory the young Pugni studied under many noted pedagogues of music. Among Pugni's instructors was Bonifazio Asioli (1769-1832)—under whom he studied composition and counterpoint; Alessandro Rolla (1757-1841)—the noted instructor of Niccolò Paganini, who taught him the violin; and Carlo Soliva (1792-1851)—under whom he studied musical theory.[1] While still a young student, Pugni was given the opportunity to compose several pieces for ballets and opera given at La Scala and its auxiliary theatre, La Canobbiana, as well as performing his own compositions for violin to acclaim.[1] At the request of his family, Pugni was allowed to leave the conservatory in 1822, the "official" reason being continuing illness. In reality the management of La Scala greatly desired for Pugni to be in their employ, and since the Milan Conservatory would not allow a non-paying student to leave the institute without finishing his education, Pugni was "officially" said to be ill in order to allow him to be free to work for the theatre.[1] Pugni then took up residence with Asioli at his home in Correggio, where he completed his musical studies under his tutelage.[1] La ScalaNot long after leaving Milan's Royal Imperial Conservatory of Music, Pugni began playing the violin in the orchestra of La Scala and La Canobbiana.[1] The first documented full-length ballet for which Pugni created the music was the Balletmaster Gaetano Gioja's Il castello di Kenilworth—based on Walter Scott's novel Kenilworth—first presented at La Scala in 1823. Ballet music at that time was often a musical pastiche, and the printed libretto for this work credits the score as being assembled from themes derived from "various well-known composers". Pugni was among the first composers of the early-romantic period to create original scores for the ballet, i.e. scores not assembled from the airs of many composers.[1] One such work was the ballet Elerz e Zulmida, produced by the Balletmaster Louis Henry, which was Pugni's first full-length original composition. The success of that work brought about three more commissions from Henry, and soon Pugni was sought out by some of the most distinguished choreographers then working in Italy, among them Salvatore Taglioni (uncle of the legendary Marie Taglioni), and Giovanni Galzerani. Pugni's growing popularity as a capable composer of light, melodious music for dancing was attested by the publication of a number of piano reductions of excerpts from his works, among them, the popular Scottish Dance from his 1837 ballet L'Assedio di Calais (The Siege of Calais), which, like every one of his works published during his life, sold very well. Though he demonstrated considerable talent for composing ballet music, Pugni's real ambition at this time was to become a celebrated composer of opera. There had been occasions where he had been commissioned to compose an aria "to order" for various performances at La Scala, and such assignments encouraged him to pursue this ambition further. In 1831, his opera Il Disertore Svizzero, ovvero La Nostalgia premiered at La Canobbiana in Milan, with his teacher Alessandro Rolla conducting. The work was praised for its variety and originality, and was revered by the composer's fellow musicians.[1] Pugni's next opera was La Vendetta, produced at La Scala in 1832, which premiered with great success. It was during this time that Pugni began to compose a substantial number of masses, symphonies, and various other orchestral pieces. One Sinfonia— the Sinfonia por una o due orchestre— was scored for two orchestras, both of which would play the same piece but with one orchestra a few bars behind the other. This piece so impressed Giacomo Meyerbeer that he was known to hold up a manuscript of the work in order to show his friends a supreme example of virtuosity in composition.[1] These great successes of Pugni's as a musician appropriately lead to his appointment as Maestro al Cembalo at La Scala. In addition to fulfilling these duties, Pugni also taught the violin and counterpoint when time allowed. He even instructed the visiting Mikhail Glinka, who revered Pugni as a composer and teacher of music.[1] Pugni scored two more operas for the Teatro Canobbiana in 1833 and 1834, both of which were listened to with considerable respect. Pugni also continued composing various orchestral pieces, together earning him great prestige and notoriety. ParisDespite Pugni's initial success in the field of music, only two years after his appointment as Maestro al Cembalo, all of his prospects collapsed, and he was dismissed from La Scala for what appears to have been the misappropriation of funds, a likely by-product instigated by his notorious passion for gambling and liquor which had caused him to amount considerable debt. In early 1834, Pugni left Milan in an effort to flee from his creditors. Image:Marble Maiden -Adele Dumilatre & Lucien Petipa -Paris -1847 -1.jpg
