Choreartium – an insight
Irina Baronova
When Massine announced that he was starting to choreograph his second symphonic ballet, to be set to Johannes Brahms’ fourth symphony, we were thrilled. Before starting rehearsals he made the company listen to the music and become completely familiar with it. The symphony is in four movements, with each movement having a different feeling. Massine’s grasp of the work made this ballet unforgettable to this day. He completed the work in 1933 during our first three week London season, which kept being extended by popular demand and lasted four months.
Massine’s first symphonic ballet, Les Présages, set to Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony, had turned out to be a huge success with the public and ballet critics. However, before the premiere the leading musical critic of those times, Ernest Newman, was expressing his loud disapproval that Massine dared to use great symphonic works in a ballet company repertoire. Nevertheless he came to the premiere (13 April 1933) and was heard to say, ‘I shall close my eyes and listen to the music’.
He must have peeped with at least one eye and liked what he saw as in his review the next day he had the grace to admit that Massine was a genius of the same calibre as the great composer. From then on Ernest Newman and Leonide Massine became great friends and Newman volunteered to collaborate with Massine and exchange views on the finer points of Brahms 4th Symphony. The result is historic.
The night of the premiere of Choreartium (24 October 1933) the curtain rose in complete silence and the audience were confronted with an empty stage. At the first note of the orchestra the leading couple appear, immediately establishing a vigorous, youthful atmosphere which continues throughout the first movement.
The second movement is in total contrast, so well illustrating Massine’s versatile imagination in grasping the change of mood in the music. In dimmed lighting, the women sombrely dressed in Bordeaux coloured full-length tunics with cowls, move in single file around the stage, each with the same step until with a sudden surge of the music, they disburse into different groups reminiscent of religious paintings by Old Masters. The style was a revolutionary new approach to choreographing. It was dignified and deeply moving.
As I reflect on the third movement I see springtime, sunshine, flowers, youth and tenderness.
Fourth and final movement. Very strong and determined. Technically demanding on the men dancers. I always thought of it as a show of determination which can lead to human achievement.
I shall always remember Massine’s symphonic ballets as great works of art, and consider him to be one of the geniuses of the last century.
Irina Baronova was engaged by Balanchine for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1932, aged thirteen, and created several leading roles. She toured Australia as a principal with the 1938-39 de Basil company, joined American Ballet Theatre in 1940, and later acted in Hollywood films and on stage in England and America. She now lives close to the north coast of New South Wales.





