NYCB Vol. 12 No. 7 - Movements for Piano and Orchestra

In his autobiography I Was a Dancer, Jacques d’Amboise recounts how Balanchine’s Movements for Piano and Orchestra came to be:

Balanchine, d'Amboise, Adams. Photo by Martha Swope, 1963.

“Diana joined me in rehearsals for another Balanchine milestone-Stravinsky's new piece, Movements for Piano and Orchestra. When Balanchine did a ballet for one of his muses, he didn't want to be bothered with anyone else. He focused his full attention on the chosen one. But our company's ballet master John Taras had insisted there be understudies, and lobbied for Suzanne Farrell, from the corps de ballet, to understudy Diana. Eventually, during rehearsals, Suzanne showed up, lurking in the back of the room, ignored by Balanchine.”

When Diana revealed to Balanchine that she was pregnant, and had been ordered to remain on bedrest by her doctor, Balanchine was inconsolable. 

Balanchine, d'Amboise, Adams.

Photos by Martha Swope, 1963. New York Public Library

“He declared, ‘We'll cancel the premiere!’ locked himself in his apartment, and refused to answer the phone. ‘We have to do this premiere!’ Taras insisted. He asked me, ‘Do you think the understudy can do it?’ ‘Sure,’ I said. ’I’Il teach Suzanne everything we do together, and Diana can teach her the solos." So, the next day, I rolled back the rug in Diana's living room, and Suzanne watched intently as Diana, lying elegantly supine on the couch, demonstrated, with hand gestures, all the necessary toe work.

“Taras finally reached Balanchine and convinced him to at least come see the understudy in rehearsal. He did and was enthralled. Within minutes, he was up and rehearsing Suzanne, lifting her leg, molding her gestures, demonstrating to me how I should hold her, using every legitimate excuse to touch her. ‘God took away Diana, but sent me Suzanne!’ Balanchine gushed.”

---

Suzanne Farrell shared her own side of the story in her autobiography, Holding on to the Air:

Balanchine, d'Amboise, Farrell.

Photo by Martha Swope, 1963.

New York Public Library

"[...] less than a week before Movements was to première, Jacques came up to me and said, 'We're going over to Diana's apartment so you can learn her part in Movements.' I changed into my street clothes, packed my dance bag, and followed him to Diana's house. I had no idea what was going on, but as usual I acquiesced to suggestions from those I respected and pretended to be calm and intelligent about seemingly ridiculous propositions.

"When Diana told him that she couldn't do the première, he was apparently deeply shaken. Now he had a dilemma: cancel the premiere of a much awaited piece of music by his friend Igor Stravinsky (who was to attend the performance) or do the ballet with someone else. But his vision of Movements included Diana, and he couldn't see it without her. He was on the point of canceling the ballet when Jacques, who was aware of what was at stake, made a bold suggestion: 'Let me teach it to Suzaahn.' Jacques already believed in me, and after he had taught me the Midsummer pas de deux six weeks earlier, he knew that I could learn quickly. Balanchine rejected the idea, but Jacques persisted, and finally Balanchine skeptically agreed to let Jacques try. It was at this point that Jacques rushed me to Diana's.

"We found her stretched out on the couch under a blanket in her tiny living room. There was no use changing into practice clothes, so I wore my street clothes and bare feet. Climbing onto pointe on Diana's slippery parquet floor could only have left me beside her on the couch. with a broken foot, and no Movements in sight. Along with the rest of the world, I had never heard the music, and between Jacques' and Diana's grunting, clapping, and singing, I didn't manage to learn it. I did learn the important counts, but most of the ballet was uncountable, and I was told to listen for 'the big boom,' 'the second crash,' 'the sixth silent note,' or 'the sort of pretty music after the messy music.' I thought I was going crazy, but I kept trying to remember the steps, the angles, the upside-down lifts, and the complicated stage directions. 'Now you run quickly down here, stage right only farther over than in the last section ... ' I couldn't do any of it physically, of course, because Diana's living room was ten feet by twelve and had a couch and a coffee table in the middle of it.

Balanchine, d'Amboise, Farrell.

Photo by Martha Swope, 1963.

New York Public Library

"Despite all this, after about two hours managed, somehow, to learn the whole ballet. There were enough steps to fill a four-act Swan Lake, only they seemed to be danced backward and upside down. My head was swimming in a sea of développés, crouches, lunges, and strange musical cues, but my body hadn't yet executed one of them. I went home and tried to write it all down in my math notebook (was also studying for a big algebra exam at Rhodes at the time) before I forgot it, but after filling up twenty or so pages with hieroglyphics and stick-figure diagrams I gave up the literary approach; I had completed only the first of the five sections in the ballet. Writing down steps didn't help and never would in a three-dimensional profession.