With his wife and children, Pugni made his way to Paris, where they lived in poverty while the composer searched desperately for employment. He was employed for a time as the chief copyist for the famous Théâtre Italien, where in late 1834 he was reunited with an old friend, the Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini, who at that time was engaged at the theatre to mount his opera I Puritani, and at the same time, in the process of preparing a special version of the work for the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. For the Naples production the principle soprano role was to be revised for the vocal talents of the Prima Donna Maria Malibran, and since the production of I Puritani in Paris was putting Bellini under considerable pressure, he called upon Pugni to copy the parts of the score that would be presented in Naples without change. Pugni did this, but he also made a second copy of the complete score, and subsequently sold the manuscript to the Teatro di San Carlo at a high price. Soon Bellini was told that the theatre had purchased an official copy of score, and would no longer require his services. Bellini was crushed, for he had not only paid Pugni the five francs for the copying but had also given him money when needed in order to feed his family, and was often known to not only give Pugni his own unwanted clothes but begged his lady friends to send their unwanted dresses over to Signora Pugni. Bellini wrote in his journal, "It will be a lesson to me. Were it not for his six innocent children, I should like to ruin him." Bellini would later recall in an unfinished letter written in 1835 how Pugni's " ... infamous conduct shattered my faith in human nature."[1] In 1836, Pugni received a commission from Louis Henry, choreographer of several of his first ballet scores, to compose music for the ballet Liacone, to be produced in Naples for the Ballet of the Teatro di San Carlo. At that time Henry was engaged at the Paris Opéra, staging the ballet sections of Gioacchino Rossini's opera William Tell, for which Henry utilized music from Pugni's ballet L'Assedio di Calais. Pugni then traveled to Naples to assist with the music for the opera's dance-sections. Soon after this, Henry died of cholera. In 1837 Pugni returned to Paris where he began working for the Casino Paganini until its closure in 1840. He then began serving as a "musical ghost writer" of sorts for the Paris Opéra (the theatre at that time being the legendary Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique). Pugni was charged with the editing, correcting, and orchestrating of nearly all of the music for the ballets presented on the stage of the theatre. Often composers of the era left orchestrations to the copyist or principal conductor of an Opera House, and with his extraordinary facility at sight reading and scoring, Pugni was often given the task of arranging the compositions of others. A tradition passed down among his descendants claims that during this time Pugni either composed or orchestrated all or part of Adolphe Adam's score for Giselle, though no evidence is known to exist in support of this.[1] Pugni served in this function at the Paris Opéra from 1836 until 1843, and even supplied anonymous supplemental Pas and variations for visiting Ballerinas when needed. It was during this time that Pugni became acquainted with Benjamin Lumley—director of Her Majesty's Theatre in London. Through Lumley Pugni became acquainted with Jules Perrot—the renowned choreographer and Balletmaster of Her Majesty's Theatre—whom during his engagements as a guest artist to the Paris Opéra encountered Pugni's extraordinary facility with composition and orchestration. In 1843 Lumley offered Pugni the post of Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre. Her Majesty's TheatreImage:Catarina -Act I-Scene I -Lucile Grahn -London -1846.JPG
In the fall of 1843, Pugni left for London, and soon enjoyed a period of great renewed success. These were very prolific years for the composer: between the theatre's 1843 and 1850 seasons, Pugni produced an impressive series of scores for three of the greatest choreographers at that time: Jules Perrot, Arthur Saint-Léon, and Paul Taglioni. Next to the complete ballets he composed during this time in London, he also wrote a substantial number of supplemental Pas, variations, divertissements, and incidental dances. In 1845 alone, he produced six new scores, including the celebrated divertissement Pas de Quatre, and his music was always highly praised by the public and critics alike. During this period, Pugni was composing four to five full-length works every year for Perrot, Taglioni and Saint-Léon. Also, at some point not long after this move to London, Pugni married his second wife Marion (or Mary Ann) Linton.