Lord Berners music for Luna Park, a ‘fantastic ballet in one act’

Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (18 September 1883 – 19 April 1950), also known as Gerald Tyrwhitt, was a British composer of classical music, novelist, painter and aesthete. He is usually referred to as Lord Berners. Berners' musical works included Trois morceaux, Fantaisie espagnole (1919), Fugue in C minor (1924), and several ballets, including The Triumph of Neptune (1926) (based on a story by Sacheverell Sitwell) and Luna Park (1930). Luna Park, a ‘fantastic ballet in one act’ was commissioned for CB Cochran’s London revue of 1930, and first performed at the London Pavilion in March of that year, with scenery and costumes by Christopher Wood, book by Boris Kochno, and choreography by George Balanchine. The scene is set in a freak pavilion in Luna Park. A showman enters and bows to the audience. He raises the curtain of the first four niches revealing a man with three heads; in the second stands a three-legged juggler, complete with billiard balls, while in the third a one-legged ballerina is posing, and in the fourth, a man with six arms. All the freaks dance in the respective niches, after which the showman bows to the audience, turning down the lights as he retires. WIKIPEDIA

VIDEO: Lord Berners (Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson) (1883-1950): Luna Park, A Fantastic Ballet in One Act (1930) -- RTE Sinfonietta diretta da Kenneth Alwyn -- I. The Four Niches II. Adagio