Talk:Pulcinella (ballet)

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"Stravinsky based most of the composition on existing Baroque scores he found in libraries in Naples and London."; I read somewhere that Sergei Diaghilev had actually found them and started the whole thing by handing them to Stravinsky. --213.176.148.218 22:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Petrushka (ballet)?

Petrushka (ballet) is a more complete article and they are the same ballet under different names. Is there anything this article has that the other does not?IanThal 20:23, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

This suggests that they are two distinct ballets.--Atavi 14:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
It more suggests that they are two names given to distinguish between an earlier version and a revised version by the same composer Pulcinella and Petrushka are the Italian and Russian names of the same character.IanThal 23:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I have verified that Pulcinella and Petrushka are the same character, as many sources say that, including Britannica. But that doesn't mean that the two ballets are the same. Unfortunately I have never heard Pulcinella, so I can't be sure. We need the help of someone who has heard both (if you're correct: versions)
However, all the information I have encountered suggest that the ballets are two different ones. In all the listings (I've seen) of Stravinsky's work, both are listed. Besides being written at two different times, with differnt premieres, different people are listed as choreographers, the music of Pulcinella seems to be attributed to Pergolesi or some other contemporary of his, and finally Pulcinella is listed as neoclassical, which Petrushka is not.
If the two ballets are in fact different, then it would be interesting to know why Stravinsky chose to compose two ballets with essentially the same character as a hero, whether he knew it was the same character, and whether the plots of the two ballets are connected in some way.
--Atavi 10:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The two stories appear to be completely unrelated.--Atavi 13:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I've heard and lectured on both. The two ballets are completely unrelated musically. Petrushka was a major ballet of Stravinsky's so-called Russian period while Pulcinella was one of the most important early pieces leading to neoclassicism. The Grove article on Stravinsky discusses both without making any suggestion that the topics are the same. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 14:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Myke. Your help is greatly appreciated.--Atavi 14:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for freeing me of my confusion, Myke. I'm a commedia dell'arte performer who was merely trying to track the family history of one of my favorite characters.IanThal 01:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No problem, and Thank you for contributing to these articles. I wish I knew more about commedia dell'arte, and it's always one of my most embarrassing moments in lecturing about the music of these pieces, when I need to go into some depth about the stories ("um, so like there's this puppet, and a carnival, and um sometimes a bear, and sometimes some puppet violence, and, um, yeah, there's some dancing and...SO! let's get back to the polytonal section in C and F# major in the Second Part!") -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)