[1] Jules PerrotFrom 1843 onwards, few ballets were produced by Jules Perrot at Her Majesty's Theatre that were not composed by Pugni, and nearly everyone of these works was a great success: the public and critics marveled at how fresh and new both choreographically and musically each spectacle was.[1] In 1843, Perrot produced Ondine—a tale of a jealous Naiad in love with an Italian fisherman—for the great ballerina Fanny Cerrito. In 1844, Perrot produced his most celebrated and enduring work, La Esmeralda for the ballerina Carlotta Grisi. Among Pugni and Perrot's most celebrated collaborations was the fantastical 1845 ballet Éoline created for the Danish ballerina Lucille Grahn, for which Pugni's score contained a considerable number of celebrated pieces composed for solo harp. In 1846, Perrot produced the oriental extravaganza Lalla Rookh—based on Thomas Moore's poem of the same name—for which Pugni composed a score full of pseudo middle eastern themes. Also in 1846, Perrot and Pugni collaborated on Catarina, which would be one of Lucile Grahn's greatest triumphs.[1] Image:Esmeralda -Poster -1844.jpg
During the late 1840s, Pugni and Perrot worked to stage these pieces in various theatres throughout Europe. In 1845, they staged La Esmeralda at La Scala in Milan, and later that year for the Court Opera Ballet in Berlin, where the title role was danced by the great Fanny Elssler. In 1847, Pugni and Perrot mounted Catarina and later Lalla Rookh at La Scala. In 1848, Perrot was invited at the behest of Fanny Elssler to stage La Esmeralda for the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia.[1] Paul TaglioniIn the short span of their collaboration, Pugni wrote many celebrated scores for Paul Taglioni, guest choreographer at Her Majesty's Theatre, who would later call Pugni the greatest composer of ballet music he had ever worked with.[1] In 1847 alone, Pugni wrote four short ballets for Taglioni, including Coralia and Théa. More works followed, including Les Plaisirs de l'Hiver in 1849, and Les Métamorphoses (a.k.a. Satanella) in 1850. Arthur Saint-LéonPugni also left a profound impression on Saint-Léon, who was also sometimes a guest choreographer in London, but one who worked in Paris. During the 1840s, Saint-Léon was engaged as Balletmaster at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique (or Paris Opéra), and Pugni traveled there often to compose music for the choreographer's works. Pugni and Saint-Léon created many successful works while in Paris, among them, La Vivandière in 1844, La Violon du Diable in 1849, and Stella in 1850. RussiaWhile in the Imperial capital, Jules Perrot was offered the position of Premier Maître de Ballet (First Balletmaster/Chief Choreographer) to begin in the 1850-1851 season, which he accepted. In this position, Perrot recommended to the Court Minister that Pugni accompany him to Russia so that he may serve as the official composer of ballet music to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. Up until that time in Europe, the composition of new ballet music always fell into the hands of the orchestra's head conductor, who was in this case, Konstantin Liadov. A new position was thus created, Ballet Composer to the St. Petersurg Imperial Theatres, for Pugni. Image:Cesare Pugni -circa 1845.JPG
In the winter of 1850, Pugni severed all ties to London and Paris. He arrived in St. Petersburg with English wife Marion (or Mary Ann) Linton and their seven children, which included his son, Alberto Linton-Pougny (1848-1925), father of the famous avant-garde artist Ivan Puni (1894-1956). By 1860, Pugni was maintaining two households - the first with his English wife, Marion Linton, and the second with the Serf woman named Daria Petrovna, with whom he fathered eight more children before the end of his life.[1] In the winter of 1861, Anton Rubinstein hired Pugni to teach composition and counterpoint at the completely new Saint Petersburg Conservatory of Music a position he held with great acclaim and respect until his death.[1] During his time as Premier Maître de Ballet to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, Jules Perrot staged many of the works he had originally mounted for Her Majesty's Theatre in London. Unlike the ballet companies of that time which performed in the opera houses of London or Paris, the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres presented evening-length ballet presentations separate from those of opera. As Pugni was the author of nearly all of the music for Perrot's works, the composer expanded many of his scores for Ballet Master's St. Petersburg productions. Pugni took his revisions even further for the large orchestra of the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre, often lavishing grand orchestrations for the scores he expanded.