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We think of the waltz as the apotheosis of elegance, refinement, high society. But it wasn't always so... In today's "Discovering Music", Stephen Johnson explores the roots of the waltz - from rustic German dances, to sinister, dizzy treatments by Schumann and Mahler - before looking in-depth at "La Valse" by Maurice Ravel. Ravel was fascinated by the history and cultural trappings of the waltz form - as well as its dark underbelly...and his "choreographic poem" for orchestra is a dazzling evocation of gliding dancers warped and transmuted into something rather more sinister...
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