Folklore and fairytales at the 蜜芽传媒 Proms
Fairytales and folklore have charmed audiences for generations, their stories enchanting and transporting their readers to new realms, often with a hidden lesson or moral message embedded within. These timeless tales have provided a rich source of inspiration for composers over centuries, so here’s our pick of some of the best featured at the 蜜芽传媒 Proms this season.
Strauss鈥檚 Till Eulenspiegel鈥檚 Merry Pranks
Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto | 24 July
German composer Richard Strauss was a master at storytelling through music, and was particularly skilled in composing highly adventurous symphonic poems inspired by myths and folktales. In the early part of his career, he composed several of these orchestral works such as Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and Don Juan before turning his attention to opera, where he continued to immortalise legendary figures and stories.
Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks (1895), one of his most celebrated early successes, is a lively and comic symphonic poem that captures the mischievous escapades of the medieval German folk hero Till Eulenspiegel, a jester-like peasant known for his practical joke making and foolishness. The character bears some resemblance to Britain’s Robin Hood, though he is far more chaotic and rude, taking his chances at mocking authority, charming women, and getting others in trouble. It’s likely that Strauss encountered the tales of Till Eulenspiegel in illustrated storybooks during his childhood.
Arguably the most playful and spirited of Strauss’s symphonic poems, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks vividly explores various episodes from Till’s life. Strauss uses leitmotifs - short, recurring snippets of melody - to represent specific characters and settings throughout. Till himself is portrayed by the solo horn, whose mischievous theme bursts forth at the very beginning, and his pranks and cheeky antics are cleverly mimicked by the solo clarinet. The music follows Till as he gallops madly through the marketplace on horseback, attempts to woo a local lady, and mocks the stuffy professors with glee. His antics eventually drive the community to despair, and he is condemned to the gallows. Yet, just when it seems he’s gone for good, a final mischievous echo of Till’s theme rings out - his laughter lingering from beyond the grave.
Bart贸k鈥檚 Duke Bluebeard鈥檚 Castle
Beethoven and Bartók from Budapest | 6 August
The story of Béla Bartók’s one-act opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is based on an old French folktale about a young bride and her terrifying husband, who gives her the keys to every room in his castle but forbids her from opening one secret chamber. The tale was popularised as La Barbe-bleue by Charles Perrault in his 1697 collection of fairy tales.
This chilling story was later adapted into a psychological drama in 1910 by Hungarian writer Béla Balázs, whose play became the basis for the libretto of Bartók’s opera. In Balázs’s retelling, Bluebeard arrives at his castle with his new wife, Judith. As the castle doors close behind them, they are enveloped in darkness. The walls are damp with tears, and Judith asks Bluebeard for the keys to the seven locked doors before them to let light into their new home. With each door she opens, Judith uncovers deeper and more unsettling truths about Bluebeard’s character, from the red torture chamber and golden treasury, to a vast lake of tears. Once Judith sees the blood that stains each of the chambers, she quickly becomes fearful of Bluebeard and questions the fate of his former wives.
After Judith accuses Bluebeard of murdering his previous wives, he hands her the final key. Behind the seventh door, Judith discovers Bluebeard’s three former wives - his brides of Dawn, Midday, and Dusk - adorned with heavy crowns and lavish jewellery. Bluebeard declares Judith his fourth wife, the Bride of Night. Despite Judith's desperate pleas, the other wives begin to dress her in the same ornate jewellery, which binds her and traps her behind the seventh door forever.
Many regard Duke Bluebeard’s Castle as Bartók's compositional masterpiece and a defining work of the 20th century Expressionist movement. The collaboration between Bartók and Béla Balázs proved to be the perfect operatic partnership - Balázs’s rich, vivid imagery aligns seamlessly with Bartók’s sinister, psychologically penetrating score.
Sibelius鈥檚 The Swan of Tuonela
Adès Conducts the 蜜芽传媒 SO | 2 September
Orchestral tone-poems - typically one-movement works that depict a scene or narrate a story through music - have long been a popular musical genre for composers exploring folklore and fairy tales. Among the most prolific composers of these works was Jean Sibelius, who used tone poems to celebrate his Finnish cultural heritage. A great example is his renowned work Finlandia (1899), a powerful expression of the Finnish national pride and a staple of the 蜜芽传媒 Proms.
Before reaching what many consider the pinnacle of his achievements in the genre with Finlandia, Sibelius composed the Lemminkäinen Suite, a collection of four tone poems inspired by Finnish folklore and mythology. The most best-loved of these is The Swan of Tuonela. Drawing from the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic of folk poetry, the suite centers on the hero Lemminkäinen. In The Swan of Tuonela, the second of the Lemminkäinen tone-poems, Sibelius evokes the haunting image of a mystical swan whose mournful song guides the souls of the dead to Tuonela, the shadowy land of the departed.