[1] In 1855 Pugni wrote The Star of Granada, his first ballet for the choreographer Marius Petipa, who had been serving as Jules Perrot's assistant and Premier danseur to the Imperial Theatres since his arrival in Russia in 1847. Petipa was fast becoming a celebrated choreographer in his own right, as he turned to composition more and more. In 1858 Perrot left Russia, and Pugni found himself in need by both Petipa and Arthur Saint-Léon, the latter by then being engaged as Premier Maître de Ballet to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The two choreographers, both highly gifted in their art and differing dramatically in their respective approaches to choreography of the Grand ballet, were engaged in a rather healthy and productive rivalry on the Imperial stage. I spite of the differences between Saint-Léon and Petipa's styles Cesare Pugni scored the music for nearly every one of their works during the 1860s. Later lifePugni began to become more and more unreliable as he aged, becoming severely depressed, drinking, gambling and leaving his family to fend for themselves for days at a time. As a result, Petipa found it increasingly difficult to extract music from him, and the quality of his work underwent a marked decline. In his memoirs, Petipa quoted a letter written him by Pugni in 1860:
The premiere of The Blue Dahlia was approaching, and Petipa had been receiving music from the composer in a piecemeal fashion. It became clear to Petipa that Pugni had put off scoring the more difficult sections and left them to be done last. By the mid 1860s, such situations became commonplace. In 1862, Pugni composed the music for Petipa's The Pharaoh's Daughter, produced in only 6 weeks for the Italian Prima Ballerina Carolina Rosati. The production was so successful that it won for Petipa the position of second Balletmaster. In 1864, Pugni composed the music for Saint-Léon's The Little Humpbacked Horse, which itself was as successful as The Pharaoh's Daughter. Although he did receive laurels for his score for Petipa's The Pharaoh's Daughter, Pugni's score for The Little Humpbacked Horse caused a sensation with the St. Petersburg balletomanes. The march titled The Peoples of Russia from the last act of this ballet became a favorite of Tsar Alexander II (many of Pugni's marches and entr'actes were thus performed at Imperial balls and diplomatic functions). Image:Pharoah's Daughter -Nile River Scene -Vera Karalli as Aspicia, Platon Karsvin as the Nile God -circa 1890.JPG
In spite of such occasions of inspiration, Pugni nevertheless became increasingly unreliable.Enrico Cecchetti recounts in his memoirs of how Pugni began inventing excuses for not delivering music on time: for example, he once told Petipa that his cat had scratched his hand, making him unable to hold his pen. On another occasion, Pugni came to rehearsal without the day's required music, informing Petipa that he had no candles by which to write. When Petipa subsequently arranged to have a large box of candles delivered to Pugni's home, the composer told him at the following day's rehearsal that he did not write the required music because he was forced to sell the candles in order to eat.[1] Many of Pugni's colleagues found themselves helping him whenever possible. Petipa was even forced to hire someone to watch over the composer to ensure that any required music would be prepared on time. Nevertheless, Pugni managed to compose eight new scores between 1865 and 1868 for the Imperial Ballet, though these were mostly short one-act ballets and divertissements. Saint-Léon was also having difficulty with the unreliable Pugni, and he began to turn to the Czech composer Ludwig Minkus for ballet music. In 1865 Saint-Léon wrote to his friend Charles Nuitter:
In 1868, Pugni composed the music for Petipa's Le Roi Candaule. This was to be Pugni's last full-length score. Unbeknownst to many, Petipa originally made plans to have Pugni compose music for his ballet Don Quixote, to be mounted at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre in 1869.[1] But Pugni's irresponsibility quickly forced Petipa to reconsider, and instead he turned to Ludwig Minkus (Don Quixote would prove to be one of both Petipa and Minkus' most celebrated and enduring works). In the end, the score for Don Quixote only included one variation composed by Pugni: a waltz composed fo rthe character Kitri in the ballet's final Grand pas de deux.[1] DeathIn late 1869 Pugni pulled himself together to score the music for Petipa's one act ballet The Two Stars. This score was widely considered to be among his greatest works for the ballet, but it was also to be his last—he died on January 26, 1870.