Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring; Petrushka

First, a short quiz. The following are significant dates in the Twentieth Century. Can you identify the event that is associated with each one?

a) April 14th 1912
b) May 29th 1913
c) September 1st 1939
d) August 6th 1945
e) June 2nd 1953
f) November 22nd 1963
g) July 21st 1969
h) January 16th 1991

I would guess that most of you found all but one of those fairly easy. Even ...
...itself would. For those who want to check, the answers are at the bottom of this review.

But what happened on May 29th 1913? And why is that date less familiar than the others? Perhaps its relative obscurity lies in the fact that it has no political or scientific significance; this one is musical.

* * * * * * Paris, May 29th 1913 * * * * * *

On that date, “modern music” was born. The course of musical ... more

First, a short quiz. The following are significant dates in the Twentieth Century. Can you identify the event that is associated with each one?

a) April 14th 1912
b) May 29th 1913
c) September 1st 1939
d) August 6th 1945
e) June 2nd 1953
f) November 22nd 1963
g) July 21st 1969
h) January 16th 1991

I would guess that most of you found all but one of those fairly easy. Even if the exact date didn’t give it away, the year itself would. For those who want to check, the answers are at the bottom of this review.

But what happened on May 29th 1913? And why is that date less familiar than the others? Perhaps its relative obscurity lies in the fact that it has no political or scientific significance; this one is musical.

* * * * * * Paris, May 29th 1913 * * * * * *

On that date, “modern music” was born. The course of musical history took a sudden lurch in a new direction. And it caused a riot.

The event promised to be a pleasant evening out at the ballet at the Champs-Elysees Theatre in Paris. A young composer, Igor Stravinsky, already popular through his ballet music for The Firebird and Petrouchka, had written a new ballet, Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring.). The great Ballets Russes, formed four years earlier by Sergei Diaghilev, was to perform the ballet and a large audience turned up, looking forward no doubt to a charming, colourful spectacle and to some wonderful Russian music. Stravinsky had, after all, been a pupil of the great Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, a composer of highly colourful music including Sheherazade and The Flight of the Bumblebee. And young Igor Stravinsky had been his most gifted student.

The choreography was by the brilliant dancer/choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky, known and revered as “The God of the Dance.”

Many prominent figures from the world of music were there, including Camille (“Carnival of the Animals”) Saint-Saens, Maurice (“Bolero”) Ravel and Claude (“Claire de Lune”) Debussy.

A good time was expected by all…

But from the opening bars of the music, played in an unexpectedly high register by a solo bassoon, many of the audience became outraged. Saint-Saens stormed out, furious about the “misuse” of the bassoon. As the music’s barbarous qualities became evident and the Pagan nature of the ballet’s story began to emerge, it became obvious that this was not the genteel evening starring delicate ballerinas in tutus that ballet-lovers had been expecting.

The shouting and restlessness increased until the dancers were having difficulty hearing the orchestra at all. Diaghilev tried turning the house lights on and off several times, both Ravel and Debussy tried to calm the audience – all to no avail.

The wonder is that the conductor, Pierre Monteux, and the orchestra didn’t give up. And one also wonders how some of the audience managed to remain enthralled by what they were hearing given the noise of a large number of angry rioters. Yet one man reported afterwards how he was so captivated by the music that it took him some time to realise that the pain in his head was caused by the man behind him pounding out the rhythms on it with his fists.

It took the police to restore order. No one was sure afterwards what had caused the greater outrage, Stravinsky’s music or Nijinsky’s choreography. Certainly the dancers liked neither, not to mention their uncomfortable costumes that they likened to potato sacks. It was suggested that a few rioters had been “planted” in the audience by rivals jealous of Stravinsky’s success. What the orchestra thought is not recorded but it certainly took far more rehearsals than was normal for an orchestral work.

************* So What About The Music? **************

Traditionally, all music is built out of three principal elements, used either in combination or individually. These are melody, harmony and rhythm. In most music heard in our daily lives all three are present. Mostly we are conscious of the melody or the rhythm but without the harmony the music would sound incomplete (this is of course a generalisation).

In the nineteenth and century, melody and harmony dominated. Rhythm was there, of course, to give the music its “pulse.” A waltz would have its own distinctive rhythmic pattern, as would a march but the melody was what most people heard. What Stravinsky did was to set rhythm free: it became the dominating influence in the music. He used melody in “The Rite of Spring,” distorted versions of Russian folk songs; and he used harmony – often excruciatingly dissonant, jarring to the ears that first heard them. But above all were the relentless, driving rhythms, the jagged, pounding beats that were constantly shifting so that you could never get a grip on where it was going. Trying to tap your feet in time to it became an impossibility.

The ferocity and tremendous energy of this music must have knocked that early audience sideways. It seems incredible that it was ever performed again. But there were some present at that performance who recognised that something new and exciting had happened and that music could never be the same again. It was performed as a purely orchestral work with increasing regularity and finally became popular when conductor Leopold Stokowski chose to arrange it for the Disney film Fantasia – perhaps the most unlikely use for a piece of music in history! Stravinsky was not happy about it but it did at least set the public seal of approval on his music. Those who have seen the film may recall the scene featuring dinosaurs and volcanoes. Certainly, Stokowski’s arrangement “sanitized” the music somewhat.

******************* The Story *******************

Stravinsky often told afterwards how, while working on the music for The Firebird he had a vision in which he saw a young maiden being sacrificed to the gods of spring by the elders of a prehistoric tribe. In 1911 he set to work on the music the vision inspired in him. The storyline was fairly simple: a tribe in prehistoric Russia ensures the coming of spring with ritual and dancing. The god of spring is appeased by the ritual sacrifice of a young virgin who literally dances herself to death.

