Music in the Air: Swan Lake & Twin Peaks
The Devil is in the Details
Episode 13 of Mark Frost and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return includes a soundtrack of three titles. Some viewers have already voiced appreciation for Dean Hurley’s atmospheric Eastern European Symphonic Mood No. 1, and the fan community is abuzz with James Hurley's latest performance at the Roadhouse, a reprise of Just You, the ballad he first performed with Maddy Ferguson and Donna Hayward in Season 2 (in fact, he's lip synching to the same version we first heard years ago). Yet, the inclusion of Dance of the Swans from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet score should not be overlooked within this musical triad. With David Lynch designing the sound score himself, as well as being something of a librettist for Twin Peaks past and present, it’s safe to assume that each musical selection is chosen with great care. Thematically, each of the three musical numbers heard in Episode 13 maintains a link
with multiples and/or mistaken identity: James’ performance at the Road House
is a reprise that references an earlier event, a session that itself
features doppelganger Maddy; while both Dean Hurley and Tchaikovsky's
music are heard during scenes that involve Mr. C and Cooper as Dougie,
respectively. Dance of the Swans features a number of interesting parallels with the episode’s other musical numbers, particularly Just You, both compositionally and symbolically.
Twin Swans on a Lake
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the Russian composer celebrated for his ballet scores, including The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty, developed the music for Swan Lake during the 1870s. Based on several variations of a European fairy tale, this celebrated four-act ballet is an archetypal showdown between the forces of good and evil. The queen of the swans, Odette, is really a woman who has been cursed to live as a swan and can only return to human form at night. Rothbart, a dark sorcerer (sometimes described as an owl!) accompanied by black swans and his daughter Odile, is responsible. Like Twin Peaks, this enchanted universe is full of pairs and doppelgangers, including the iconic dual role of Odette/Odile, white and black swan characters performed by the same principal dancer. The gentle Odette first appears at Act 2’s lakeside setting, dancing in all white. After seeing swans fly overhead, a young Prince Siegfried enters the scene with his crossbow, but happening upon Odette in human form, he quickly abandons the hunt and falls in love. Rothbart’s scheming daughter Odile, dressed in black, has other plans and impersonates Odette at the prince’s birthday bash in Act 3. Here, the female dancer's performance must shift entirely to that of a dark seductress. Her treachery successfully fools the court, including the prince. Thinking she is Odette, he publicly announces his intention to marry her. Shortly after, Rothbart cruelly reveals a vision of Odette to the prince. Realizing his mistake, the distraught prince flees to the lakeside in search of the real Odette. Rather than uphold his promise to marry the deceptive Odile, the prince and swan queen leap to their deaths within the lake. Recent stagings often incorporate a battle between Siegfried and Rothbart, with the former tearing a wing from the owl sorcerer that allows him to triumph without the lead couple sacrificing themselves. In both variations of the ballet, however, the curse is lifted through the final actions of the prince and swan queen.
In episode 13 of Twin Peaks: The Return, Dance of the Swans is heard while Sonny Jim Jones enjoys his newly installed play set in the backyard, a location that itself becomes quite theatrical. Strands of lights adorn the beams of the play set at night, while a roving spotlight sweeps across the yard as "Dougie" and Janey-E peacefully observe their "son" from the house. In the ballet Swan Lake, this segment of the score is also heard at nightfall and announces the imminent appearance of the swans transforming to human form, their only respite from the sorcerer's curse. While these birds are peaceful creatures, Rothbart's evil is always lurking nearby, endowing the score with a dark and dramatic undertone. Similarly, Sonny Jim's bliss is undercut by the dark sky and the strange meandering spotlight, not to mention the oddball presence of Cooper as Dougie. In the ballet, the viewer quickly learns that there is something dark hovering just beneath the surface of the otherwise shimmering pastoral lakeside setting, just as Lancelot Court is no stranger to supernatural oddities. While the ballet's swans are unaware that Prince Siegfried is observing them at first, Sonny Jim also seems to be oblivious to the watchful eyes of his parents as he hops about in a circuit, repeating similar movements. The yard's centrally placed fountain is a prominent water feature, perhaps its own miniature lake, or a world within worlds, similar to those of the Swan Lake fairy tale.
The Starting Position is Much More Comfortable
Central themes and motifs in Swan Lake include: birds, water, visions, transformation, forces of lightness and darkness (sometimes within the same character), as well as multiples and a quest to return to one’s original human form following supernatural trauma. The entire premise of the ballet is a woman trapped in a looped cycle, doomed to remain in a state of duality indefinitely (until she and the prince end the curse through death), reminiscent not only of Laura Palmer’s story, but of the various loops and strange temporalities we’re currently experiencing in The Return.
