Diaghilev wanted a ballet based on an early 18th-century ''commedia dell'arte'' libretto and music then believed to have been composed by
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. This attribution has since been proved to be spurious. Some of the music may have been by
Domenico Gallo,
Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer,
Carlo Ignazio Monza and
Alessandro Parisotti. Conductor
Ernest Ansermet wrote to Stravinsky in 1919 about the project. The composer initially did not like the idea of music by Pergolesi, but once he studied the scores, which Diaghilev had found in libraries in
Naples and
London, he changed his mind. Stravinsky adapted the older music to a more modern style by borrowing specific themes and textures, but interjecting his modern rhythms, cadences, and harmonies.
Pulcinella marked the beginning of Stravinsky's second phase as a composer, his
neoclassical period. He wrote:
Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course—the first of many love affairs in that direction—but it was a look in the mirror, too. The ballet was revived and revised by
New York City Ballet's balletmasters
George Balanchine and
Jerome Robbins for their 1972 Stravinsky Festival. They both danced in the performance, Robbins in the title role, and were joined in the premier by
Francisco Moncion, who danced the role of The Devil. == Story ==