John Cranko resident choreographer for Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet's 1950–51 season. For the company's Festival of Britain season in 1951 Cranko choreographed the comic ballet "Pineapple Poll", to the music of Arthur Sullivan (newly out of copyright) arranged by the conductor Charles Mackerras. Another collaboration with Mackerras followed in 1954 with "The Lady and the Fool", to music by Verdi. In January 1954 Sadler's Wells Ballet announced that Cranko was collaborating with Benjamin Britten to create a ballet. Cranko devised a draft scenario for a work he originally called "The Green Serpent", fusing elements drawn from "King Lear", "Beauty and the Beast"
Music for an Aquatic Ballet not only to reconstruct the original composition but also the event in which it took place. For this reason, they used sounds of a stadium audience cheering, water splashes and typical underwater sounds. While there might not be much resemblance to the original 1938 composition, both musicians were Cage's friends and had worked together with him in the past. The recording of this piece was released in 2012 by Brilliant Classics. Music for an Aquatic Ballet Music for an Aquatic Ballet is the most commonly used title to refer to an untitled composition by American avant-garde composer John Cage. It