The World of Arts

The World-class ballet Orchestra

Gwen Herat

Barry Wordsworth as conductor and Music Director of the Royal Ballet's orchestra with his musical expertise and energy has a different role to play to any other normal conductor of a symphony orchestra. He has to instigate a ballet conductor's apprenticeship scheme to remind his players that ballet is an excellent career for his musicians.

Royal Ballet’s symphonic orchestra with its conductor, Barry Wordsworth (third from left back row)

So, the Royal Ballet possess an absolutely world-class orchestra and made sure that it is conducted by people the players respect and who will produce great music. Barry Wordsworth is the enigma that glove-fit this expectation. Ballet is often criticized for erratic tempos but the truth is that a short dancer will probably move faster than a tall one which makes adjustment a necessity. Striking the balance between a great musical sound and the needs of the dancer is difficult and that is true for singers as well. There are brilliant ballet conductors perfectly capable of bridging the gap. One such maestro is Barry Wordsworth. For a normal conductor, he is not pressured down by timing but in ballet, the conductor has to be precise on timing. He does not have the luxury of being bothered by timing which makes ballet music conducting a near-phenomenon in the field of classical music. Conducting ballet is sinecure because at times the conductor has seven Juliets and Romeos to keep happy and all needing something different. I can recall Rudolf Nureyev as the enigmatic Romeo who demanded his score to be changed over and over again driving the conductor and the choreographer up the wall. However, by this episode Nureyev remains the best ever Romeo to have danced over the rest.

When restaging ballets, the conductor has to be mindful of what preceded with the earlier one and how scores were used. It may be easy to change notes but not steps that are found in the repertory of a company, especially the Royal Ballet who try to maintain authenticity. One step wrong, one note wrong can play havoc at a performance. Synchronising between the dancer and the music has to be flawless and accurate. The whole symphony orchestra has to be a combination of timing and attentive to the conductor, not as much as even shifting an eye if they are performing live.

The orchestra has to respond to fantastic movements like these when playing live.

The Royal Ballet's musical ensemble is one of the best in the world, a tradition they upheld through. The masterly display of its conductor, Barry Wordsworth is an enormous task. His music is an analysis of music that gives fresh understanding to ballet. Anyone who follows classical music repertory will find a genius in Wordsworth as to how he relates them to dancing, the combination of two supreme performing arts.

In terms of musicology, he is unequal as it stands today with absorbing scores not necessarily from the Masters but from lesser known composers. There is commonsense and clarity in his orchestra, fluid in playing, responding to the baton of Wordsworth. In their interpretations, they discover fresh light in their instruments.

The repressed and highly charged contents of the psyche reveals Wordsworth's music expression formulated to meet the demands of movements on stage. He inspires the extreme adulation in range and depth that many a time a ballerina is trapped in a web she has to untangle herself.

So, deep in his expressive music that dancers melt to his scores and drift in sensation. His ability to recognise and convey the classical subtleties surrounding performances make the dancers very comfortable in his company.

Wordsworth considers afresh most scores, rewrite, recast and often add new ideas to different ballets. He presents a crowded picture of composers' ceaseless activity. His persistent concern with new music and young musicians along with his unabated instinct to compose, makes ballet the richer art and the Royal Ballet the citadel of perfection.

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