"The next day Jacques and I rehearsed alone, with Gordon Boelzner playing the piano, and while we sorted out some of the problems and blank spots, I heard the music for the first time. Diana's and Jacques' humming proved to have been more correct than I had thought possible; this was Stravinsky at his most cerebral and stark-there was nothing familiar to hold on to for security; it was music unlike any that had ever been danced to before.

"I cannot help thinking that the choreography that Jacques and I showed to Mr. B the following morning was not exactly what he had taught to Diana--how could it have been under the circumstances?--but it must have been close enough in spirit and energy because Mr. B's eyebrows rose and his demeanor changed. Rehearsals with him were immediately scheduled with the six corps girls. He began altering, fixing and changing things to fit, although he remained as quiet and calm as usual; the première would go on as scheduled. Though I had always liked the idea of 'saving the day,' I could never have imagined it could mean anything as important, or as revealing, as dancing Movements for Diana Adams on a few days' notice. As I realize now my presence wasn't just saving the day, it was the center and to judge.

of the day when all eyes were focused on me, eyes straining to analyze and to judge.

"Two days before the premiere we had a rehearsal in Studio 2 at the school up on 82nd Street. I was late because I had a two hour algebra exam that morning and had to take the bus up Broadway to School afterward. I charged straight into the studio fifteen minutes late, dragging my math books behind me. I thought Mr. B, Jacques, and Gordon, would at the rehearsal, and the idea of keeping them all waiting petrified me. When I barged through the door and found the studio filled with movie cameras, electrical cords, lights, and an entire camera crew, I thought and hoped that I was in the wrong studio. I wasn't. At the front of the studio lined up on chairs were John Taras, Robert Irving and Hugo Fiorato (our two conductors), and Lincoln Kirstein, the man who, with Balanchine, had founded the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet. Seated on little stools in the center of the lineup were Balanchine and Stravinsky, engaged in quiet conversation. A documentary for West German television was being made about the composer, and the cameras were to record him at the rehearsal of Balanchine's ballet to his new work. [See video below]

"'I'm sorry I'm late,' I blurted out, 'I had an exam at school...' But before I could offer my excuses, Mr. B turned and with no admonition or comment said simply, 'Let's begin.' I was stone cold from not having had class that morning, but I didn't have time to consider what an improbable situation I was in; I simply dived straight into the world of Movements.

"The rehearsal was terrible. I made a lot of mistakes that upset me, even though only a few of us in the studio knew they were mistakes. My body was not as sensitive to the music as it should have been because I had just spent several hours concentrating on what 2a +b = c might mean. But, thank heaven, youth has its pliancy, its elasticity, and somehow I managed to scramble through Stravinsky's

score.

"If I had ever felt inadequate before, it paled beside the way I felt when the rehearsal was over. Balanchine. Stravinsky, Kirstein, Jacques, and the cruel camera eye had witnessed, firsthand, my insufficiencies, and I felt that I had failed them all. I went up to Mr. B afterward and told him what I felt: 'I don't think you should let me do this ballet. I'm just not ready for it.' It may have been a silly thing to say, but I thought I had to be honest with him--as if he didn't know already. Then a wonderful thing happened. He clasped his hands as if in prayer, made a small bowing gesture, and said simply, 'Oh, dear, you let me be the judge,' And so I did, forevermore.

[...]

"Balanchine introduced me to Stravinsky, and I was awed; I loved his music, I heard only later of an exchange between Balanchine and Stravinsky at this rehearsal: Stravinsky said, 'George, who is this girl?' He knew Balanchine's leading ladies, and clearly I was not one of them. 'Igor Fyodorovich, this is Suzanne Farrell,' replied Mr. B. 'Just been born.'"

"Movements premiered on an all-Stravinsky program that included Apollo, Orpheus, and Jerome Robbins The Cage. Mr. B seemed pleased afterward, patting me on the shoulder and saying, 'Good, dear.'

The audience also seemed pleased, and there was an enormous ovation. The reviews were almost universally ecstatic. 'It may well go down in history as one of the greatest ballets ever created,' wrote Allen Hughes in The New York Times."

--Holding on to the Air by Suzanne Farrell