Mark Morris's L'allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: A Celebration

Mark Morris’ 1988 dance, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, set to music by Handel and poems by John Milton, and inspired by watercolors by William Blake, has been called a work of “utopian grandeur,” “a masterpiece of craft, invention, and feeling,” “in scale and complexity, in a category by itself.” More than 150 photographs capture each of the piece’s 32 interconnected dances and are accompanied by the text of Milton’s interwoven poems, “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” to which Handel set the music. Appreciative essays are by New Yorker critic and Morris biographer Joan Acocella, British critic Alastair Macaulay, and Threepenny Review editor Wendy Lesser. “Possibly the most exhaustive examination of a single dance work ever published.”—New York Times “An extraordinarily handsome new book ... A thorough and valuable critique and appreciation of this glorious dance work.”—The New York Observer “A beautiful coffee-table book.... Elegantly photographed, edited, and produced. A treasured gift for a Morris fan.”—Dance Magazine