[1] Cesare Pugni was buried in the Vyborgskaya Roman Catholic Cemetery of St. Petersburg (the cemetery was completely destroyed in 1939). Pugni died in utter poverty, and at his death his large family was completely destitute. In honor of the composer, and for a benefit performance for his family, a gala was prepared with excerpts from many of Pugni's works by Petipa in May 1870. Later that year, Petipa mounted a revival of Catarina, premiering on November 1, 1870, again as a benefit performance for the composer's family. Petipa then presented Pugni's final work, The Two Stars, on January 21, 1871 for the benefit performance of the Imperial Ballet's Premier danseur Pavel Gerdt. The ballet premiered to great success and was performed by the St. Petersburg ballet on occasion until just before the Russian Revolution of 1917. Petipa also staged the work under the title The Two Little Stars for the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre in 1878. The ballet was re-staged for the company in a new version by the Balletmaster Ivan Clustine in 1897, a production which was retained in the Bolshoi's repertory until 1925. DescendantsImage:Cesare Pugni -circa 1860.JPG
Many of Cesare Pugni's children went on to become noted artists in their own right. Pugni's sons Albert and Victor played in the orchestra of the St. Petersurg Imperial Theatres throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The former being a noted cellist, and the latter a flautist. Pugni's son Nikolai danced in the corps de ballet of the Imperial Theatres from 1882 until his death in 1896.[1] There were many noted artists among Pugni's grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well. Three of his granddaughters—Fanny, Constance, and Léontina—performed as danseuses with the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres.[1] Léontina also toured Scandinavia with Anna Pavlova's company from 1908-1909 under the name Pouni. Pugni's grandson Ivan Puni (aka Jean Pougny) became a noted avant-garde artist. Pugni's great-grandson, the violinist Michel Astroff, was secretary to Sergei Prokofiev while the composer resided in Paris, and later he worked for various music publishers in France.[1] Pugni's most distinguished descendant was Alexander Shiryaev (1867-1941)—the son of Pugni's son Victor and a danseuse of the Imperial Ballet's corps de ballet, Natalia Shiryaeva.[1] Shiryaev went on to become a celebrated danseur, character dancer and Ballet Master of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres and the early Soviet ballet, and his written accounts of the Russian ballet during the late 19th and early 20th centuries are among the most valuable and celebrated of their kind. After the death of Lev Ivanov in 1901, Shiryaev served as assistant to Marius Petipa, and even staged the first Soviet production of The Nutcracker with Fydor Lophukov at the Mariinsky Theatre.[1]. Shiryaev was among the first persons to ever film ballet dancers—many of these early films were compiled for the documentary Belated premiere (as yet unreleased to DVD or video), and have been used to reconstruct lost dances (among the most celebrated of these reconstructions was Marius Petipa's choreography for the solo Petit Corsaire from the ballet Le Corsaire, set to music by Shiryaev's grandfather Pugni). His musicCompositionImage:Little Humbacked Horse -Piano Reduction Page.JPG
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The majority of Pugni's music which survives in modern performance contains many numbers which included borrowed themes. As a result, it is thus assumed that he based his scores primarily on the melodies of others. This "borrowing", however, was usually done at the behest of a balletmaster or ballerina who desired a particular theme.[1] For example, Pugni incorporated a theme from Johann Strauss I's 1828 Kettenbrücke-Walzer (Suspension Bridge Waltz) at the request of Jules Perrot for her performance in Pas de Quatre (1845).[1] One Parisian critic of the publication Le France Musicale reviewed Diavolina (1863), for which the Balletmaster Saint-Léon requested Pugni include the favorite airs of the Paris Opéra patron Maximilan Lemuré:
Pugni would dedicate many of his scores to various ballerinas, nobility, and patrons of the arts. He dedicated his 1841 score for Ondine to the Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Augusta, a longtime balletomane, and his 1864 score for The Little Humpbacked Horse to the ballerina Marfa Muravieva.[1] Pugni was famous for the speed with which he worked. He was able to prepare ballets in weeks, individual dances and divertissements in a single day, and supplemental variations for a ballerina in an hour or less. Many of Pugni's scores—particularly those written for the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres—contained many virtuoso passages for various solo instruments.[1] The orchestra of the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre employed a number of talented musicians, and Pugni would often include passages in is scores to show-off their talents. For example, Pugni's 1864 score for The Little Humpbacked Horse contains many virtuoso passages for solo violin, flute, harp, oboe, cello and clarinet. On some occasions, Pugni would incorporate a musician's original compositions into his own score, as in the Entr'acte from his 1862 score for The Pharaoh's Daughter, composed by the Imperial orchestra's principal flautist Cesare Ciardi.[1] Pugni was always on the lookout for inspiration for his scores. According to Benjamin Lumley's account of the creation of La Esmeralda Pugni and Perrot collaborated closely:
