Agon
Agon
Agon
Form
Stravinsky laid out the ballet in a
duodecimal form, with four large sections
each consisting of three dances. A Prelude
and two Interludes occur between the
large sections, but this does not
fundamentally affect the twelve-part
design because their function is caesural
and compensatory (White 1979, 490–91):
I.
1. Pas-de-quatre (4 male dancers)
2. Double pas-de-quatre (8 female
dancers)
3. Triple pas-de-quatre (4 male + 8
female dancers)
Prelude
II. (First pas-de-trois: 1 male, 2 female
dancers)
1. Sarabande-step (1 male dancer)
2. Gaillarde (2 female dancers)
3. Coda (1 male, 2 female dancers)
Interlude
III. (Second pas-de-trois: 2 male, 1
female dancers)
1. Bransle simple (2 male dancers)
2. Bransle gay (1 female dancer)
3. Bransle double (2 male, 1 female
dancers)
Interlude
IV.
1. Pas-de-deux (1 male, 1 female
dancer)
2. Four Duos (4 male, 4 female dancers)
3. Four Trios (4 male, 8 female dancers)
Instrumentation
Agon is scored for a large orchestra
consisting of piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes,
English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2
bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4
trumpets, 3 trombones (2 tenor, 1 bass),
harp, piano, mandolin, timpani, tom-tom,
xylophone, castanets, and strings. At no
point does the entire orchestra play a tutti.
Each section is scored for a different
combination of instruments.
Music
This was not the first composition in
which Stravinsky employed serial
techniques, but it was the first in which he
used a twelve-tone row, introduced in the
second coda, at bar 185. Earlier in the
work, Stravinsky had employed a
seventeen-tone row, in bars 104–107, and
evidence from the sketches suggests a
close relationship between these two rows
(Smyth 1999, 121, 126–27). The Bransle
Double is based on a different twelve-tone
series, the hexachords of which are
treated independently (Straus 2001, 143–
45). Those hexachords first appear
separately in the Bransle Simple (for two
male dancers) and Bransle Gay (for solo
female dancer), and are then combined to
form a twelve-tone row in the Bransle
Double. These three dances together
constitute the second pas-de-trois (Smyth
1999, 133).
Casts
Original …
Todd Bolender
Barbara Milberg
Barbara Walczak
Roy Tobias
Jonathan Watts
Melissa Hayden
Diana Adams
Arthur Mitchell
NYCB revivals …
t.b.a.
2008 Summer tour to Copenhagen …
t.b.a.
2009 Fall tour to Bunkamura in Tokyo …
First cast E…
Wendy Whelan
Rebecca Krohn
Ashley Laracey
Teresa Reichlen
Sébastien Marcovici
Sean Suozzi
Amar Ramasar
Adrian Danchig-Waring
Second cast E…
Maria Kowroski
Rebecca Krohn
Ashley Laracey
Teresa Reichlen
Sébastien Marcovici
Sean Suozzi
Amar Ramasar
Adrian Danchig-Waring
2010 Winter …
t.b.a.
2012 Fall …
First cast E…
t.b.a.
Second cast E…
t.b.a.
Italy
This section contains information of unclear or
questionable importance or relevance Learn
to the more
When Agon was performed in Italy in 1965
(Anon. & n.d.(a)), Stravinsky was
particularly pleased with the performance
of mandolinist Giuseppe Anedda:
References
Anon. n.d.(a) "Giuseppe Anedda Cagliari
1/3/1912– Cagliari 30/7/1997 ".
Amromana.it (accessed 27 September
2015).
Anon. n.d.(b) Kauf auf Rechnung –
Bezahlen erst im nächsten Monat: Igor
Strawinsky: Agon – Ballett für 12 Tänzer:
Rosbaud (Künstler), Sinfonieorchester
des Südwestfunks Bad (Künstler), & 2
mehr Format: Audio CD . Amazon Music
Unlimited: Amazon.de (accessed 17
May 2020).
Porceddu, Ennio. 2014. "Giuseppe
Anedda, Il virtuoso del mandolino ".
Ennio Loy Blog (accessed 27 September
2015).
Smyth, David. 1999. "Stravinsky's
Second Crisis: Reading the Early Serial
Sketches". Perspectives of New Music
37, no. 2 (Summer): 117–46.
Straus, Joseph N. 2001. Stravinsky's Late
Music. Cambridge Studies in Music
Theory and Analysis. Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0-521-80220-2 (cloth); ISBN 0-521-
60288-2 (pbk).
White, Eric Walter. 1979. Stravinsky: The
Composer and His Works, second
edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press. ISBN 0-
520-03985-8 (pbk).
Further reading
Joseph, Charles M. 2002. Stravinsky and
Balanchine: A Journey of Invention. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
ISBN 0300087128.
Macaulay, Alastair. 2007. "50 Years Ago,
Modernism Was Given a Name: 'Agon' ".
New York Times (November 25).
External links
Agon on the website of the Balanchine
Trust
The Bransles of Stravinsky's Agon : A
Transition to Serial Composition By
Bonnie S. Jacobi
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