Igor Stravinsky - Concerto in D ("Basle") for String Orchestra (1946)

Igor Stravinsky

Concerto in D ("Basle") for String Orchestra (1946)

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 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).

The concerto has three movements:

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

Vivace 00:00
Arioso: Andantino 06:06
Rondò: Allegro 08:16

Orchestra della Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana
Igor Stravinsky, conductor
Live recording, Lugano, April 29, 1954

Picture: Venice 2014