''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 ...
to
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