2 Dances from Birthday Offering

Valse

Pas d’action

Birthday Offering was devised by Robert Ashton to celebrate the Royal Ballet’s 25th anniversary in 1956. His principal aim was to show off the special qualities of the company’s seven outstanding ballerinas at that time - Margot Fonteyn, Beryl Grey, Violetta Elvin, Nadia Nerina, Rowena Jackson, Svetlana Beriosova and Elaine Fifield - each of whom was to have her own solo spot. With that in mind he commissioned his music director Robert Irving to put together a suitable score from music by Alexander Glazunov, a composer so steeped in the Russian ballet tradition that many even of his concert pieces seem to be written with a choreographic treatment in mind.

One obvious Glazunov source for Irving was the orchestral Suite Scènes de ballet which, since it was written in 1894 before any of his ballets, was no doubt intended by the composer as a demonstration to the theatre authorities of his skill in this particular area. Certainly, the Pas d’action and the Valse which Irving selected from the Scènes de ballet Suite, and which he could incorporate in the Birthday Offering score without having to adapt them in any way, are authentic and highly attractive examples of their kind. The Valse actually consists of two waltzes, both of them based on themes introduced by violins, the second featuring first flute in a virtuoso starring role, the first returning at the end to round off the construction. Based on the lovely cello melody first heard in the opening bars, the Pas d’action rises to a passionate climax as the theme passes to the wind to be worked into a canonic dialogue worthy of any operatic duet.