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Could Paula Abdul end up on "Dancing with the Stars"? Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment Group, dished on Saturday about the possibility of it happening.
"I was a little stunned by the decision. We would love to have her on 'Dancing.' As a contestant, as a participant, as a judge," McPherson told reporters. "I think she's a huge talent. There's a sensitivity and emotion in her that balances out 'American Idol' and we'd love to get a piece of that."
He continues, "I have definitely reached out to her. We are friends from way back. I gave her a call to say I was sorry about the situation and we want to see her on ABC. She said, 'Great.' She was traveling and she is going to be back in town and we will sit down."
McPherson and Abdul met years ago when he was with Buena Vista and Abdul pitched him projects. As to what the former "American Idol" judge would do on "Dancing with the Stars," McPherson says, "We have no formal plans. Len Goodman travels back and forth and it is tough on him. We had to have some guest judges. I think all possibilities are open. We will look at it. It will probably depend on where her head is at."
There's always something more lurking beneath the surface. There must be some reason, other than me being emotionally unstable, that I cry every time I see The Nutcracker. Those vertiginous harp cadenzas, the longing sigh of Clara's pas de deux with Hans-Peter and the brooding B minor in the cellos during the Waltz of the Flowers get me every time. But Tchaikovsky initially loathed the idea of the ballet and found it impossible to commit any musical thoughts to paper. But something radically changed and, like The Queen of Spades and the 'Pathétique' Symphony, the shadow of death hangs over the score. While it's important not to forget the surface, Tchaikovsky's soaring melodies demand further attention. 
Many productions cut this number, depicting the legendary Mère Gigogne. She is usually called Mother Ginger in English, though the name translates as 'nesting', not unlike a matryoshka doll. She has also been called Mère Cicogne, the French for stork, emphasising her baby-carrying role. Whether ginger, nesting or stork, Petipa intended a link with the character from the marionette theatre tradition, instantly recognisable by the 32 children who burst out from under her voluminous skirt. He wanted a ternary form dance from Tchaikovsky where a 'leisurely and very accented' 2/4 section moves into a slower 3/4; the 2/4 then returns 'but in a somewhat faster tempo'. This is a French-dance through-and-through and the composer employed the folk tune 'Giroflé-Giroflá' for his theme in the first section. As with the majority of the dances in the Divertissement, the phrasing is relatively equal and the harmonic language moves seamlessly between tonic and dominant. However, the textures are yet brighter with an excited semiquaver accompaniment running through the violas and clarinets. Thrown accents in the tutti repeat of the theme give rhythmic variety before arriving at the second section. Tchaikovsky settles into a bouncing 6/8 and then the ferocious 2/4 returns with even more jagged syncopations. It's a great shame that many modern productions do not use this music, as it represents Tchaikovsky at his most gregarious.
The poet-playwright-president Václav Havel has died. A thorn in the Soviets' side, a cheerleader for democracy and a self-effacing hero for Czechoslovakia, he was, more or less, the picture of what our leaders should be. While the great Milan Kundera felt it necessary to distance himself from Havel during the collapse of communism - seemingly unable to differentiate between the great ideal and the terrible reality - Havel came to power when his country needed him most. You can read The Guardian's obituary of Havel here.
