Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is written well for a dramatic narrative ballet. It combines traditional forms of classical narrative with complex rhythms and modern techniques. The music and the dance seamlessly complement each other, making me wonder if the dance came entirely after the music or if the music was inspired by ideas of movement.

The overture begins by showcasing the single voice of the bassoon. As the texture grows, other instruments such as the clarinet add their voices in seemingly opposing rhythms and melodies. However, the overall texture reads as a controlled chaos, as it does for much of the ballet. Other instruments take the role of accompaniment when their voices are not featured alone, such as the violins. When the curtain opens, the bouncing and dramatic rhythm of the brass and percussion informs the dance of the first tribe. The movements are bouncy yet defined, just like the orchestra’s music. As the dance continues, the leader of the dance is voiced by a single low brass instrument (trombone?) while the group responds with a responding accompaniment from the orchestra. This is a way in which the narrative style of the music is visually represented with dance.

At 6:30, when all of the groups begin to dance together, the score moves from controlled chaos into a fight-like rhythm and melody. Many voices are still heard on top of this theme in cacophony, representing the narrative of a fight or confrontation between all four groups. Again, this is represented visually in the dance. The chaos reaches its apex when the prophet-like character enters and the score builds from some voices to a heightened texture with many different voices at once, much like the overture. Finally, at the end of the piece beginning at 33 minutes, Stravinsky’s complex rhythms are featured as a dancer moves in solo, being possessed by a spirit of the ritual. This section reaches the apex of a controlled chaos with an underlying driving rhythm, which ends abruptly. I enjoyed this piece and found it very dramatic, especially in the way that it blended seamlessly with the dancer’s narrative.

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was one of my favorite pieces of music before Music Hum, but now that this class has given me a more discerning ear, I can better verbalize two things about this piece that, I think, make it so amazing.

The first is Stravinsky’s use of rhythm. While most previous composers employed consistent meters–consistently grouping notes into 2’s or 3’s–Stravinsky constantly changes how he organizes notes together by accenting different notes. The result is plenty of strange rhythms, maybe something like: 1-2/1-2/1-2-3/1-2/1-2/1-2-3/1-2. As an example, when the dancing first begins and the orchestra plays a driving rhythm, the accent changes frequently (4:00-4:15), creating a jarring affect that adds to the dissonant chord underneath. As another example, when the sacrificial dancer is chosen and the girls dance around her (23:38-24:05, 24:46-25:04, 24:25-24:40), the dancers jump irregularly, since the beats between the jumps vary. The same thing happens when the sacrificial girl is dancing to death (29:30-30:00, 31:33-32:00). Not only are these weird rhythmic patterns inventive and fascinating to hear, but they add to the frenzy and hysteria of the celebration that the dancers are portraying.

Second, Stravinsky has a lot of interesting melodic contrasts. Sometimes, he achieves this through changing instruments: when the dancing first starts, the strings play a dissonant chord with a steady, driving rhythm (4:00-4:08, 4:10-4:20, 4:31-4:40), which is interrupted by higher-pitched, playful-sounding melodies from the woodwinds (4:08-4:10, 4:20-4:31, 4:40-4:43). Alternatively, he changes the pitch and overall affect: from 8:42-9:15, the strings and lower woodwinds play a foreboding–and much slower and rhythmically regular–melody, which is interrupted by a comparatively sweeter melody in the higher woodwinds & strings. Again, not only are these extreme contrasts interesting to listen to, but they make the world onstage seem even more mythic and fascinating. Thus, with all of its creative rhythms and contrasts, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring not only broke musical ground, but it vividly portrays a myth about a frenzied and deadly ritual.

In Rite of Spring, we see a totally different kind of audience grounding. As we have consistently discussed from the beginning of class, structure is extremely important in terms of grounding the audience and providing a framework for music to be played.

