Stravinsky and Balanchine count to 12

Composers Datebook

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