After the pithy dances of the Divertissement, Petipa wanted a Grande ballabile in the style of the waltz from The Sleeping Beauty. Tchaikovsky provided one of his most inspired compositions. Picking up the tonality from the previous movement, the A major introduction becomes a dominant preparation for the waltz. Thematic ideas are introduced here in a dialogue between woodwind and harp. The first waltz theme seems to be in equal four bar phrases, with the string accompaniment answered in kind by the horns. A three-bar phrase follows, with further two-bar phrases creating a wonderful sense of acceleration. The final five-bar phrase with a tumbling chromatic line leading to the cadence soon puts the breaks on. Throughout, Tchaikovsky keeps us guessing by alternating the textures and lengths of phrases (unlike the repeated four-bar waltz themes of Johann Strauss II). A second descending theme is delivered passionately on the strings in a constant ebb-and-flow between music and emotion. At one point, Tchaikovsky shifts into B minor. While the initial oboe melody manages to evade its grasp, the cellos and violas are caught and become more outspoken in their 'Pathétique' tones. Like the 'Waltz of the Snowflakes' in the first act, which rocked between E minor and its relative major, the 'Waltz of the Flowers' vacillates between tonic and its relative minor. The mirror images between the first and second acts become clearer all the time. As before, however, Tchaikovsky is careful not to overcloud our view and, after a brief hemiola, we're back to the original theme. The final passages are delivered with great zeal, as the strings sail up to a passionate counter-melody and the brass come to the fore. The waltz ends with a dazzling sequence of hemiolas, quickening the harmonic pace right up to the final cadence.
Building on the emotional impact of the Waltz of the Flowers, Petipa asked Tchaikovsky for an opening to the pas de deux that was 'intended to produce a colossal impression'. Obliging as ever, the Intrada is a passionate outpouring. True, we may be watching a Sugar Plum and a Cough Drop (as the original Prince's name translates), but Tchaikovsky couldn't resist suggesting something infinitely more profound. The melody may just be a descending scale - shades of Swan Lake again - but the harmony completely revolutionises that simple device; it becomes an elegiac melody. And although it starts in G major, it's not long before we've shifted to that pervasive key of E minor. This pas de deux mirrors Clara's first moments with Hans-Peter in the forest. The harp is present as it was there, but while Clara's longing found voice in an ascending melody, it is inverted here; a reflection shows things in reverse. The second section is less grandiose, with an oboe and clarinet duet representing the dancers on stage. But the next passage, marked 'incalzando' - increasing in both speed and warmth - is charged with emotion. A dominant pedal is firmly expectant of E minor and things are yet more candid in the final bars, as the brass takes over the melodic duties. The presence of a flattened seventh in the tonic proper (G major) moves us briefly into C minor, out of which Tchaikovsky snatches back the tonic. The Intrada ends triumphantly.
We grow up with The Nutcracker. We change. And it changes before our eyes. While writing my piece about the score for The Guardian, I needed to remind myself that it wasn’t all about death, E minor and eternity. So I took the opportunity to go and see the matinee on Sunday 11th December with my nephew in tow. He will be six in February, so he was probably one of the youngest members of the audience. Despite his age, he was completely gripped.
And it was those musical details that dominated my talk to a Year 12 group at Beaumont School in St Albans last week. It’s a seriously impressive local comprehensive. Admittedly it’s got a good catchment area in a predominantly middle class town, but they were, far and away, the sharpest 6th-form class I’d ever met. They really understood that while you could enjoy the ballet on my nephew’s terms – he later cited the death of the Mouse King as his favourite moment – there was perhaps a bit more going on.
For the shortest day, the shortest track. As is customary in a classical pas de deux, both dancers perform a testing variation. Tchaikovsky, like Drigo and Minkus before him, tended to emphasise contrastingly masculine and feminine characteristics within those variations. Here Petipa asked for 48 bars in 6/8 time for the cavalier. Shifting into B minor, the movement is distinguished by a flowing dialogue between various instruments in turn. Given the showcase that Petipa intended (and Ivanov realised), with great leaps and turns for the Prince, Tchaikovsky obliges with a steady crescendo and the dialogue between the instruments creates a breathless counterpoint to the dance. The music moves into D major and Tchaikovsky introduces the tambourine - part and parcel of the southern Italian tarantella - but the tonic proper is insistent, the bass inflexible and the variation ends with a brusque cadence in B minor. It brilliantly sets up the Sugar Plum Fairy's variation in E minor.
