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thanks to my friends :)
Composition Description by Robert Cummings
The dates in the headnote pertain to the complete ballet itself, not to the four suites Khachaturian extracted from it. The first three were written in the period of 1955-1957 and the last in 1967, just as he was about to revise the complete ballet. Precisely why he devoted so much energy to this work is not clear.
Perhaps part of the reason is that its story of slaves rebelling against oppressive rulers was just the what the Soviet musical czars were looking to promote in their art, an allegory of the proletariat struggling against their bourgeois overlords. Spartacus was a Thracian warrior who led a slave revolt against Rome, beginning in 73 B.C. After the seizure of Mount Vesuvius, set up as their fortress, they were defeated in bloody battle by Licinius Crassus and Pompey in 71 B.C. Six thousand captured slaves were subsequently crucified on the Appian Way, including Spartacus. ... Read More...
cue & log tagged within, scans are inside
Composition Description by Robert Cummings
The dates in the headnote pertain to the complete ballet itself, not to the four suites Khachaturian extracted from it. The first three were written in the period of 1955-1957 and the last in 1967, just as he was about to revise the complete ballet. Precisely why he devoted so much energy to this work is not clear.
Perhaps part of the reason is that its story of slaves rebelling against oppressive rulers was just the what the Soviet musical czars were looking to promote in their art, an allegory of the proletariat struggling against their bourgeois overlords. Spartacus was a Thracian warrior who led a slave revolt against Rome, beginning in 73 B.C. After the seizure of Mount Vesuvius, set up as their fortress, they were defeated in bloody battle by Licinius Crassus and Pompey in 71 B.C. Six thousand captured slaves were subsequently crucified on the Appian Way, including Spartacus. ... Read More...
cue & log tagged within, scans are inside