First Stage Compositions and Experiments

Kandinsky's first stage compositions were written in 1908 and only fragments survive: Der Paradiesgarten (Paradise Garden) (after Hans Christian Andersen) and the shepherds’ legend Daphnis and Chloe. Already while working on the concept of the Paradise Garden, Kandinsky was in collaboration with Thomas von Hartmann, the dancer Alexander Sacharoff joined them for Daphnis and Chloe.
"The first thing we wanted to stage was a fairy tale by Andersen. In no time at all, Kandinsky drew a marvellous sketch of a medieval town. The houses seemed to be taken from his 'Painting with Houses,' but viewed from the front. [...] First we considered the different scenes and how they could be adapted to ballet, then we realized that none of the existing forms of ballet could give us what we were looking for. We wanted something entirely different. Just at this time, a gifted young man joined us, who understood our aim. It was Alexander Sacharoff, who became later a famous dancer. We began to occupy ourselves with ancient Greek dance, and Sacharoff to study in the museums. Thus we proceeded from Andersen to Daphnis and Chloe." (Thomas von Hartmann)
However, Daphnis and Chloe was never performed, as news came of the plans of Fokin and Djaghilev to stage the ballet in Paris in 1912 (to music by Maurice Ravel). Sacharoff however, performed his planned role in the ballet to the Greek Dances, which was his first public appearance.
In 1921 Kandinsky wrote about his experiment at that time with painting, music and dance - in his search for a common denominator of the arts: "I myself experimented while abroad together with a young musician and a dancer. The musician picked out from a series of my watercolors the one that seemed the clearest to him with regard to music. In the absence of the dancer, he played the watercolor. Then the dancer joined us, the musical work was played for him, he set it as a dance and then guessed the watercolor that he had danced."