Volume 45, Number 15 · October 8, 1998
Stravinsky & Balanchine
By Robert Craft
I was the only witness when Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine were working together in the creation of two masterpieces, Agon and The Flood. That said, let me partly disqualify myself. One would have to be Russian, as well as speak the language, in order to understand the exchanges, at the creative level, of these two twentieth-century colossi. I satisfy neither requirement. At the time of Orpheus (1948), they conversed in Russian almost exclusively, rarely slipping into English, and then only out of consideration for the frustration of onlookers such as myself. By the time of Agon (1954-1957), both artists had become fully effective in English, notwithstanding Balanchine's tendency to omit verbs and the ends of sentences, and Stravinsky's heavily accented but maddeningly macaronic vocabulary. By the time of The Flood (1962), the English of both was resourceful, fluent, original, and not quite correct. But of course verbal language was not their principal means of communication. Stravinsky could articulate musical thoughts at the piano, and Balanchine choreographic ones through movement and gesture.
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