The Wise Virgins

Ballet in One Act

LOST

General Information – Instrumentation – Manuscript – Publication – Arrangements – Recordings

General Information:

Composition:  Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, selected and arranged by Constant Lambert. Orchestrated by Walton in 1940.

First Performance:  Wednesday, 24 April 1940. Sadler's Wells Theatre, London. Sadler's Wells Touring Orchestra, Constant Lambert conductor. Ninette de Valois director. Michael Soames, Margot Fonteyn, Claude Newman, Annabel Farjeon principals.

Duration:  About 25 minutes

Dedication:  To Edith Sitwell

C. Number:  C38

Instrumentation:

Walton's exact instrumentation is unknown. Stewart Craggs has posited that the instrumentation is likely to have been the same as the orchestral suite:

2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons – 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones – timpani – harp – strings

Manuscript:  There is no known surviving manuscript.

Publication:  This work was never published.

Arrangements:

• The Wise Virgins: Suite from the Ballet, for orchestra (1940)
  
  
• Complete ballet, edited by Philip Lane
  This version incorporates the orchestral suite, and adds three movements, as arranged by Philip Lane, to fill out the original program of the ballet. It was recorded in 2003 (see below).

Recordings:

For additional recordings of this music, see the following arrangement:

• The Wise Virgins: Suite from the Ballet, for orchestra (1940)

WilliamWalton.net – Catalogue of Works – Ballet