The movement patterns in Swan Lake are also complementary to the world of Twin Peaks. Formed by a large corps de ballet composed of white and black swans, dancers create circular rings (one could even imagine the stage and the circle of lakeside dancers as the recurring “squaring the circle” motif that Franck Boulègue discusses on his Twin Peaks blog regarding The Return; incidentally, he also discusses the related motifs of ducks and water here) and line formations that create dramatic backdrops performed in uniform waves, followed by checkerboard black and white patterns (varying black and white swans) during the final act.
Featured in Act 2 of Swan Lake (often referred to as the “white act” for the sea of white tutus present on stage), various strains from Dance of the Swans are in fact heard throughout the ballet, even during its introduction, in what music writer John Warrack qualifies in Tchaikovsky Ballet Music as the “emotional content of the drama”. James’ performance of Just You is equally emblematic of Twin Peaks, capturing its melodrama and vintage tone perfectly, whilst providing a reference to earlier events through its reprise in episode 13. In the same fashion, Dance of the Swans became a recurring and recognizable musical link to communicate the tragic and mysterious pathos of Swan Lake.
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| The evil sorcerer Rothbart and his daughter Odile. |
In episode 13 of Twin Peaks: The Return, Dance of the Swans is heard while Sonny Jim Jones enjoys his newly installed play set in the backyard, a location that itself becomes quite theatrical. Strands of lights adorn the beams of the play set at night, while a roving spotlight sweeps across the yard as "Dougie" and Janey-E peacefully observe their "son" from the house. In the ballet Swan Lake, this segment of the score is also heard at nightfall and announces the imminent appearance of the swans transforming to human form, their only respite from the sorcerer's curse. While these birds are peaceful creatures, Rothbart's evil is always lurking nearby, endowing the score with a dark and dramatic undertone. Similarly, Sonny Jim's bliss is undercut by the dark sky and the strange meandering spotlight, not to mention the oddball presence of Cooper as Dougie. In the ballet, the viewer quickly learns that there is something dark hovering just beneath the surface of the otherwise shimmering pastoral lakeside setting, just as Lancelot Court is no stranger to supernatural oddities. While the ballet's swans are unaware that Prince Siegfried is observing them at first, Sonny Jim also seems to be oblivious to the watchful eyes of his parents as he hops about in a circuit, repeating similar movements. The yard's centrally placed fountain is a prominent water feature, perhaps its own miniature lake, or a world within worlds, similar to those of the Swan Lake fairy tale.
The Starting Position is Much More Comfortable
Central themes and motifs in Swan Lake include: birds, water, visions, transformation, forces of lightness and darkness (sometimes within the same character), as well as multiples and a quest to return to one’s original human form following supernatural trauma. The entire premise of the ballet is a woman trapped in a looped cycle, doomed to remain in a state of duality indefinitely (until she and the prince end the curse through death), reminiscent not only of Laura Palmer’s story, but of the various loops and strange temporalities we’re currently experiencing in The Return.
The movement patterns in Swan Lake are also complementary to the world of Twin Peaks. Formed by a large corps de ballet composed of white and black swans, dancers create circular rings (one could even imagine the stage and the circle of lakeside dancers as the recurring “squaring the circle” motif that Franck Boulègue discusses on his Twin Peaks blog regarding The Return; incidentally, he also discusses the related motifs of ducks and water here) and line formations that create dramatic backdrops performed in uniform waves, followed by checkerboard black and white patterns (varying black and white swans) during the final act.
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| Circular patterns in Act 2 (the white act). |
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| Black and white patterns in the final act. |
Featured in Act 2 of Swan Lake (often referred to as the “white act” for the sea of white tutus present on stage), various strains from Dance of the Swans are in fact heard throughout the ballet, even during its introduction, in what music writer John Warrack qualifies in Tchaikovsky Ballet Music as the “emotional content of the drama”. James’ performance of Just You is equally emblematic of Twin Peaks, capturing its melodrama and vintage tone perfectly, whilst providing a reference to earlier events through its reprise in episode 13. In the same fashion, Dance of the Swans became a recurring and recognizable musical link to communicate the tragic and mysterious pathos of Swan Lake.
Supernatural Chords
As the lyrical center of Swan Lake, Dance of the Swans is characterized by its triple meter, a waltz in 6/8 time, and its use of A and B flat, all musical features of Just You as well. James' cyclical arpeggios are similar to the use of ascending and descending chord patterns found in Dance of the Swans that provide both pieces with a memorable rhythmic foundation underneath their respective melodies. Regardless of whether or not Lynch has studied Dance of the Swans structurally, Just You (among Lynch’s other musical projects) demonstrates an appreciation for melancholy minor keys and chord movements that croon. These elements are not unlike those of an earlier period in orchestration that gave us Swan Lake, a ballet whose tragic waters share a mythic aura like that of Twin Peaks.
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| Just You in episode 13, which harks back to the original some 27 years ago, below: |
Odd Side Note
Perusing the original Swan Lake score, I discovered with amusement a dance for dwarves noted in the third act that is currently NOT performed and has been replaced by general corps de ballet dancers, though the original title remains intact within the music's notation.
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