The Sleeping Beauty - Tchaikovsky's version

You can have Swan Lake, the 1812 Overture, and The Nutcracker, but let me have The Sleeping Beauty. It's my favorite Tchaikovsky ballet, musically speaking. It's a battle between good and evil leitmotifs, but eventually Tchaikovsky says screw it, everybody gets a theme. Obviously, you don't get the full two hour ballet on one record, just the condensed orchestral suite. .

They wanted him to write it, and he was quite willing, but mentioned that nobody really cared about Swan Lake so don't get your hopes up too high. He died before it got really popular. I actually have the full Swan Lake on vinyl, but that's not my favorite, so Ballet-centric Orchestra conducted by child prodigy turned youngest faculty member of the Curtis Institute, Joseph Levine. Not to be confused with the famous Russian pianist Josef Lhévinne who was much older and a classmate of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin.

Interesting American legal douchebaggery. Disney owns the trademark to "Princess Aurora," so you know they might take a vested interest in trying to steal any money you might make by performing a 140 year old ballet. Makes total sense if you're a goon, i guess. Screw those dancers, musicians, and set designers, we've got a media empire to exploit. I'm sure the newly appointed dynamic duo of Chapek and Iger will do awesome things with the interest on last year's $11 billion. Trading today at $116/share, but a $175 + $1 minimum investment? No wonder everybody says "good god no, don't buy stock direct from Disney." In case you don't understand, you shouldn't be paying Disney for the convenience of giving Disney working capital on a depreciated investment. Any serious broker will eat that dollar and sell tomorrow without you even needing to ask. That's like handing the donut guy a 5-er, saying keep the change, and forgetting to take your donut. Yeah, i mean why wouldn't they try to skim royalties off a 19th century ballet when they don't even have to instill confidence in the market to make a profit?

Where was i? Oh yeah, Leningrad Cowboys' version of Sweet Home Alabama is far superior to the original (like every song they cover), even though they are from Finland. They use official Russian Army choir the Alexandrov Ensemble for backup, and claim to be from a little Serbian town called Mexico.

No that's not it. Something about Tchaikovsky, maybe? I dunno, i'm too far out there to try to ice skate back. We'll try again tomorrow, after i've had a good long nap.

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