Performance Dates
TRAVERSE THREE NEOCLASSICAL OFFERINGS INSPIRED BY EMINENT GERMAN COMPOSERS
Two major ballets performed to music by Bach bookend this program, along with a spiky Balanchine dance set to a work by the 20th-century composer Hindemith. Concerto Barocco, first presented in 1941, was among the three works danced at the first performance ever given by the newly established New York City Ballet in 1948. Its formal beauty and responsiveness to the score has made it an undisputed classic of the international repertory. Robbins dedicated three of his last four ballets to the music of Bach. His very last, Brandenburg, from 1997, is a series of delicate yet complex pas de deux set to four of the famous concertos of the title. Kammermusik No. 2 finds Balanchine meeting the challenges of the Hindemith score with lively choreography for two principal couples and, unusually, an all-male corps de ballet.
Ballets on this Program
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Concerto Barocco
One of Balanchine’s greatest masterpieces, Concerto Barocco is music made visible as two elegant yet dynamic lead ballerinas each depict one of the instrumental soloists in a virtuosic double violin concerto.
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Kammermusik No. 2
Requiring great energy, speed, and precision, the striking choreography in Kammermusik No. 2 echoes the intricacies of its modernist score with jagged lines and stylized gestures.
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Brandenburg
Inspired by Bach's ever-popular Brandenburg Concertos, Robbins’ last ballet for NYCB presents a spectrum of atmospheres, from sheer ebullience to quiet mystery.