Movements for Piano and Orchestra (ballet)

Choreography#

Movements for Piano and Orchestra is set to the composition of the same name by Stravinsky, a friend of Balanchine. However, conductor Hugo Fiorato once said, “Who… would listen to Movements of Stravinsky by itself?… I don’t think I would. But when you hear Movements and you see Movements through Balanchine’s eyes and what he has added to the score, it suddenly becomes an amazingly exciting work.” Movements is performed by a lead couple and a corps de ballet consisting of six women. New York Times critic Allen Hughes noted the two leads “are generally engaged in the kind of Balanchine duets that explores the variety of poses for two. It is, in fact, as if Balanchine had examined all the statuary in the world and has summed up all the pose possibilities in this work. Yet the result is not static.” Author Richard Buckle noted the corps “alone moves during the terse intermediate sections connecting the five movements and which backs up the principals in the remainder of the ballet.” They are often divided to two trios, and “assume an extraordinary variety of poses, like eccentric modern versions of the Three Graces.” Responding to Balanchine’s choreography, Stravinsky wrote: To see Balanchine’s choreography of Movements is to hear the music with one’s eyes, and this visual hearing has been a greater revelation to me, I think, than to anyone else. The choreography emphasizes relationships of which I had hardly been aware – in the same way – and the performance was like a tour of a building for which I had drawn the plans but never explored the result. Balanchine approached the music by identifying some of the more familiar marks of my style, and as I heard him fastening on my tiniest repeated rhythm or sustaining group, I knew he had joined the work to the corpus of my music, at the same time probably reducing the time lag of its general acceptability by as much as a decade. I owe him even more for another aspect of the revelation: his dramatic point is a love parable – in which ballet is it not? – but the coda had a suggestion of myth that reminded me of the ending of Apollo.

Production#

Balanchine conceived the idea of Movements for Piano and Orchestra for Diana Adams, one of his muses at the time, and Jacques d’Amboise as the two leads. In his memoir, d’Amboise wrote that Balanchine “didn’t want to be bothered with anyone else” whenever he created a new piece for one of his muses, but ballet master John Taras wanted Balanchine to have an understudy for Adams, and suggested 17-year-old Suzanne Farrell. However, in Farrell’s account, Adams “had no official understudy.” According to Farrell’s memoir, d’Amboise knew Farrell was a quick learner, and lobbied Balanchine to replace Adams with Farrell. Balanchine initially opposed the idea, but later reluctantly agreed. Farrell noted she “had no idea what was going on” at the time, and only learned the full story years later.

Performances#

Movements for Piano and Orchestra premiered on April 9, 1963, at City Center of Music and Drama, with Robert Irving conducting and the piano played by Gordon Boelzner. Farrell’s company, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, had revived Movements.

Videography#

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York City Ballet released a 2015 video recording of Movements online, featuring Maria Kowroski and Ask la Cour.

External links#

• Movements for Piano and Orchestra on New York City Ballet’s website
• Movements for Piano and Orchestra on the George Balanchine Trust’s website
• Balanchine’s Monumentum pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra on New York City Ballet’s website