In Stravinsky, we do see repetition of themes, such as the solo theme at the beginning and the dance theme when the women dances herself to death. However, in terms of timbre and meter, Stravinsky refuses to let the audience feel comfortably grounded. It is extremely difficult to be able to identify a downbeat, which changes just as you begin to feel it. The meter inconsistency is not only through such accent, but through consistently inconsistent accents. You never really know which note is getting accented as you listen until it’s actually played.

Furthermore, the timbre is consistently shifted. Just as we get comfortable listening to a theme, the key in which it is played or the instruments playing it immediately change. Overall, Stravinsky reverts to the most basic form of pattern creation in the themes he presents. However, he pushes the boundary in the meter and sound to not necessarily keep the listener feeling comfortable, for the piece for some reason sounds very logical, but rather unknowing. When I listen, I can appreciate the music, but I could rarely anticipate what was to come.

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.

While I didn’t enjoy the ballet as a whole I thought that the musical composition did a great job of telling a story without the use of text. While I wasn’t sure what was happening until I researched the piece a bit it was always very clear to me when there was a tenseness or a dramatic moment occurring through the use of dissonance and an increase in dynamic. The introduction brings you in to the piece and sets the scene. The introduction starts very soft and calm and gradually builds on a sense of tension that leads you into the beginning of the ballet. I have to admit, I had a very difficult time following what was actually taking place through the dance. However, the music synced up with the movements so well that it did make clear which of the movements were light and “playful” and which of them were meant to have a more serious tone.

This dissonance and tension were very clear and came to a peak in the very last scene when the female dancer or “chosen one” is dancing her last few movements before the sacrifice. While she is very calm and doesn’t move through much of the second half of the ballet all attention is on her as she thrashes and fights before she succumbs in this “sacrificial dance.” While I found this piece visually pleasing and I did enjoy this musical composition I would say overall that I did not enjoy the ballet due to the fact that I couldn’t tell what was happening until the very end. However, musically I thought that Stravinsky did a great job of telling the story. More than anything it was probably the fact that I am used to having some sort of text that held me back personally. After all, this was my first ballet not named “The Nutcracker.”

The first thing that I want to remark about this piece by Stravinsky is that the performance of the dancers perfectly coincide with the musical background. I was not too amused by the dissonant sounding tunes and the confusion which the ongoing aggressive sounds create beginning with the 4:00 mark. Nevertheless, once I saw the visuals of the dancers performing to the music, I realized that the movements of the dancers were extremely rash, harsh and hectic as well, which perfectly mirrored the music that accompanied the dancing. The strong correlation between the visuals and the music created a certain sense of harmony for me personally, which led me to enjoy the piece at first.

Also, from the beginning of the piece there was a lot of confusion. Nevertheless, throughout the middle of the piece there was a ritornello of a peaceful and light melody (8:15 and 11:37) which provided some sort of structure and organization to the piece. Also, something which is noticeable here is that the movements of the dancers is identical at both 8:15 and 11:37 when the same melody is played, since the dancers simply tip toe around the stage. The act of tip toeing is associated with lightness and softness which is beautifully reflected by the sound of the flute. Moreover, Stravinsky seems to enhance the structural effect of the ritornello by contrasting major and peacefully sounding tunes against abrupt interruptions with aggressive and loud instrumentation and sounds. The piece also contains a crescendo at around the 23:20 mark which again introduces a series of horns which generate a sense of confusion and hysteria

Nevertheless, after having been exposed to this crescendo, this piece has become too repetitive and one sided. The back and forth between the agitated sounds of the horns and the rhythm of the drums become too overwhelming. Also, due to the enormous amount of activity throughout the crescendos for instance, the movements of the dancers stop to perfectly synchronize with the sounds of the instruments. A distinct moment of that happens at 32:08 in which the centralized figure lays on the ground and slams her fist onto the surface twice. Nevertheless, these two punches were not accompanied with heavy percussion or drums. Hence, this was the part in which I became annoyed and stopped enjoying the piece, since any sense of musical consistency or logic  has been thrown out the window at that moment leaving me confused and irritated.