Circus Polka

The Circus Polka ( Complete Original Title: Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant ) is an instrumental piece by Igor Stravinsky, which was originally composed in 1942 for a ballet production of the choreographer George Balanchine for the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus. Credited was the Circus Polka by one consisting of 50 elephants and ballerinas ballet. 1944 published an orchestral version of the Stravinsky Circus Polka, which since then is one of the standard program of many orchestras.

Genesis

Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine got to know in 1925, when Balanchine staged as a newly hired choreographer for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Stravinsky's symphonic poem Le chant du rossignol as ballet. It developed a long-lasting friendship and cooperation, which continued, as both emigrated in the 1930s in the United States.

The end of 1941 the management of the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus Balanchine with the unusual request to choreograph a circus act famous for their elephant group for the next spring season in New York contacted. Balanchine struck immediately before a collaboration with Stravinsky, who wowed the circus companies. Stravinsky but only found out on January 12, 1942 by telephone by the proposal. Balanchine was later conversation with Stravinsky again as follows:

Although Stravinsky was busy with his own projects, he acted with Ringling Brothers from a high fee for a short piece of music, which he completed within a few days. The piano version of the Circus Polka, which was an allusion to Stravinsky's telephone conversation with Balanchine the dedication " For a young elephant ", was completed on February 5, 1942.

Even if the song is named after a polka, it contains various rhythms change. Only at the end of the nearly four -minute-long composition sounds of a polka, however, turns out to be a musical quotation from Schubert's Military March. That this final of the Circus Polka was a parody of the Marche militaire, was always disputed by Stravinsky. He saw his Circus Polka later as a satire and. Than a musical equivalent to the drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec, even if not apparent from his notes while composing this intention

At the staging of the ballet Stravinsky was no longer involved. The arrangement of the Circus Polka for a brass band and organ was created by film music composer David Raksin. George Balanchine choreography designed for the 50 elephants and 50 dancers of the human circus, led by the female elephant Modoc and Balanchine's prima ballerina Vera Zorina and wife. The elephants (even the cops ) were forced into pink tutus. Contemporary Rapporteur were initially concerned that Stravinsky's music could trigger a panic among the animals, and finally succeeded Balanchine, now with Modoc, rehearse a " dance " choreography.

The as " choreographic tour de force " advertised staging premiered on April 9, 1942 at New York's Madison Square Garden. The circus performance was a great success, and the audience was particularly enthusiastic about the unusual ballet performance. After the premiere, the Circus Polka from the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus was performed 424 times more - Stravinsky never saw the staging itself but

Edits

Two years after its original piano version edited Stravinsky Circus Polka for an orchestral performance. The first performance of this version was made together with the Four Norwegian Moods in January 1944 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra Stravinsky conducting. In the following months several benefit concerts took place to support the United States Army in World War II instead, which were broadcast on the radio. Stravinsky reported that he had received a telegram from a female elephant named Bessie after a transmission that had been part of the ballet in 1942, and he met then in Los Angeles. Charles de Gaulle, in turn, had, as he had heard another transmission, ordered the notes of the piano version and taken to France. The orchestral version of the Circus Polka quickly established itself in many orchestras program and is now mostly in children's concerts.

George Balanchine also devoted himself again to the ballet and designed in 1945 for a one-off performance of the New York City Ballet ( NYCB ) under the direction of Lincoln Kirstein, a new choreography without animals. When Jerome Robbins in 1972 director of the New York City Ballet was, he created a new production of Circus Polka, in the Elevinnen the School of American Ballet took the role of the elephants, led by a senior trainer. This choreography counted since the repertoire of NYCB, often with guest appearances by prominent dancers such as Mikhail Baryshnikov as a trainer.

In 2006, appeared in the United States, an illustrated children's book that tells the story of the Circus Polka.