Biographical Note
Ballet Caravan (later American Ballet Caravan) was founded on July 17, 1936, at Bennington College, Vermont, by American impresario, arts patron, historian, critic, theorist, editor, and ballet director Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996). He estabslihed this organization as a means to develop choreographic ideas in ballet. The first troupe of thirteen dancers, on vacation from George Balanchine’s American Ballet, included Ruthanna Boris, Gisella Caccialanza, Harold and Lew Christensen, Erick Hawkins, and Eugene Loring. Kirsten aimed to develop a national style of dance that would break away from the prevailing European, primarily Russian, influence in ballet. In 1938, Kirstein wrote "Blast at Ballet: A Corrective for the American Audience," which was an attack on the "so-called Russian ballet" as well as managers, patrons, critics, and the public. In a program note from the same year, Kirsten wrote, "The Caravan is unique in so much as all of its choreography is done by its own dancers ... and because it employs as collaborators, not already recognized European designers, but only Americans of a generation parallel to the dancers ... The Caravan will continue to collaborate with younger American designers and musicians to find a direction for the classic dance ... rooted in our contemporary and national preferences."
Well-known works produced by Ballet Caravan included William Dollar's Yankee Clipper (commissioned music by Paul Bowles); Erick Hawkins's Show Piece (commissioned score by Robert McBride); Antony Tudor's Time Table (music by Aaron Copland); Lew Christensen and José Fernández's Pastorela (commissioned music by Paul Bowles); and Dollar’s Juke Box (commissioned music by Alec Wilder). The most celebrated works that originated from Ballet Caravan are Lew Christensen's Filling Station (commissioned music by Virgil Thompson); Eugene Loring's Billy the Kid (commissioned music by Copland); and two of George Balanchine's greatest masterpieces: Ballet Imperial (music by Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky) and Concerto Barocco (music by J. S. Bach).
Ballet Caravan toured throughout the United States during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Balanchine's American Ballet and Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan merged in 1941 to become the American Ballet Caravan. This company was chosen by Kirstein's friend Nelson Rockefeller, the State Department's Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, to tour Latin America for five months. In the months leading up to the tour, Kirstein arranged for the Library of Congress to lend his company a recording device that they could use to record the folk and popular music of the nations they visited. He also sought, and received, permission to commission works by Latin American composers under the aegis of the Library-managed Coolidge Foundation as part of his tour. He believed the prestige of the Foundation would enhance the importance of the commissions he would offer there. Kirstein's proposal involved channeling funds he was expecting to receive from Rockefeller for commissioning new works as a special gift to the Coolidge Foundation, which would then review and approve any commissions. Harold Spivacke, director of the Library of Congress Music Division, was interested in commissioning works from composers included in this effort, such as Francisco Paolo Mignone. It does not appear, however, that any such transfer of funds occurred.
The American Ballet Caravan Music Scores holds materials for two of Ballet Caravan's well-known works: Paul Bowles's Pastorela and Alec Wilder’s Juke Box. Composer and writer Paul Bowles was born in New York on December 30, 1910. In 1929, he met composer Henry Cowell, who suggested that Bowles study composition with Aaron Copland. When Copland decided to go to Europe, Bowles went along. In Paris, he associated with Virgil Thompson and Gertrude Stein, the person who would have a profound influence on his life. During the 1930s and 1940s, Bowles composed a number of works including Kirstein’s commission for Ballet Caravan, which resulted in the ballet Yankee Clipper, and the music for the Orson Welles Federal Theater Project production of Horse Eats Hat. Bowles was a respected composer of incidental music for theater and created music for productions by William Saroyan, Tennessee Williams, and Lillian Hellman, in addition to productions by Welles. In 1941, Bowles was commissioned by Kirstein to compose music for Pastorela, which was choreographed by Lew Christensen and José Fernández and premiered by Ballet Caravan in late May 1941 at New York City’s Little Theater of Hunter College. In 1943, the Museum of Modern Art produced Bowles's zarzuela titled "The Wind Remains," conducted by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Merce Cunningham. In 1942, Bowles became a music critic for the New York Herald Tribune. He concentrated on writing from the mid-1940s until his death in 1999.
