Diaghilev seemed to be the nemesis of traditional ballet, but he was ready to draw on the rigorous classical schooling of his dancers whenever it suited him. Once ugliness had been established as a legitimate option, he was happy to bring back beauty on many occasions alongside the new neoclassical music that he had begun to promote. Stravinsky and Balanchine’s Apollo was one such ballet, which also managed to give Greek antiquity the new solemnity, stripped of the exoticism of earlier “Greek” ballets.
Marina Frolova-Walker is Gresham Professor of Music. She is a Russian-born British musicologist and music historian. She is Professor of Music History and Director of Studies in Music at Clare College, Cambridge.
Professor Marina Frolova-Walker is a specialist in the Russian music of the 19th and 20th centuries. She has published extensively on Russian music and is a well-known lecturer and broadcaster for BBC Radio 3. Among her many awards and appointments, she is a Fellow of the British Academy and was awarded the Edward Dent Medal in 2015 by the Royal Musical Association for her achievements in musicology.
She was appointed as Visiting Gresham Professor of Russian Music in 2018-19.
You can find more information on Marina and her research interests here: https://www.marinafrolova-walker.com/
Professor Frolova-Walker's lecture series are as follows:
2020/21 Russian Piano Masterpieces
2019/20 Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes
2018/19 Russian Opera and the State
All lectures by the Gresham Professors of Music can be accessed here.
