We are fortunate today to be joined by the Music Director for The Joffrey Ballet, Scott Speck. We asked him some questions about the music for Joffrey’s upcoming performance of Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments. He shares some fascinating insights about the composer, the score, and the musicality of the choreographer.
Musically, what instruments does this ballet feature, and how difficult is the score?
This score is deceptively simple. It calls for only piano and strings — and sometimes only solo strings at that. But the music is extraordinarily complex, not only in difficulty but in language.
Balanchine often used the music of Stravinsky for his choreography. How is Hindemith’s score different musically? Are there any ways it is similar?
Stravinsky and Hindemith were both great twentieth-century composers who had to grapple with the same question. This was a period when tonal music had fallen by the wayside — temporarily, it turns out! But serious composers were told that atonal or even twelve-tone music was the way to go, and both composers struggled to find a new way to incorporate or preserve tonality in their music.
Stravinsky did this by emulating Mozart, in what was called the Neoclassical style. Of course, he retained his utterly original musical personality. To many people, Neoclassical music sounds like classical music, but with some arresting harmonies, sudden changes of key, and “wrong notes” added. That’s an oversimplification, but it really explains the effect. Stravinsky went in and out of tonality, but his concept of tonality itself did not change from the traditional definition. It was based on a home key, a tonic triad made up of three notes that sound good together — and functional harmonies that pulled toward or away from that tonic triad.
Hindemith is sometimes also described as Neoclassical, but he decided to reinvent the rules of music. His pieces often begin and end with a tonic triad, but he bases many of his harmonies and melodies on bigger intervals — often the fifth or the fourth. Everyone can sing a perfect fourth — “Here Comes the Bride” is one example — or a fifth, as in the opening notes of the Star Wars theme. But imagine piling one fourth or fifth on top of another — that doesn’t happen in traditional tonal music, and it brings us into uncharted harmonic places. Furthermore, very few of Hindemith’s resulting harmonies are “functional” — that is, you seldom feel that one chord is “pulling” you toward another, as in the dominant/tonic relationship that characterizes most traditional classical music. His output sometimes sounds “modal,” not unlike an old British melody — but at other times, for long stretches, it often sounds downright atonal. What I find so fascinating about Hindemith’s music is how true he remained to the system of rules he created.
Is there anything you can point out that the audience may want to listen for in the music?
The Four Temperaments is a theme with variations. The theme is stated very clearly at the very beginning, and it comes back in many different guises. Each movement depicts a different side of human personality: melancholic, sanguinic, phlegmatic and choleric. So, for example, in the choleric variation, the theme appears in an angry disguise.
Also, we can’t forget that this piece is a piano concerto. It is filled with thorny and virtuosic passages for the pianist, and the soloist who can pull it off with artistry is a great musician indeed. For our performances, Kuang-Hao Huang plays the solo part. He has worked with us many times in the past and is a wonderful collaborator.
What challenges does this score present in terms of working with the dancers?
The choreography is very specific, and so the tempos must be just right. Like Hindemith or Stravinsky, Balanchine had his own complex musical language, and one of our jobs is to honor that.
What do you enjoy most about conducting this ballet?
I love George Balanchine, because of his uncanny way of incorporating the music in his steps. I use the word “incorporating” carefully — he finds a way to allow the dancers to literally “embody” the music. When a musical phrase is embellished, perhaps within a variation, Balanchine does the same with his choreography. When the music becomes simpler, so does the dance. But he knows when enough is enough — he rarely sticks to something so literal as having the dancers leap when the music rises, or go down to the floor when it falls. He is looking beyond the notes, the the heart of the music, and to its inner meaning. He’s able to create in us the emotional response that most likely the composer intended — and sometimes he creates a surprisingly unexpected response, allowing us to glean something we never would have gotten from the music alone. Balanchine is immortal because he allows us to “see” the music.
It’s a thrill to perform this piece with The Joffrey Ballet, whose Artistic Director Ashley Wheater is thoroughly attuned to music. He breathes it — such a rare thing, in my experience working with ballet companies. And that love and reverence for music extends to our Joffrey dancers, who are so incredibly open-hearted and open-minded, not to mention technically brilliant. This production will be a joy, and I can’t wait.
Contributor Scott Speck is Music Director of the Joffrey Ballet and Artistic Director of the Chicago Philharmonic. He is also Music Director of the Mobile (AL) and West Michigan Symphony orchestras.
His books Classical Music For Dummies, Opera For Dummies, and Ballet For Dummies have been translated into 20 languages and are available around the world. Visit his website here.
