Agon

Stravinsky Violin Concerto/ Symphony in Three Movements

The music:

Balanchine and Stravinsky worked closely on the music for this ballet, deciding on the lengths and speeds of each movement, discussing the elements Balanchine required for the dance he had in mind, and the character of the overall piece. He later spoke of their initial meetings. 'We discussed timing and decided that the whole ballet should last about 20 minutes. Stravinsky always breaks things down into essentials'. The composer liked a firm idea of the length of each movement, to give an initial structure for his music. 'When I know how long a piece must take', he explained, 'then it excites me'.

Stravinsky composed the music for Agon using elements of a technique called serialism, which follows a set of mathematical rules.

The dance:

When creating Agon, Balanchine first looked to Greek mythology for inspiration. 'We looked into a number of possibilities', he said, 'but none of them seemed to work out. It was Stravinsky who hit upon the idea of a suite of dances based on a 17th-century book of court dances he had recently come across [and] we all liked the idea'. The resulting ballet explores different styles of dance, rather than telling a story.