Poetry, pristine beauty and musicality
One of the most striking demonstrations of Balanchine's ability to make music visual using an economy of means characteristic of the greatest artists. Balanchine offered this explanation himself: "The ballet tries to interest the audience only by its dancing, its treatment of the music, just as Baroque art and architecture interested people not because of their subjects but because of the decorative treatment that embellished those subjects." Concerto Barocco is one of Johann Sebastian Bach's most moving concertos, choreographied by Balanchine in 1941 and perform many times since then by the most famous ballet companies in the world. The Balanchine touch in this masterful performance can be felt "not merely as a visualization of Bach's music, but rather as a physical extension of it..."
