Monotones I and II

Sir Frederick Ashton

Monotones II Premiered March 24, 1965, by the Royal Ballet

Monotones I Premiered April 25, 1966, by the Royal Ballet

The Sarasota Ballet Performing Sir Frederick Ashton’s Monotones I | Photo by Frank Atura

The Sarasota Ballet Performing Sir Frederick Ashton’s Monotones II | Photo by Frank Atura

The Sarasota Ballet Performing Sir Frederick Ashton’s Monotones I | Photo by Frank Atura

Monotones I and II

At first glance, with its austere qualities and its firmly “contemporary” title (sounding more like a dance by Cunningham or one of the 1960s Judson Church experimentalists) Monotones I and II does not appear a typical Ashton work, but closer inspection reveals it as a characteristically sensitive and fine exercise in the great tradition of classical ballet adagio.

First came the ironically-titled Monotones II – which Ashton created as an abstract pas de trois, a special “occasion” piece for Vyvyan Lorraine, Anthony Dowell, and Robert Mead to perform at a Royal Ballet Benevolent Fund Gala in March 1965. Dressed in simple white unitards and skullcaps (very au courant in the moon-landing 1960s), the two men partnered the female dancer, the trio patterns and interactions echoing the title of Satie’s famous 1888 Trois Gymnopédies, originally composed as a piano solo and subsequently orchestrated by Claude Debussy and Roland-Manuel.

The short work was extremely well received, so in the following year, Ashton expanded the ballet by adding Monotones I to make a companion trio, this time for two women and a man, dressed in green. At the 1966 Royal Ballet premiere, Monotones I was danced by Antoinette Sibley, Georgina Parkinson, and Brian Shaw. The companion work, which precedes the earlier Monotones II, is set to Satie’s piano works Trois Gnossiennes (1890) and Prélude d’Eginhard (1893), especially orchestrated by John Lanchberry. The two abstract ballets are usually, but not always, performed together, as a single short work, in the original “opposite” order Ashton intended. Monotones has been in consistent demand by international ballet companies: Joffrey Ballet (1974), San Francisco Ballet (1981) etc.

Ashton fully grasps Satie’s intention to discard grandiose, orchestral sonority in the Germanic classical tradition, in search of a lighter, understated, melodic clarity, giving the ballet limpid, flowing lines, and precise calm, metronomic movements. Arlene Croce noted that “the continuity of Ashton’s line is like that of a master draftsman whose pen never leaves the paper.”

Creative Team

Choreographer | Sir Frederick Ashton

Sir Frederick Ashton was born in Ecuador in 1904 and determined to become a dancer after seeing Anna Pavlova dance in 1917 in Lima, Peru. Arriving in London, he studied with Léonide Massine and later with Dame Marie Rambert (who encouraged his first ventures in choreography) as well as dancing briefly in Ida Rubinstein’s company (1928-1929).

A Tragedy of Fashion (in which he danced alongside Marie Rambert) was followed by further choreographies (Capriol Suite, Façade) until in 1935 he accepted Dame Ninette de Valois’ invitation to join her Vic-Wells Ballet as Dancer and Choreographer, his principal loyalty remaining with what would become the Sadler’s Wells and ultimately The Royal Ballet. Besides his pre-war ballets at Sadler’s Wells (which demonstrated an increasing authority, with larger resources), Ashton choreographed for revues and musicals. His career would also embrace opera, film, and international commissions, creating ballets in New York, Monte Carlo, Paris, Copenhagen, and Milan. During the War, he served in the RAF (1941-1945) before creating Symphonic Variations for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet’s 1946 season in its new home at Covent Garden, affirming a new spirit of classicism and modernity in English postwar ballet.

During the next two decades, Ashton’s ballets, often created around the talents of particular dancers, included: Scènes de ballet, Cinderella (1948), in which Ashton and Robert Helpmann famously played the Ugly Sisters, Daphnis and Chloe (1951), Romeo and Juliet (1955), and Ondine (1958). He created La Fille mal gardée (1960) for Nadia Nerina and David Blair, The Two Pigeons (1961) for Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable, Marguerite and Armand (1963) for Dame Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev and The Dream (1964) for Dame Antoinette Sibley and Sir Anthony Dowell.

Appointed Associate Director of The Royal Ballet in 1952, Ashton succeeded Dame Ninette de Valois as Director from 1963 to 1970, and under his direction the company rose to new heights, while his choreographic career continued with Monotones II (1965), Jazz Calendar (1968), Enigma Variations (1968), A Month in the Country (1976) and the popular film success The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971) in which he performed the role of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. He was knighted in 1962.

Named Founder Choreographer of The Royal Ballet, Sir Frederick Ashton died in 1988. His ballets, which remain in the international repertoire undiminished, show a remarkable versatility, a lyrical and highly sensitive musicality. He had an equal facility for recreating historical ballets and creating new works. If any single artist can be said to have formulated a native English classical ballet style and developed it over a lifetime, it is Sir Frederick Ashton.

Composer | Erik Satie

Erik Satie was an important French composer from the generation of Debussy. Best remembered for several groups of piano pieces, including Trois Gymnopédies (1888), Trois Sarabandes (1887) and Trois Gnossiennes (1890), he was championed by Jean Cocteau and helped create the famous group of French composers, Les Six, which was fashioned after his artistic ideal of simplicity in the extreme. Some have viewed certain of his stylistic traits as components of Impressionism, but his harmonies and melodies have relatively little in common with the characteristics of that school. Much of his music has a subdued character, and its charm comes through in its directness and lack of allegiance to any one aesthetic. Often, his melodies are melancholy and hesitant, his moods exotic or humorous, and his compositions as a whole, or their several constituent episodes, short. He was a musical maverick who probably influenced Debussy and did influence , Ravel who freely acknowledged as much. After Satie’s second period of study, he began turning more serious in his compositions, eventually producing his inspiring cantata, Socrate, considered by many his greatest work and clearly demonstrating a previously unexhibited agility. In his last decade, he turned out several ballets, including Parade and Relâche, indicating his growing predilection for program and theater music. Satie was also a pianist of some ability.

As a child, Satie showed an interest in music and began taking piano lessons from a local church organist named Vinot. While he progressed during this period, he showed no unusual gifts. In 1879, he enrolled in the Paris Conservatory, where he studied under Descombe (piano) and Lavignac (solfeggio), but failed to meet minimum requirements and was expelled in 1882. Satie departed Paris on November 15, 1886, to join the infantry in Arras, but he found military life distasteful and intentionally courted illness to relieve himself of duty. That same year, his first works were published: Elégie, Trois Mélodies, and Chanson. The years following his military service formed a bohemian period in Satie’s life, the most significant events of which would be the beginnings of his friendship with Debussy, his exposure to eastern music at the Paris World Exhibition, and his association with a number of philosophical and religious organizations (most notably the Rosicrucian Brotherhood).

In 1905, Satie decided to resume musical study, enrolling in the conservative and controversial Schola Cantorum, run by Vincent d’Indy. His music took on a more academic and rigorous quality and also began to exhibit the dry wit that would become hallmarks of his style. Many of his compositions received odd titles, especially after 1910, such as Dried up embryos and Three real flabby preludes (for a dog). Some of his works also featured odd instructions for the performer, not intended to be taken seriously, as in his 1893 piano work, Vexations, which carries the admonition in the score, “To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.”

In 1925, Satie developed pleurisy, and his fragile health worsened. He was taken to St. Joseph Hospital, where continued to live for several months. He received the last rites of the Catholic Church in his final days and died on July 1, 1925.