''Simple Symphony'' is a

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

created in 1944 by the British choreographer

Walter Gore Walter Gore (8 October 1910 – 16 April 1979) was a British ballet dancer, company director and choreographer. Early life Walter Gore was born in Waterside, East Ayrshire Scotland in 1910 into a theatrical family. From 1924, he studied a ...

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

's ''

Simple Symphony The ''Simple Symphony'', Op. 4, is a work for string orchestra or string quartet by Benjamin Britten. It was written between December 1933 and February 1934 in Lowestoft, using material that the composer had written as a young teenager, between 1 ...

''. In 1944, whilst on leave from Army duty in France, Gore created the work for the

Ballet Rambert Rambert (known as Rambert Dance Company before 2014) is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it exerted a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingd ...

. The work was largely created for

Sally Gilmour Sarah Gilmour (2 November 1921 – 23 May 2004), was a British ballet dancer, and Ballet Rambert's "leading ballerina of the 1940s". The ''ODNB'' notes that she was "acclaimed in the 1940s as second only to Margot Fonteyn among British ba ...

and Margaret Scott.

References

{{Reflist Ballets by Walter Gore Ballets to the music of Benjamin Britten 1944 ballet premieres