Brahms–Schoenberg Quartet

Background and production#

Arnold Schoenberg’s orchestration of Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 premiered in 1937. The ballet is plotless and has four movements, titled Allegro, Intermezzo, Andante and Rondo Alla Zingarese. In 1985, two years after Balanchine died, NYCB switched to a new set designed by David Mitchell, Mark Stanley later redesigned the lighting. On the premiere, The New York Times critic Clive Barnes called the ballet “careful but tedious”. In 2016, the Paris Opera Ballet performed Brahms–Schoenberg Quartet with new sets and costumes by Karl Lagerfeld. The San Francisco Ballet had also performed the ballet.

Casts#

• World premiere: World premiere: Melissa Hayden, Gloria Govrin, Patricia McBride, Allegra Kent, Suzanne Farrell, André Prokovsky, Conrad Ludlow, Edward Villella, Jacques d’Amboise
• Paris Opera Ballet premiere (2016): Dorothée Gilbert, Mathieu Ganio, Sabrina Mallem, Amandine Albisson, Stéphane Bullion, Myriam Ould-Braham, Mathias Heymann, Laura Hecquet, Karl Paquette

External links#

• Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet on the website of the Balanchine Trust