The Seasons is a ballet with music by John Cage and choreography by Merce Cunningham, first performed in 1947. It was Cage's first piece for orchestra and also the first to use what Cage later called the gamut technique, albeit in an early form.
Cage composed the music in early 1947, in the midst of working on Sonatas and Interludes. A piano version was first completed, and an orchestral arrangement followed. Cage dedicated The Seasons to Lincoln...
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The Seasons is a ballet with music by John Cage and choreography by Merce Cunningham, first performed in 1947. It was Cage's first piece for orchestra and also the first to use what Cage later called the gamut technique, albeit in an early form.
Cage composed the music in early 1947, in the midst of working on Sonatas and Interludes. A piano version was first completed, and an orchestral arrangement followed. Cage dedicated The Seasons to Lincoln Kirstein. The ballet was premiered on 18 May 1947 at the Ballet Society of Ziegfeld Theatre (by which the work was commissioned) in New York City, with original choreography by Merce Cunningham (now lost). Costumes and scenery were designed by Isamu Noguchi. The dancers at the first performance were Gisela Caccialanza, Fred Danieli, Dorothy Dushock, Gerard Leavitt, Tanaquil LeClerc, Job Sanders, Beatrice Tompkins and Cunningham himself.
The ballet is in one act divided into nine sections: Prelude I, Winter; Prelude II, Spring; Prelude III,...
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