Something smells fishy around here, and it just might be Joseph Martin Kraus' ballet Fiskarena. This is one of about four ballets he is known to have composed, and in recording it, Kraus' two early pantomimes and his inserts for Gluck's ballet Armide Petter Sundkvist and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra come dangerously close to exhausting Kraus' slim output for orchestra on Naxos' Joseph Martin Kraus: Fiskarena. While the libretto for Fiskarena has not survived, its content may be deduced as it was apparently based on a ...
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Something smells fishy around here, and it just might be Joseph Martin Kraus' ballet Fiskarena. This is one of about four ballets he is known to have composed, and in recording it, Kraus' two early pantomimes and his inserts for Gluck's ballet Armide Petter Sundkvist and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra come dangerously close to exhausting Kraus' slim output for orchestra on Naxos' Joseph Martin Kraus: Fiskarena. While the libretto for Fiskarena has not survived, its content may be deduced as it was apparently based on a French opera called Les Pêcheurs in which well-to-do merchant Herr Ambrosius will not allow Sailor Jack to marry his daughter, so Sailor Jack sets Ambrosius up in an intrigue involving some gypsies. The ballet retains more than an average share of what one would expect to be its retinue of humor; among its 20 numbers is a bit entitled "Anglois," which turns out to be a slightly modified version of the familiar Sailor's Hornpipe. While Fiskarena is not drawn from the stormy side of Kraus'...
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