Stravinsky and Balanchine count to 12

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1957, the New York City Ballet staged a new collaboration between great Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky and great Russian-born choreographer Georges Balanchine. 

The ballet company had been asking Stravinsky for nearly a decade to write a third ballet on a classical subject to make up a trilogy that would include his two earlier dance works on Greek mythology, Apollo from 1928 and Orpheus from 1948. Just as they were about to despair that Stravinsky would ever do it, he unexpectedly obliged — if not with a Greek myth, at least with a Greek word: his new ballet was titled Agon, the Greek word for contest or struggle.

On a more modern note, by the 1950s, as Stravinsky’s assistant Robert Craft recalled, “Something called twelve-tone music was in the air, and Agon is about 12 dancers and 12 tones.”

Agon is also set in 12 scenes, and some of its movements were consciously laid out in multiples of 12 bars. Balanchine himself said in working on the ballet, “Stravinsky and I constructed every possibility of dividing 12” — which in dance terms, meant abstract solos, duets, trios and quartets to match the abstract, if eminently danceable, nature of Stravinsky’s score.

Music Played in Today's Program

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Agon Ballet; Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra; Michael Stern, conductor; Denon 78972

On This Day

Births

• 1709 - German composer Franz Xaver Richter, probably in Holleschau, Moravia

• 1823 - French opera composer Ernest (Louise-Etienne-Ernest) Reyer, in Marseilles. An ardent admirer of Wagner, Ernest Reyer added a Germanic “-er” to his last name “Rey.” His most famous opera is Sigurd (1884), a retelling of the Siegfried story familiar from Wagner’s Ring Cycle, but set in the style of a French grand opera.

• 1847 - Norwegian composer and pianist Agathe Backer-Grondahl, in Holmestrand

Deaths

• 1707 - British composer and organist Jeremiah Clarke, 33, dies by suicide in London, supposedly after an unhappy love affair. This date is according to the Julian “Old Style” calendar still in use in England that year (Gregorian date: Dec. 12).

• 1950 - Anglo-Irish composer Ernest John Moeran, 55, near Kenmare, Ireland

Premieres

• 1832 - Mendelssohn: Overture, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, in Berlin

• 1902 - Nielsen: Symphony No. 2 (The Four Temperaments) in Copenhagen

• 1924 - Gershwin: musical Lady, Be Good, at the Liberty Theater in New York City. This show featured Fred and Adele Astaire and included the classic Gershwin songs “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Oh, Lady Be Good,” and “The Half of It, Dearie, Blues.”

• 1934 - Ravel: Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, his last work, in Paris at a Colonne Concert

• 1935 - Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2, by the Madrid Symphony, with the Spanish conductor Enrique Fernández Arbós and the French violinist Robert Soëtens

• 1937 - Vaughan Williams: one-act opera Riders to the Sea, in London

• 1944 - Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting; Bartók composed a revised and more dramatic ending for this work this work soon after the Boston premiere (The original ending heard at the premiere was judged too perfunctory and abrupt).

• 1944 - Gruenberg: Violin Concerto, by violinist Jascha Heifetz, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting

• 1951 - Britten: opera, Billy Budd (libretto by E.M. Forester, after Hermann Melville), in London, at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, with the composer conducting

• 1956 - Bernstein: musical Candide (original version) at Martin Beck Theater in New York City. A trial run opened at the Colonial Theater in Boston on October 29, 1956. Bernstein revised the work in 1973 (Chelsea Theater version), 1982 (New York City Opera version), 1988 (opera house version), and 1989 (concert version with narrator).

• 1957 - Stravinsky: ballet Agon, at the New York City Ballet, choreographed by Georges Balanchine. The first concert performance of Stravinsky’s ballet score occurred on June 17, 1957, at a 75th birthday concert for Stravinsky in Los Angeles conducted by Robert Craft.

• 1977 - Lukas Foss: American Cantata, in New York City

Others

• 1736 - J.S. Bach gives an organ recital at the Frauenkirche in Dresden;

• 1822 - 11 year-old pianist Franz Liszt performs for the first time in Vienna at that city’s town hall. His first public appearance ever had occurred in October of 1820, in Oedenberg, when he was nine years old.

• 1859 - The French Opera House opens in New Orleans with Rossini’s William Tell

• 1886 - Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde receives its American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with Wagner's protégé, Anton Seidl, conducting