Conducting a rehearsal of Poulenc's ballet suite Les Biches

This is Bronislawa Nijinska, the choreographer of Poulenc's ballet Les Biches (1924). Nijinska was also the premiere choreographer of Stravinsky's Les Noces and Milhaud's Le Train Bleu where she developed a particularly radical form of angular gestures. Her brother was the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.

Last week, at 27 hours notice, I was asked to conduct a rehearsal of the Suite from Les Biches with Wirral Symphony Orchestra due to Jonathan Small - their regular conductor - being indisposed. It's a startlingly quixotic work moving between Stravinsky-like sonorities (the early Diaghilev scores but Pulcinella especially) and more Romantic echoes of César Franck's Symphony in D minor (1988) which we also rehearsed. We'll also be tackling the remaining movements next week.