More than did his contemporaries, Pugni always had his scores reflect the genre, locale, or mood of the scenario. Many reviews for the ballet for which he composed the score complement this. A critic from the Illustrated London News described Pugni's score for Taglioni's 1849 Les Plaisirs de l'Hiver:
A critic from the The Times described Pugni score for Jules Perrot's Ondine"
Pugni's score for Perrot's 1846 Catarina was highly praised, according to one critic of The Times:
The critics who attended the premiere of Saint-Léon's 1864 The Little Humpbacked Horse also praised Pugni's score, which contained a variety of differing musical styles for Russian folk dances, fantastical scenes set on magical isles and under-water, and for the oriental style of the Khan's palace. One critic of the St. Petersburg Gazette reported:
ArchivesAn extensive archive of Cesare Pugni's music is to be found in the archives of the Paris Conservatoire, which is today incorporated in the Department of Music of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The Milan Conservatory holds a substantial collection of Pugni's early compositions. Some manuscripts of the ballets of Perrot are held in the British Library, as well as the Paris Conservatoire. Many of these ballets, along with most others Pugni composed in London and St. Petersburg were published first in piano reduction. The Bibliothèque nationale de France holds many complete scores of the ballets Pugni composed for Arthur Saint-Léon, including the original orchestral parts for The Little Humpbacked Horse. The greatest archive of Pugni's original scores is held in archives of the St. Petersburg Central Music Library, which contains nearly every ballet Pugni wrote while in Russia (including revisions to other works created for other theatres abroad). Another archive of Pugni's work is to be found in the Harvard University Library Theatre Collection, which holds the famous Sergeyev Collection. Revivals and works still in performanceThe Little Humpbacked HorseImage:Frescoes.JPG
Saint-Léon's 1863 masterwork The Little Humpbacked Horse—for which Pugni wrote the score—left the active repertory of the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet (the former Imperial Ballet) long ago, and today the work is only presented in a severely emasculated edition by the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet (school of the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet). The school has not performed the work since 1989. Today only a few Russian companies include the work in their active repertory—such as the Mussorgsky Ballet, the Novosibirsk Ballet and the Ballet of the Maly Theatre. These production are derived primarily from Alexander Gorsky's 1912 revival of the ballet for the Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow. Outside of Russia, only the Universal Ballet Academy of Washingtom D.C., and the all-male troupe Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo perform excerpts from The Little Humpbacked Horse—the so-called Under-water scene; the Grand Ballabile des Nerieds; and the Danse des fresques réanimé (Danse of the re-animated Frescoes). La EsmeraldaFull-length productions of the Perrot/Pugni La Esmeralda are only included in the repertories of Russian companies. The Mussorgsky Ballet of St. Petersburg regularly perform this work in a production which was staged in 1981 by Nicolai Boyarchikov—director of the Mussorgsky Ballet; and Tatiana Vecheslova—former Prima Ballerina of the Kirov Ballet. For this production Pugni's score—in an edition prepared by Riccardo Drigo dating from 1886 and 1899—was restored with the aid of a répétiteur used by the Imperial Ballet until before the Russian Revolution. In 1994 the company filmed their production of La Esmeralda. In 2005 the film was released onto DVD, with the 3-hour production edited to a little over 55 minutes. Many companies throughout the world include various excerpts from La Esmeralda: the so-called La Esmeralda Pas de six (the music for this piece actually being by Riccardo Drigo); and the La Esmeralda Pas de Deux. The La Esmeralda Pas de deuxImage:PharoahsDaughterGrandAdagioMariaAlexanrova.jpg
