The Cage

Stravinsky composed his Concerto in D for String Orchestra in 1946, as a commission for the 20th anniversary of the Basler Orchestra; it was his first work for string orchestra since Apollon Musagète. The vivid, haunting composition features a shift between D major and minor throughout the work and a rich quality for the writing of the strings. Jerome Robbins used Stravinksy’s concerto for one of his early works, The Cage, which imagines a community of female creatures. In describing the ballet, Robbins said, “I did not have to confine myself to human beings moving in a way that we know is human. In the way their fingers worked, in the crouch of a body or the thrust of an arm, I could let myself see what I wanted to imagine.”