Ballerina Duet

[rrayner]

“Ballerina” was written in 1947 by Carl Sigman & Bob Russell. Two highly popular recordings of this song were by Vaughn Monroe (#1 in 1947) and Nat "King" Cole (#18 in 1957).

If you read the lyrics, you will find this to be a sad song -- one where the principal (ballerina) pursues her career over love.

This song has an AABA form, with AA being the main theme and a repeat, followed by a bridge (B) and another repeat of the main theme (A), but it has a rather uncommon form as the main refrain is twelve measures long. Most popular songs not of the traditional blues form are eight measures long. The last repeat of the main theme is embellished at the end by adding two more measures, as the melody slowly descends in what I whimsically envision as the ballerina softly settling back to the stage after a tremendous leap for the Grand Finale.

As in many of my recent pieces, you can use Composer commands to display the lyrics (qsl) or the chords (qscn).

Ralph R. Rayner