The La Esmeralda Pas de deux is a popular piece performed by companies all over the world. It includes the famous Tambourine Variation, which is often performed by many Ballerinas in dance competitions. The La Esmeralda Pas de Deux is performed primarily in a version by the choreographer Ben Stevenson, staged in 1982 for the dancers Janie Parker and William Pizzuto's performance at the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. Musically the piece is often credited to Pugni or Riccardo Drigo. The piece has its origins in Marius Petipa's 1899 revival of La Esmeralda, staged for the Ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya. For her performance Riccardo Drigo arranged a new Pas d'action. Typical of such pieces from 19th century ballet, the music is a pastiche. The entrée and adage are Drigo's own compositions, being the additional music he had composed for Petipa's 1886 revival of La Esmeralda. The variation danced by Kschessinskaya—today often referred to as the tambourine variation—is taken from the composer Romualdo Marenco's score for Luigi Manzotti's 1876 ballet Sieba, and was first danced in La Esmeralda when the ballerina Virginia Zucchi performed the title role in St. Petersburg in 1886. The coda—being the only part of the piece to be by Pugni—is taken from the Marche du Pharaon from his score for Petipa's 1862 ballet The Pharaoh's Dauughter. When the danseur of the Kirov Ballet Vakhtang Chabukiani performed in the La Esmeralda Pas de deux in the 1930s, he added music from Pugni's original score as a variation for himself. Today the variation is retained in the piece and remains popular with danseurs. Diane and Actéon Pas de DeuxLa Vivandière Pas de SixThe Pharaoh's Daughter and OndineImage:Ondine -Kirov -Eugenia Obratsova & Sarafanov.jpg
In 2000, the choreographer Pierre Lacotte mounted a revival of the 1862 Pugni/Petipa ballet The Pharaoh's Daughter for the Bolshoi Ballet. Since the Mariinsky Theatre refused Lacotte access to Pugni's original score, he was perforce required to piece together the music from various sources. In 2006 Lacotte mounted a revival of the original production of the 1843 Pugni/Perrot ballet Ondine (AKA The Naiad and the Fisherman) for the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet. A violin reduction of Pugni's score as presented for Jules Perrot's 1851 revival in St. Petersburg was utilized for the production, and was orchestrated. Both works were choreographed by Lacotte "in the style of the epoch", with The Pharaoh's Daughter containing four dances from Petipa's own staging, a few of which were reconstructed from the Stepanov Choreographic Notation from the Sergeyev Collection. Pas de QuatreIn the west (primarily in North America ) the average balletomane will likely only ever encounter Pugni's Pas de Quatre (revived by Anton Dolin in 1941), originally staged by Perrot in 1845 at Her Majesty's Theatre. It is the most performed work of all of Pugni's output, though the music is usually presented in a reorchestration by Leighton Lucas, as the original manuscript was destroyed when Her Majesty's Theatre burned down in 1867. The original piano reduction of Pas de Quatre is housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which includes Pugni's original orchestral parts for the Variation de Mme. Cerrito, the only part of the complete score to have survived. Le CorsaireModern productions of the ballet Le Corsaire contain a substantial amount of additional music, which was added by Pugni to the score for Marius Petipa's many revivals of the work. Petipa's productions of Le Corsaire as performed in St. Petersburg credited the score to both Adolphe Adam and Pugni, in light of this significant additional material. The Bolshoi Ballet's 2007 production restores much of Pugni's additional music. CatarinaOn May 11, 2007 the Balletto di Teatro dell'Opera di Roma of Rome, Italy presented a revival of Jules Perrot and Cesare Pugni's 1846 ballet Catarina, ou La Fille du Bandit. The production was staged in two acts by the choreographer Fredy Franzutti with the ballerina Gaia Straccamore in the title role. WorksSymphonies
Chamber Music
Religious Music
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Operas
Cantanas
BalletsLa Scala, Milan
Her Majesty's Theatre, LondonImage:Plaisirs de L'Hiver ou Les Patineurs -Carolina Rosati & M. Charles -London -1849.JPG
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The Paris Opéra
Works for other theatres
Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, St. PetersburgImage:Pharoah's Daughter -Pas de Fleche -Mathilde Kschessinska -1898 -2.JPG
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Other venues in Russia
Expanded editions of his own work for the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, St. Petersburg
Adaptations of scores by other composers for the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, St. Petersburg
Original works produced to Pugni's music without his direct involvement
References
Bibliography
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