Music Director
Stravinsky
Rite of Spring
The heavy task of Western composers in the early 20th century was to break the bonds of a centuries-old system of functional tonality, which had been pushed to chromatic extremes by such late Romantic composers as Wagner and Strauss. One solution was the development of atonal music by Schoenberg. Berg, and Webern in Vienna. Atonality is achieved by intentionally avoiding the establishment of a key. These composers developed the technique of serialism,a method of musical composition in which all 12 chromatic tunes of the octave appear in strict order with no note repeated before the sequence is completed.
Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-!971) provided another approach, which first appeared in Le Sacre du Printemps, his third ballet score composed for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russe. Stravinsky was influenced by the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915), a pianist/visionary who tried to develop a theory of composition based on the use of harmonic structures built on fourths instead of thirds. The result was a dissonant impressionistic chromaticism.
Stravinsky was the son of a singer at the imperial Opera in St. Petersburg, but he did not immediately plunge into a music career; he attended law school with the son of Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Rimsky-Korsakov advised Stravinsky to study music, and in 1903, Stravinsky became Rimsky-Korsakov's student. Rimsky died in 1908, and Stravinsky never had another teacher.
In the opening decades of the century Paris had again become the center for intellectual and artistic life in the west. Artists and musicians from all over the world took up residency in Paris, as did Stravinsky, and many other Russians.
Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), the Russian ballet impresario, heard some of Stravinsky's early works, and invited him to compose a ballet score. Stravinsky produced the impressionistic Firebird in 1910, and followed it with another ballet, Petrouchka, in 1911. Le Sacre du Printemps was completed in 1912, the same year in which Debussy composed Jeux and Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire.
Stravinsky came up with the idea for Le Sacre in 1910 while he was writing music for Firebird. His concept was a vision of a wild pagan spring ritual. Stravinsky described it like this:
"...wise elders are seated in a circle and are observing the dance before death of the girl whom they are offering as a sacrifice to the god of Spring in order lo gain his benevolence."
The sets were designed by Russian painter and folklorist Nikolai Roerich. The choreographer was the infamous Russian dancer Vaclav Nijinsky.
The first performance of Le Sacre du Printemps took place on May 29, 1913 at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees under Pierre Monteux. The performance nearly caused a riot. Stravinsky recalled in the 1962 publication Expositions and Developments.
"That the first performance of Le Sacre du Printemps was attended by a scandal must be known to everybody. Strange as it may seem, however, I was unprepared for the explosion myself. The reactions of the musicians who came to the orchestra rehearsals were without intimation of it and the stage spectacle did not appear likely to precipitate a riot.... Mild protest against the music could be heard from the very beginning of the performance. Then, when the curtain opened on the group of knock-kneed and long-braided Lolitas jumping up and down (Danses des adolescents), the storm broke. Cries of "Ta guele" ("Shut up!") came from behind me. I heard Florent Schmitt shout "Taisez-vous garces du seizieme" ("Be quiet, you bitches of the sixteenth"). The garces of the sixteenth arrondissement (the most fashionable residential district ofParis) were, of course, the most elegant ladies in Paris. The uproar continued however, and a few minutes later I left the hall in a rage... I arrived in a fury backstage, where I saw Diaghilev flicking the house lights in a last effort to quiet the hall. For the rest of the performance I stood in the wings behind Nijinsky holding the tails of his frac while he stood on a chair shouting numbers to the dancers, like a coxswain."
The audience was reacting to Stravinsky's innovative, percussive music, but also to Nijinsky's angular non-balletic choreography. Critics complained that the music was unlike anything they had heard. This was true; that’s just what was intended. But this work turned out to be one of the most influential works of the 20th century.
Much of the work uses changing meters and syncopation. The orchestration is not exactly typical. The opening bassoon line, for example, is placed in a very high register for that instrument.
Stravinsky used dissonant chord clusters, recognizable sound entities but not harmonically functional in the traditional sense. From Debussy, Stravinsky inherited the use of short chromatic, melodic and rhythmic motifs, repealed over and over again to create a canvas-like impressionist backdrop.
Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps makes use of a technique that foreshadows the mininalist movement of late 20th century composers like Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams. A short motif will begin in one instrument or group of instruments, and it will keep repeating. Then a different motif begins in another instrument or group, and is played simultaneously with the other. Then more and more voices are added, each with its own rhythmic and melodic idea all playing at the same time. Stravinsky once said, “I don't write modern music. I only write good music."
Program notes by Beth Bergman Fisher
Rockville Centre Guild for the Arts