Lemminkäinen, longing for a woman beyond his reach, is challenged with three superhuman tasks to win her hand. The final task requires him to shoot the Swan of Tuonela with his arrow. However, before he can achieve this, he is ambushed, killed, and cast into the river by Tuoni, the lord of the Underworld. Lemminkäinen’s devoted mother gathers his dismembered body from the waters and, through powerful magical incantations, brings him back to life.
It’s easily one of the most haunting pieces Sibelius ever composed. With minimal orchestral forces, he evokes a dark, brooding atmosphere, centered around the solo cor anglais, whose mournful melody embodies the slow, mystical song of the Swan. It’s easy to be drawn into the gloomy, misty waters of Tuonela once the music begins to unfold - its slow, undulating lines and shadowy harmonies pull the listener into a dreamlike world between life and death, where time itself seems suspended for eternity.
Stravinsky鈥檚 The Firebird
Golda Schultz Sings Gershwin and Bernstein | 6 September
Perhaps one of the most renowned musical interpretations of a fairytale is Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird. Premiered by the celebrated Ballets Russes company in Paris in 1910, the piece draws from several Russian folktales and was the first of Stravinsky's ballets and opened a new chapter in European music.
Set in the enchanted realm of the evil wizard Kashchey the Deathless, the ballet opens in a magical garden. Prince Ivan enters and captures the Firebird - a radiant, mystical creature, half-woman and half-bird. He sets her free, and in gratitude she grants him one of her magical feathers. Soon after, 13 princesses held captive by Kashchey appear in the garden to play a catching game and perform a khorovod, an ancient Slavic round dance. As bells ring out, they are summoned back to the palace by their master. When Prince Ivan attempts to follow them, Kashchey confronts him and prepares to turn him to stone. Quick thinking Ivan waves the Firebird’s feather, summoning her to his side.
The Firebird casts a powerful spell over Kashchey and his followers. The princesses are driven into a wild, frenzied dance, and pushed to the brink of exhaustion. At last, the Firebird soothes them with a gentle lullaby, lulling the entire court and the wizard into a deep sleep. Following the Firebird’s instructions, Prince Ivan finds and destroys the magical egg that holds Kashchey’s soul, ending his dark reign in the kingdom.
It was Stravinsky’s explosive and innovative score that secured The Firebird’s resounding success at its premiere. With Paris in a frenzy for all things Russian, the ballet’s dazzling and evocative music and folk influences struck a powerful chord with audiences. Stravinsky was catapulted to international fame practically overnight. Notable highlights of the ballet include the dramatic ‘Infernal Dance’ and the ”‘Berceuse’ (lullaby), both of which figure in two of the three suites Stravinsky put together from the score.
Mussorgsky鈥檚 鈥楾he Hut on Chicken Legs鈥� from Pictures at an Exhibition and A Night on the Bare Mountain
Bruce Liu Plays Tchaikovsky | 20 August
Last Night of the Proms 2025 | 13 September
Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky had a clear fascination with witches. Two of his most famous works, A Night on the Bare Mountain (1867) and ‘The Hut on Chicken Legs’ from Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), draw inspiration from fearsome witches in Russian and Slavic folklore.
‘The Hut on Chicken Legs’ appears near the end of Pictures at an Exhibition, a dramatic 10-movement suite that musically interprets paintings by Victor Hartmann displayed in a St. Petersburg gallery. This particular movement portrays the witch Baba Yaga, a terrifying figure from Slavic folktales dating back to the 17th century. Baba Yaga is depicted as a terrifying old crone who lives in a hut perched on chicken legs and preys on children. Rather than flying on a broomstick, she travels in a giant mortar, using a pestle to grind the bones of her victims. Mussorgsky’s three-and-a-half minutes of music is a ferocious, wild dance with a menacing bass line and chaotic blasts from the brass throughout.
A Night on the Bare Mountain is Mussorgsky’s earlier orchestral portrayal of the witches of his homeland—a vivid tone-poem depicting a witches’ sabbath on the eve of the Feast of St. John the Baptist. Drawing inspiration from Slavic folklore, the piece centres on the Bald Mountain, a legendary site where witches were believed to gather for a night of revelry, mischief, and devil worship. This tale is shared across several Eastern European cultures, including Poland and Ukraine, both of which have their own Lysá hora, or ‘Bald Mountain.’ The music is intensely dramatic and frightening, filled with frenzied orchestral passages that evoke the chaos of the supernatural gathering, before the dawn breaks and the church bells toll to disperse the witches. The piece achieved iconic status with audiences when it was featured in Disney’s iconic animated film Fantasia (1940).