************* The Sound-World ************

Part 1: The Adoration of theEarth

The music opens, as mentioned already, with a melody played in an almost impossibly high register on the bassoon. This melody was once a Russian folksong but it has been distorted almost beyond recognition. Gradually, other instruments join in, each seeming to play a line unconnected with what the others are playing. As the music grows in complexity it begins to sound like the calls of jungle animals and birds. Searching for a “beat” to the music is almost impossible – there is just a great swirling mass of noise.

The solo bassoon returns briefly, the strings start a rhythmic plucking and suddenly we are into a wild stomping dance, the “Dance of the Adolescents.” This is punctuated with wild, dissonant chords as though the whole orchestra has become a percussion instrument.

The music becomes quite mechanistic and it seems as though in its forward momentum it is going to become regular in rhythm; but again Stravinsky has a shock in store: as quickly as we adjust to one block of sound, he gives us something new and unrelated. There is a short quiet passage, dragging itself along almost melodically; then with a huge crash from the tamtam (a sort of enormous hanging cymbal – think of the start of the old J.Arthur Rank movies) this music becomes loud and tortured in its dissonance. It is replaced by yet more wild dancing, which is cut short within seconds as a mysterious, trilled passage is played by the woodwind; and this in turn is swept away by a percussive dance, the Games of the Rival Tribes. This is interrupted by huge brass fanfares and out of step drums as the Elders arrive.

All falls still as an old man, knees creaking, bends down to kiss the earth…

What suddenly follows is the Dance of the Earth, a sort of musical orgasm: a bass drum rumbles out of nothing into a huge burst of sound, the orchestra exploding with ferocious energy and violent jagged chords, the tam-tam crashing and cutting huge swathes of noise through the texture. A hurricane of swirling strings follows, trumpets snarling rapidly repeated notes, drums underpinning the whole breathless rush. A series of irregular violent chords cuts the headlong dash short and there is an almost startling silence…

When I’m in a foul mood I play this last section several times very loudly. It doesn’t always get rid of my mood but it warns others to stay clear!

Part 2: The Sacrifice

This starts slowly, moving heavily and rhythmically until mysterious trumpet and flute calls are heard repetitively. The music continues slowly as a young girl is chosen as the sacrifice. Abruptly fanfares are heard, becoming more and more insistent until eleven loud great hammer blows sound from the orchestra and the tribe glorifies the chosen victim in a stomping dance.

The Ancestors are evoked by the Elders and a quiet, persistent drumbeat, under a few wisps of melody, fades into silence to be replaced by a quiet trumpet tune – almost tuneful until it suddenly breaks out loudly and dissonantly. It fades away and a lone clarinet is left playing until with a new change of pace the Sacrificial dance begins, growing ever more complex and violently percussive, generating tremendous vigour and excitement. At last there is a brief silence - followed by a shriek from the woodwind and a stabbing final chord: the sacrifice is complete and spring will come again…

After The Rite of Spring Stravinsky never wrote for such huge orchestral forces again, nor wrote anything as savage; it was left to others to take up the challenge he had left them. He did, however, continue writing music until the mid-1960s and died in 1970.

************ This Disc *************

I proposed this particular recording of The Rite for a number of reasons: the conductor, Pierre Boulez, is himself a controversial composer of tremendous influence, taking music to extremes beyond anything even Stravinsky dreamed of (I still can’t cope with it!) and who is a skilled conductor with the ability to draw from an orchestra the precision playing that such complex music demands. And the coupling, Petrouchka, is highly approachable, tuneful music abounding in Russian folk tunes and dances and telling the sad story of a puppet, Petrouchka, in a sideshow at a Shrovetide fair. His unrequited love for a ballerina puppet leads to his death at the hands of his puppet rival in love. At the end, Petrouchka’s ghost appears, shaking its fist at the world that has treated him so badly.

*************** Memories ***************

I first encountered The Rite of Spring at secondary school when our music teacher played it to our class. Even the rock and roll fans, who had so far resisted all his attempts to interest them in the classics, sat up and took notice. A few of them even bought a copy for themselves. As for me, I couldn’t get enough of it and kept borrowing it from the local record library, driving my parents (both music lovers) mad as I repeatedly played the Dance of the Earth.

Last year, holidaying in Venice, Mrs Floon and I paid homage to Stravinsky and Diaghilev (and Mrs Stravinsky) by visiting their graves on the cemetery island of San Michele, where Venetians bury their dead. Unfortunately I seem to have erased the photo I took of the Maestro's grave so you'll just have to be content with his Other Half's matching grave.

Mrs Floon loves music, but she’s not a fan of the Rite of Spring. Ah well, some you win, some you lose…

************* The Boring Bits ***************

The number of this Sony Classical disc is SMK 64109
As a guide price is can be bought from Amazon.com at $9.98. It appears to have been discontinued in the UK, though copies may still be found.

The BBC recently compared all currently available recordings of the Rite and chose as the most exciting and best-played a version by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yoel Levi. This is on the Telarc label, number CD80266 and costs£13.99 from Amazon. The coupling is another Stravinsky masterpiece, Pulcinella, in which he reworked pieces by the 17th century composer Pergolesi. It’s a very attractive work indeed, a perfect foil for its violent companion work.

If it’s the Rite you’re after, there are around ninety recordings to choose from. You pays your money and you makes your choice.

But if you’re new to this music, don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Oh, I nearly forgot: the quiz answers are
a) The Titanic hit an iceberg (but it didn’t actually sink until the early hours of the next day)
b) You should know by now…
c) The outbreak of World War II
d) The bombing of Hiroshima
e) The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
f) The assassination of J.F.Kennedy
g) Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon
h) The outbreak of the first war with Iraq

Hands up if you got them all right. Or is it Rite…

 

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