Pizzicati from Sylvia

Tchaikovsky’s favourite ballet composer was Léo Delibes and his favourite ballet Sylvia. “Never before has there been a ballet with such grace, such melodic and rhythmic richness, such superlative scoring,” he wrote after seeing a performance of Sylvia in Vienna in 1877. “Without any false modesty,” he went on, “I tell you that Swan Lake is not fit to hold a candle to Sylvia.” In spite of the enthusiasm of musicians like Tchaikovsky, Sylvia, with its mythological scenario of nymphs and shepherds, has never achieved the popularity of the same composer’s Coppélia. The Royal Ballet production with choreography by Frederick Ashton did much to correct the situation, however. Its most famous number, from a divertissement in the third act, is a polka known as Pizzicati, although its charm derives almost as much from the deft use of woodwind as from its prettily plucked strings.

Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering, the Strauss Pizzicato Polka was written in 1869, seven years before Sylvia.