I was really excited to listen to (and watch) Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps. Ballets, unlike operas, are performance pieces that add the physical component to music. In Die Walküre, the characters performed “normal” movements – ones that we would perform in our everyday lives; but ballets portray the visceral physical reactions and articulate them on stage.

Though I enjoyed watching the ballet, I do not think that I would have liked listening to the piece without the visual accompaniment. Perhaps it was the style of the time, but Le Sacre du Printemps moved very slowly. Despite being a thirty-five minute movement, large segments became repetitive, and listening to the entire Le Sacre du Printemps would be onerous without the visual accompaniment.

The ballet choreography was very similar to the physical reactions that I had while listening to the music. In The Augurs of Spring: Dances of the Young Girls, the repetitive, dissonant strings elicit a physical reaction from the listener. I imagine someone walking agitatedly down an alley and turning his head violently, accompanying the accented notes, to ensure that he is alone. Most of the dancers are repeating the same dance, a simple jumping pattern; but, with the accented marks, all the dancers move a part of their body.

However, the ending was disappointing, and the buildup of tension found little release. The last scene was marked by a loss of meter, irregular accents (unlike the first scene), and markedly harsh dissonances. There is a prolonged buildup to the final sacrifice, and the Chosen One does not go easily. In her last moments of life, she is fervently jumping. Once she runs out of energy, she collapses to the floor, and the others raise her. I expected Stravinsky to include some grandiose ending: This is the sacrifice, which we have all been waiting for! But all one hears is a final dissonant chord that just sounds like noise.