Concerto in D (Stravinsky)
Igor Stravinsky's Concerto in D ("Basle") for string orchestra was composed in Hollywood between the beginning of 1946 and 8 August of the same year in response to a 1946 commission from Paul Sacher to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Basler Kammerorchester (BKO—in English, Basel Chamber Orchestra), and for this reason is sometimes referred to as the "Basle" Concerto.
It was premiered on 27 January 1947 in Basel by the BKO, conducted by Paul Sacher.[1][2] Other sources say it was six days earlier, on the day of the orchestra's twentieth anniversary, 21 January,([3][4] when two other works commissioned by Sacher were also premiered: Arthur Honegger's Symphony No. 4 Deliciae Basiliensis and Bohuslav Martinů's Toccata e due Canzoni.[5][6]
The Concerto in D was the first composition Stravinsky created after becoming a naturalised American citizen on 28 December 1945 and the first of his works to be published under the contract with his new publisher, Boosey & Hawkes.[7]
The concerto has been choreographed several times as a ballet, first by Dore Hoyer at the Hamburg State Opera in 1950. Later ballet versions were made by Jerome Robbins, under the title of The Cage in 1951, by Werner Ulbrich, as Attis und die Nymphe at the Württembergische Staatstheater, Stuttgart, in 1959[8] and by Aimé de Lignière at the Royal Ballet of Flanders, as Acht in 1973.[9]
Movements
The concerto has three movements:
- Vivace
- Arioso: Andantino
- Rondo: Allegro
References
- Gritten, Anthony. 2003. "Chronology of Stravinsky's Life and Career". In The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky, edited by Jonathan Cross, ix–xiv. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-66330-X (cloth); ISBN 0-521-66377-6.
- White, Eric Walter (1979). Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works (2nd ed.). Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03985-8.
Footnotes
- Gritten 2003, p. xii; White 1979, p. 438.
- Walsh, Stephen (2001). "Stravinsky, Igor (Fyodorovich)". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 9780195170672.
- Pursglove, Glyn (2012). "Cardiff Celebrates Paul Sacher's Extraordinary Commissioning Legacy". Seen and Heard International. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
- Stephenson, Lesley, and Don Weed. 2002. Symphony of Dreams: The Conductor and Patron Paul Sacher. Zürich: Rüffer and Rub. p. 348. ISBN 978-3-907625-10-1. Reprinted in the series Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series. Lanham: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-4959-4.
- Ford, Andrew. 2002. "Back to the Future". ABC Radio 24 Hours (February): 98.
- Halbreich, Harry (1999). Reinhard G. Pauly (ed.). Arthur Honegger. Amadeus Series. Translated by Roger Nichols. Portland OR: Amadeus Press. p. 325. ISBN 9781574670417.
- White 1979, pp. 123–5.
- White 1979, pp. 439.
- Barbier, Rina. 1983. Het Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen. Antwerp: N.V. Scriptoria. p. 86. ISBN 978-90-02-14558-2.