Volume 49, Number 20 · December 19, 2002
Geniuses Together
By Jennifer Homans
Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention
by Charles M. Joseph
Yale University Press, 440 pp., $40.00
One afternoon in New York City, George Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky were sitting at the piano working together on a new ballet. Stravinsky inquired how long one of the dances should be, and Balanchine responded, 'Oh, about two-and-a-half minutes.' Stravinsky shot back, 'Don't say 'about,' there is no such thing as 'about.' Is it two minutes, two minutes and fifteen seconds, two minutes and thirty seconds, or something in between? Give me the exact time, please, and I'll come as close to it as possible.' Balanchine later commented that their work together often centered on such negotiations about time: 'When I know how long a piece must take,' Stravinsky explained, 'then it excites me.' As if to underscore the point, Balanchine would answer critics prodding him to say what a ballet was 'about' with a quip: 'about twenty-eight minutes.'
Review, 4623 words
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