"Circus Polka"
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Surely the most unusual commission that choreographer George Balanchine ever received was to direct a dance for the elephants of the Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1942. Balanchine was told that he could have any music he chose for this act. He evidently called Stravinsky on the telephone and asked him to compose music for a dance. "What kind of music?" asked the composer. "A polka." "For whom?" "Elephants." "How old?" "Young." "If they are very young, I'll do it." And so Stravinsky's delightful jeu d'esprit came to be written for its most unlikely audience. The Circus Polka maintains a strict 2/4 meter throughout (something that is otherwise rare in Stravinsky, but perhaps he thought the elephants would have trouble counting!), and he quotes a familiar phrase from Schubert's Marche Militaire as a contrasting theme. The premiere took place in Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1942 and highlighted Modoc, the "prima ballerina" of the pachyderms. The act was given some 425 times!