Alec Wilder was born on February 16, 1907, in Rochester, New York. Although he studied briefly at the Eastman School of Music, Wilder was, for the most part, a self-taught composer. Combining elements of jazz and popular song, Mitch Miller and Frank Sinatra were first responsible for bringing Wilder's music to a wider audience. Miller organized historic recordings of Wilder's music in 1939 and Sinatra, who was to be a life-long friend, persuaded Columbia Records to record Wilder's music in 1945. Wilder composed music for Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra, and Benny Goodman. In 1941, Kirstein commissioned a score for the ballet Juke Box, built on popular thematic material. Juke Box premiered in late May 1941, performed by Ballet Caravan at the Little Theater of Hunter College, New York City. Ballets for other companies included False Dawn and Life Goes On. Alec Wilder died in 1980.
The most unusual items in this Collection are three scores by Latin American composers: Estancia by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983); Fantasias Brasileiras: no. 4, for piano and orchestra by Brazilian composer Francisco Paulo Mignone (1897-1986); and Cinco Piezas Brevas for string orchestra by Chilean composer Domingo Santa Cruz (1899-1987).
Alberto Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 11, 1916. He began his musical studies at age seven, before entering the Williams Conservatory at age twelve. Following his graduation there, Ginastera entered the National Conservatory. A suite from Ginastera’s first ballet, Pambi, premiered at the Teatro Colon while he was still a student at the Conservatory. The ballet later received a fully-staged performance in 1940, the year before Kirstein commissioned Estancias. The orchestral suite Ginastera derived from the ballet would become his 'breakout' work when it premiered at Buenos Aires' Teatro Colon in 1943. Estancias would finally be mounted for the Colon Theatre Ballet by Russian émigré Michel Borovsky in 1952. It was mounted again in 2010 by Christopher Wheeldon for the New York City Ballet. Ginastera died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1983.
Francisco Paulo Mignone was born on September 3, 1897, in São Paulo shortly after his parents had emigrated from Italy. He began musical studies with his father and performed as a pianist with dance bands in his early adolescence to help finance his musical studies in the city's Conservatory of Drama and Music as a student of Agostino Cantú. He subsequently studied under Vicenzo Ferroni at the Conservatory in Milan. Mignone returned to Brazil in 1929, and in response to criticism of his Eurocentrism by poet Mario de Andrade, began his search for a nationalistic musical idiom. His first ballet, composed in 1933, dealt with Afro-Brazilian themes and his Fantasias Brasileiras: no. 4, for piano and orchestra (1936),is also based on Afro-Brazilian music. In his introduction to the holograph score, Mignone writes that the two initial themes in the work were "sung by the people during the Carnival of 1935." Kirstein's biographer, Martin Duberman, reports that American Ballet Caravan premiered the Mignone work, with choreography by Balanchine, in Santiago, Chile. Mignone died in Rio de Janeiro in 1986.
Domingo Santa Cruz was born in La Cruz, Chile, on July 5, 1899. During his law studies at the University of Chile, Santa Cruz also studied composition and continued to study music privately in Spain where he worked at the Chilean embassy. Upon his return to Chile, he joined the faculty of the National Conservatory, where he taught music history and analysis. He subsequently directed the integration of the Conservatory and the University of Chile, serving as acting Dean of its Music Department in 1933, and as Dean from 1933 to 1951 and again from 1962-1968. In 1960, he lectured as the Mellon Distinguished Professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Santa Cruz's compositional style was a mixture of sixteenth-century contrapuntalism with Spanish rhythms and melodies. This approach may explain why the documents transferring the scores to the Library of Congress identify the work as "Noble Dances of the Viceroy" before the title Cinco Piezas Breves, which appears on the score itself. Santa Cruz died in Santiago in 1987.
There is no evidence that the remaining two music compositions were used by Ballet Caravan. The first is Brian Easdale's arrangement of Benjamin Britten's Soirées Musicale for two pianos. Easdale (1909-1995) is best known as the first British composer to win an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score for his music for the film The Red Shoes, which starred ballerina Moira Shearer. The second is Stefan Wolpe's two-piano arrangement of Bach's Concerto for two violins and orchestra. The finding aid for the Stefan Wolpe Collection at the Paul Sacher Foundation does not list the arrangement.