One of Balanchine’s greatest masterpieces, Concerto Barocco is music made visible as two elegant yet dynamic lead ballerinas each depict one of the instrumental soloists in a virtuosic double violin concerto.

Concerto Barocco had its beginnings as a School of American Ballet exercise and was first performed for the Latin American tour of the American Ballet Caravan in 1941. When it entered the repertory of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1945, the dancers were dressed in practice clothes, probably the first appearance of what has come to be regarded as the modern ballet costume pioneered by Balanchine.

Concerto Barocco was presented on the first performance of New York City Ballet in 1948, along with Balanchine's Orpheus and Symphony in C. It is considered the quintessential Balanchine ballet of its period, its manner entirely pure, its choreography no more, and no less, than an ideal response to its score, Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D Minor. About the ballet, the critic Clive Barnes wrote, "The three hallmarks of the American classic style are poetry, athleticism, and musicality, and these three graces are exquisitely exploited by Concerto Barocco."

Balanchine said of this work: “If the dance designer sees in the development of classical dancing a counterpart in the development of music and has studied them both, he will derive continual inspiration from great scores.” In the first movement of the concerto, the two ballerinas personify the violins, while a corps of eight women accompany them.

In the second movement, a largo, the male dancer joins the leading woman in a pas de deux. In the concluding allegro section, the entire ensemble expresses the syncopation and rhythmic vitality of Bach’s music.

George Balanchine called the exuberant Allegro Brillante “everything I know about classical ballet in thirteen minutes.”

One of George Balanchine’s most joyous, pure dance pieces, Allegro Brillante is characterized by what Maria Tallchief — the ballerina on whom the bravura leading role was created — called "an expansive Russian romanticism." The ballet is set to Tschaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 3, a work that the composer created from sketches for a composition that was intended to be his Sixth Symphony, but which instead served as a single movement work which was published posthumously in 1894. Balanchine described this ballet as a concentrated essay in the extended classical vocabulary, in which a maximum amount of choreographic development is contained within a rather restricted area of time and space.

This breathtaking and poetic dance for a couple explores the haunting, tenuous melodies set to a remix of Dinah Washington’s soulful rendition of “This Bitter Earth” and Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight.”

This Bitter Earth is a pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s Five Movements, Three Repeats. The full work was originally created for Fang-Yi Sheu & Artists, a group led by former Martha Graham Dance Company star Fang-Yi Sheu that included NYCB dancers Wendy Whelan, Tyler Angle, and Craig Hall. Set to a remix of Dinah Washington’s performance of Clyde Otis’ This Bitter Earth, and Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight, the ballet had its Company premiere at NYCB’s 2012 Fall Gala.

Described by The New York Times as “a physical manifestation of musical notes,” Principal Dancer Tiler Peck unleashes a vibrant, fast-moving work in which dancers are set free within a whirlwind of choreography. The ballet is set to a luminous score by Francis Poulenc and features light, elegantly airy costumes that enhance its buoyant spirit.

Renowned for her keen musicality, Peck creates her first commission for New York City Ballet, following a wide range of choreographic projects for Boston Ballet, the Vail Dance Festival, and her self-curated Turn It Out with Tiler Peck & Friends at New York City Center, among many others.