Tagged with 'George Balanchine'

It's not just the rollercoasters that pirouette here: From 14 August 2024, the New York City Ballet will be making a guest appearance at Copenhagen's Tivoli. Together with the Sjællands Symfoniorkester, Igor Stravinsky's Concerto en ré will be performed in the Tivoli Concert Hall.

From 3 November, the Dresden Semperoper Ballet will present Paul Hindemith’s Theme with Four Variations as part of their evening of ballet “Labyrinth”. The ballet will employ George Balanchine’s original choreography, accompanied by the Staatskapelle Dresden and pianist Alfredo Miglionico, conducted by Nathan Fifield.

Hindemith was commissioned to compose Theme with Four Variations by the renowned choreographer George Balanchine for a new ballet, scheduled to premiere in late May 1941 as a prelude to the School of American Ballet’s South American tour. However, due to the events of WWII they were forced to abandon using the work of the German “hostile foreigner” Hindemith, despite the fact that the Nazis had also banned his music in Europe. As a result the ballet was not premiered until 1943 when it was performed in concert in the Swiss city of Winterthur, and the first scenic performance was given in 1946 by Balanchine’s newly founded New York City Ballet.

Paul Hindemith – Theme with Four Variations: the four temperaments of man

Hindemith’s Theme with Four Variations has the subtitle ‘according to the Four Temperaments’ and was inspired by the Ancient Greek theory suggesting there are four fundamental personality types: the melancholic, the sanguine, the phlegmatic and the choleric. Based on this model of classification, Hindemith divided his work into four movements plus an overture. The first section introduces a simple but central musical theme, which is developed differently in each of the following sections to musically emulate the four ancient temperaments. As part of the musical arrangement of the variations, Hindemith specified: "C is a kind of waltz, D a shorter piece, and E becomes a very wild thing."

I tried to portray Hindemith's austere score physically in my choreography, as if my dances provide the negative to his positive film. [...] Although the score is based on the idea of four temperaments, neither the music nor the choreography itself is a literal interpretation of this idea. The understanding of Greek medical ideas of temperaments was merely the starting point for our creative process. – George Balanchine

Five further performances of the "Labyrinth" evening of ballet will be given at the Semperoper Dresden from 5-21 November.

• Paul Hindemith - profile


• Theme with four Variations - work details


• Semperoper Ballet

 

© Staatstheater Stuttgart / Foto: Ulrich Beuttenmüller (Jelena Bushuyeva, Ami Morita, Marijn Rademaker, Alessandra Tognoloni und Miriam Kacerova in Phlegmatisch)

On 23 February 2018, Igor Stravinsky’s Circus Polka will be performed by the Orchestre National de Lorraine and conductor Jacques Mercier in the extraordinary venue of the Amnéville Zoo, not far from the French city of Metz.

Circus Polka was commissioned by choreographer George Balanchine from the Barnum & Bailey Circus, who asked Stravinsky to write a short ballet to accompany the circus’ baby-elephant act referenced in the work’s subtitle “For a Young Elephant”. Stravinsky initially composed the work for solo piano, which was then orchestrated for circus band by David Raksin and premiered in 1842 with fifty elephants in Madison Square Gardens, New York. Stravinsky subsequently orchestrated the work himself in a version premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with the composer conducting at the Sanders Theater, Massachusetts.

Igor Stravinsky – Circus Polka: A Circus act with musical wit

Despite the title of Circus Polka, Stravinsky’s composition contains only two bars featuring a typical polka rhythm, and clearly demonstrates the composer’s penchant for extreme and frequent changes of rhythm. This presumably led to difficulties performing the work with elephants as originally intended, as the animals react sensitively to irregular rhythms. Stravinsky also makes reference to Schubert's Marche militaire No. 1 in D major, a quotation Stravinsky always denied.

Having been performed more than 400 times since its composition, the Circus Polka is a delightful and extremely successful work for Stravinsky.

George Belanchine recounts first proposing the work:

Belanchine: “I want to ask you if would like to make a little ballet together with me.”

Stravinsky: “For whom?”

Belanchine: “For a few elephants.”

Stravinsky: “How old?”

Belanchine: “Very young.”

Stravinsky (after a short break with a serious voice): “Fine. If the elephants are pretty young, I will do this.”

• Igor Stravinsky - profil


• Circus Polka - workdetails


• Circus Polka - information