Le Sacre du Printemps

From the onset, I could tell that this piece was going to be a bit different. Though there were similar sounds and rhythms at the beginning, the 2:29 mark began to paint a different picture for me. One in which birds were coming out, building their nests for the upcoming season of reproduction and warm weather. Though it is disjunct, the compositional element is quite genius. I do not know if is because it reminds me of the carelessness of birds for other birds’ melodies or because of its actual meticulous construction.

Another aspect that I found interesting was the 4:00 mark in which instruments form a repetitive rhythm that highly resembles a locomotive, or at least different components coming together as one for one cause. I cannot think of a comparable analogy for it pertaining spring, but it would probably the combination of sunlight, warmth, and rain, which makes the recreation of life possible. While I found the repetition interesting, I also found the the 14:55 mark interesting for the opposite reason. Just how we talked about jazz and its improvisation aspects, I feel like this piece also deserves a similar conversation. While not in terms of composition, — at least not to my knowledge — there seems to be a sense of personal freedom in the dancing. Although the dancers may be given a certain degree of freedom within the choreography, the dancing is disjointed in such way that gives each performer a personality, even if it is merely an illusion.

One thought on “Le Sacre du Printemps

  1. Sherri

    I’m so glad you pointed that out! I also noticed that the dancing seemed very “unchoreographed” around the 14:55 time stamp. I began to wonder if that section was actually choreographed on purpose to look like “coordinated chaos”, but decided against it, since I think we see a perfect example of what choreographed chaos look like around the 12:10 mark. This section definitely stuck out to me, because although Stravinsky’s ballet as a whole is often described as chaotic, this seemed like the first time we get real chaos that is created by the dancing that is taking place on stage and not the music.

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