To be honest, I'm one of those people who cannot stand the queeny opera bore. 'Well, my dear, she wasn't Birgit Nilsson, now, was she?' Well, given that I was 3 when Nilsson retired, I can't testify. Thdre's a sickness in endlessly comparing what is now with what had gone before. But what's really irritating is how right those heritage queens can be. Fritz Wunderlich is a case in point. The tenor had been dead for 15 years by the time I was born, so I really had no connection whatsoever with his life or career. But during an intensive period of work on Schubert, countless people urged me to listen to his recordings. And how addictive they are. 
This dance is one of the most famous musical moments in all ballet. Tchaikovsky choice of the celesta (heard first as Clara and Hans-Peter's arrive in the Kingdom of Sweets) proved an ingenious one. Sugary but tart, its prissy bell-like notes later came to dominate the highly sexualised world of post-Wagnerian opera. Strauss, Schreker and Korngold used the instrument to excess. It speaks of an 'other', something artificial perhaps, or here, framed in that earlier 'jeopardy' key of E minor, something more deathly. This is the quintessence of ballerina delicacy. The Sugar Plum Fairy represents untouchable femininity or, for Petipa the music should sound akin to 'drops of water shooting out of fountains'. Tchaikovsky favours unresolved streams of dissonance. Flattened subdominant and dominant notes act as precarious lynchpins within the context. The Fairy and Prince's descending scale becomes a rather forlorn bass clarinet solo (then passed elsewhere in the woodwind) and the response to the dominant (itself rather short and sharp in appearance) is a stream of diminished chords in first and second position. Everything seems to hover around the tonic rather than endorsing it. After a stream of diminished and minor seventh arpeggios, the tune returns one octave higher and the dance ends with a rapid coda, highly reminiscent of the snowflake music.
After both the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince have dazzled with their respective variations, the pas de deux concludes with a virtuosic show stopper for them both. Gone are the grave harmonies and the eerie desiccation of the celesta. This is a genuinely happy and glorious conclusion. Tchaikovsky was asked to provide 'still lively music in 2/4 - 88 bars' and although he exceeded his brief, writing 102 bars, Petipa's description couldn't be more apt. There is a bouncing accompaniment on top of which Tchaikovsky places another descending melody. The emphasis on the ninth note in the scale lends a heartfelt quality, but the harmonies are otherwise simple. The first phrase moves to the dominant and the second phrase moves back to the tonic; it's just like the foursquare clarity of the overture. The presence of the submediant (next to the dominant in the scale) gives a slight minor tinge, but it too is understated. Such a move, however, does preface more chromatically inflected harmonies. There is a brief moment in E minor, there are diminished chords and all the richness of the composer's palate. Whereas before these harmonies portended emotional truths or elements of danger, Tchaikovsky quickly moves away through runs and sequences to more traditional tonal ground. This is a dance of resolution and it ends with a dazzling (if abrupt) cadence in D major.
After a month of Tchaikovsky on the blog, it's high time I wished all the readers of Entartete Musik a Very Merry Christmas. It's been a great year for readership, with over 50,000 hits on the main site per month. The most popular posts this year have been the reports on Mahler's death 100 years after the event, an interview with the Berliner Philharmoniker's principal clarinettist Andreas Ottensamer, a preview of the Wagnerian elements in Melancholia, a review of Bernard Herrmann's string quartets, reports from the BBC Proms of Norrington's tendentious Mahler 9 and Brian's 'Gothic' Symphony and the daily posts from The Nutcracker Advent Calendar. There are currently nearly 1200 'fans' of the blog on Facebook and over 1300 followers on Twitter. The top-ten countries for visitors are United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, France, Canada, Italy, Spain and Australia, with many individual readers living in London, Vienna, New York, Berlin, Madrid, Buenos Aires and Chicago. Please keep returning to the blog, commenting, sending through suggestions; it's as wonderful to hear about your passions as it is to share mine. Next week I leave for Vienna once more, when there will be many reports from the Kaffeehausen, exhibitions about Klimt and Hoffmann, Winter Pictures at the Kunsthistorichesmuseum, From the House of the Dead at the Staatsoper, Die Fledermaus at the Volksoper and lots more besides. Have a great Christmas and I look forward to a truly degenerate 2012.