Movements for Piano and Orchestra

Movements for Piano and Orchestra is a neoclassical ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to Stravinsky's score of the same name. The ballet premiered on April 9, 1963, at City Center of Music and Drama, performed by the New York City Ballet. Though the two lead roles were created for Diana Adams and Jacques d'Amboise, seventeen-year-old Suzanne Farrell danced the female lead at the premiere due to Adams' pregnancy. Starting in 1966, Movements and Monumentum pro Gesualdo (1960) are performed together. Choreography Movements for Piano and Orchestra is set to the composition of the same name by Stravinsky, a friend of Balanchine. Balanchine commented that the score's "complexity and compression are remarkable." 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.