Music: Ballet Hit

One morning last summer, George Balanchine, the New York City Ballet’s brilliant choreographer, called up an arranger named Hershy Kay. Balanchine had just returned from Wyoming and was delighted by the lovely scenery, the pretty songs, the appealing cowboy costumes. Balanchine wanted Kay to write the music for a new western ballet. “Just write something.” said Balanchine airily, “and we’ll work from there.”

Philadelphia-born Arranger Kay offered some samples. Balanchine decided the first one sounded too much like Aaron Copland

(“If I’d wanted Copland, I would have asked him to write it”). The second was too complicated. But the third, consisting of simple tunes with skeletal, guitarlike accompaniments, rang the bell. Composer Kay scoured source books for western tunes, came up with twelve of them, from Old Taylor, Rye Whisky and Lolly-Too-Dum to Red River Valley (which he used as a unifying theme). Balanchine took the piano sketch to his rehearsal hall and roughed in dance movements with his company. When Balanchine & Co. got back from a successful West Coast tour last month, the score was ready. Last week in Manhattan, the New York City Ballet presented its premiere under the title Western Symphony.

It was a daring event because 1) the company was too broke to have costumes onade or scenery painted and had to go on with the girls wearing rehearsal tights and street sweaters and the men in dungarees; and 2) dance Americana had been done to death by Agnes de Mille (Rodeo), Martha Graham (Appalachian Spring), Eugene Loring (Billy the Kid), etc. Nevertheless, the new ballet survived handsomely. While Kay’s orchestration produced some remarkable grunts and twangs, Balanchine’s dancers were on their toes most of the time, doing high kicks and hoedowns evoking rather than describing romance and square dance on the frontier. Sometimes the ballerinas took off their fancy airs: pretty Diana Adams walked flatfooted, in an impudent, corn-fed way; dramatic Tanaquil LeClercq snapped her hips waggishly; Janet Reed took a running header across the stage onto her partner’s arms.

Western Symphony ended in a whirling romp for the whole cast. The four movements lasted 27 minutes and used practically every dancer in the troupe, but the audience whooped for more until the house lights went up. At week’s end the New York City Ballet scheduled five more performances of its new hit.