Concerto in D (Stravinsky)

Not to be confused with Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D

Igor Stravinsky's Concerto in D ("Basle") for string orchestra was composed in Hollywood between the beginning of 1946 and 8 August of the same year in response to a 1946 commission from Paul Sacher to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Basler Kammerorchester (BKO—in English, Basel Chamber Orchestra), and for this reason is sometimes referred to as the "Basle" Concerto ("Basle" being the French form of the city's name). It was premiered on 27 January 1947 in Basel by the BKO, conducted by Paul Sacher (Gritten 2003, xii; Walsh 2001; White 1979, 438). Other sources say it was six days earlier, on the day of the orchestra's twentieth anniversary, 21 January (Anon. 2012; Stephenson and Weed 2002, 348), when two other works commissioned by Sacher were also premiered: Arthur Honegger's Symphony No. 4 Deliciae Basiliensis and Bohuslav Martinů's Toccata e due Canzoni (Ford 2002; Halbreich 1999, 325).

The Concerto in D was the first composition Stravinsky created after becoming a naturalised American citizen on 28 December 1945, and was also the first of his works to be published under the contract with his new publisher, Boosey & Hawkes (White 1979, 123–25).

The concerto has been choreographed several times as a ballet, first by Dore Hoyer at the Hamburg State Opera in 1950. Later ballet versions were made by Jerome Robbins, under the title of The Cage in 1951, and by Werner Ulbrich, as Attis und die Nymphe at the Württembergische Staatstheater, Stuttgart, in 1959 (White 1979, 439).

Movements

1. Vivace
2. Arioso: Andantino
3. Rondo: Allegro

References

• Anon. 2012. "Cardiff Celebrates Paul Sacher's Extraordinary Commissioning Legacy" Seen and Heard International (20 March, retrieved 18 March 2014).
• Ford, Andrew. 2002. "Back to the Future". ABC Radio 24 Hours (February): 98.
• Gritten, Anthony. 2003. "Chronology of Stravinsky's Life and Career". In The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky, edited by Jonathan Cross, ix–xiv. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-66330-X (cloth); ISBN 0-521-66377-6.
• Halbreich, Harry. 1999. Arthur Honegger, translated by Roger Nichols, edited by Reinhard G. Pauly. Amadeus Series. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. ISBN 978-1-57467-041-7.
• Stephenson, Lesley, and Don Weed. 2002. Symphony of Dreams: The Conductor and Patron Paul Sacher. Zürich: Rüffer and Rub. ISBN 978-3-907625-10-1. Reprinted in the series Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series. Lanham: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-4959-4.
• Walsh, Stephen. 2001. "Stravinsky, Igor (Fyodorovich)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• White, Eric Walter. 1979. Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works, second edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03985-8.

External links

• All music page, by James Leonard
• Programme notes for the concerto