Lizzie Borden took an ax, according to the children's rhyme, and whacked her father and mother in August 1892. The sensational trial of the sedate "Miss Lizzie," age 33, drew attention far beyond the town limits of Fall River, MA. Despite heavy evidence against her, Borden was acquitted. In 1948, choreographer Agnes de Mille and composer Morton Gould collaborated on a balletic treatment of the tale, assuming Borden's guilt, probing her psychological motivations, and ending with her conviction and hanging.

The full ballet includes about 45 to 50 minutes of music and includes a few spoken lines; it consists of a prologue, seven scenes, and an epilogue. Gould took his inspiration from New England hymns and dance tunes, but each of his themes is original. The music is strongly if irregularly rhythmic and just dissonant enough to convey village exuberance and a troubled psyche. The opening orchestral shriek of anguish is as discordant as the score ever gets, though.

In 1952, Gould drew a suite of six pieces from the ballet, which strips out the pantomime and other purely dramatic sequences and presents only the pieces that can comfortably stand alone. It fuses the full ballet's two initial sections, Prologue and Waltzes, excising the short "Indictment" passage read by an actor. After the grim, forceful Prologue, the Waltzes seem almost frantic; here Borden, known as The Accused, is remembering not entirely happy scenes from her childhood. Both the ballet and suite continue with Elegy, gentle music led primarily by woodwinds, with the strings taking over for a wistful waltz passage. The next 15 minutes of music with little independent interest—Interlude, Dirge, Lullaby, Serenade, and "Axe"—are omitted from the suite, which picks up with "Church Social," where a syncopated brass tune evolves into a gruff, repetitive treatment of a melodic fragment that could come from some old hymn. Most of this music is loud, outgoing, and roughly festive. "Hymnal Variations" are gentle elaborations on a brief, meandering chorale tune of Gould's own invention. "Cotillion" is a boisterous piece exploiting the full orchestra, with whooping horns and jittering, repetitive thematic kernels reminiscent of barn-dance music. The suite omits another chunk of pantomime-supporting sequences—"Cotillion Coda," "Death Dance," "Mob Scene"—and goes directly to the Epilogue, a funereal dirge with the strings playing a jagged figure over a lurching rhythm, with the Prologue's woodwind shrieks and brass snarls returning to bring the score full circle.

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