Apollo is the god of music in Greek mythology. He's also associated with truth, knowledge, prophecy, healing, the sun and light, and more.
Apollo was the leader of the muses, Terpsichore, muse of dance and song; Polyhymnia, muse of mime; and Calliope, muse of poetry, which brings us to 20th century ballet.
If Igor Stravinsky's score for The Rite of Spring is a musical expression of primitive, raw barbaric power and energy, and the irrational side of early human culture, then Stravinsky is at his most restrained in his clear, calm and serene music for the neo-classical ballet Apollo.
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge commissioned Apollon musagete (Apollo and the Muses), as the piece is also called, in 1927 for a performance at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. the following year. It seems an appropriate setting for this work diametrically opposed to the spirit of The Rite of Spring.
This evening on Symphony @ 7, I'll have a performance of this half hour ballet score from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly.
To take up the time in the first half hour of the program, you'll hear "The Clock." That's the nickname of Franz Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 101 in D. Haydn wrote it for the second of his two trips to London, and it received its premier on March 3 of 1794. It got its nickname from the stately tread of the second movement Andante, which reminded audiences of the regular ticking of a clock.
If you have the time this evening, join me for Haydn and Stravinsky on Symphony @ 7.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd_1uwD4v-I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6SsPw2hLQU