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Rite of Spring, The
Igor Stravinsky (trans. Merlin Patterson)
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Subtitle: Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts
General Info
Year: 1913 / 1947
Duration: c. 35:45
Difficulty: VII (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Orchestra
Publisher: Merlin Patterson
Cost: Score and Parts (print) - $550.00
Movements
1. Adoration of the Earth – 16:40
2. The Sacrifice – 19:10
Instrumentation
(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Leonard Bernstein has called Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring "the most important piece of music of the 20th century." This is hardly a controversial statement. There are few works from this very fertile artistic period that have had the impact on music that followed than has The Rite of Spring.
As a young composer, Stravinsky so impressed the impresario Serge Diaghilev that Stravinsky was commissioned to compose three ballets for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The first was Stravinsky’s magnificent The Firebird, which premiered in 1910. The second was 1911’s Petrushka, which starred Vaslav Nijinsky dancing as the namesake puppet. Prior to composing Petrushka, Stravinsky had a fleeting vision:"I saw in imagination a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring. "
He used this as the basis for his third commission, Le Sacre du Printemps or The Rite of Spring, subtitled as Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts.
The premiere was held on May 29, 1913 at the newly opened Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris under the baton of Pierre Monteux. The dance was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky. The audience’s reaction has become legend with jeering and fighting in the hall between traditionalists who believed in classical ballet and bohemians, who were impatient with the trappings of classical ballet and instead desired the avant-garde. The journalist and photographer Carl Van Vechten recorded that the person behind him got so carried away with excitement that he "began to beat rhythmically on top of my head," though Van Vechten failed to notice this at first, his own emotion being so great.
Musicologists tend to believe that it was the choreography that caused the upheaval at its premiere. Musicologist Richard Taruskin asserts, "It was not Stravinsky's music that did the shocking. It was the ugly earthbound lurching and stomping devised by Vaslav Nijinsky."
The work has been popular from its first concert performance on February 18, 1914, in St. Petersburg under Serge Koussevitzky. On April 5th of that year, Stravinsky experienced for himself the popular success of The Rite of Spring as a concert work at the Casino de Paris. The composition is in two broad parts, Adoration of the Earth and The Sacrifice. Within each part there are a series of episodes, with no breaks between episodes.
- Program Note by Gregory C. Depp for the Metropolitan Wind Symphony concert program, 6 November 2016
Commercial Discography
- Audio CD: Univerity of Houston Wind Ensemble (Eddie Green, conductor) - 2011
Media
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- Metropolitan Wind Symphony (Jamaica Plain, Mass.) (Lewis J. Buckley, conductor) – 6 November 2016
- United States Marine Band (Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor) – 31 March 2014
Works for Winds by This Composer
- Berceuse and Finale from "The Firebird" (arr. Longfield) (1910/1998)
- Berceuse and Finale from "The Firebird" (arr. Goldman) (1910/1941)
- Berceuse and Finale from "The Firebird" (arr. McAlister and Reed) (1910/1989)
- Circus Polka (orch. Raksin) (1942/1948)
- Concertino for 12 Instruments (1920/1952)
- Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1950)
- Ebony Concerto (1946)
- Elegy for JFK (1964)
- Excerpts from "The Rite of Spring" (arr. Buckley) (1913/2015)
- Fanfare for a New Theater (1968)
- Finale from "The Firebird" (arr. Story) (1910/2014)
- The Firebird: Finale (arr. Hanna) (1910/2023)
- The Firebird (trans. Patterson) (1910)
- Firebird Excerpts (arr. Bocook) (1910/1995)
- The Firebird Suite (tr. Earles, ed. Fennell) (1910/1998)
- Fireworks, Op 4 (trans. Rogers) (1908)
- Funeral Song (1908)
- L'Histoire du Soldat (1918)
- Mass for Mixed Chorus and Double Wind Quintet (1948)
- Octuor (1923)
- Pastorale (1907/1933)
- The Rite of Spring (tr. Patterson) (1913/1947)
- The Rite of Spring (arr. Sánchez) (1913)
- The Rite of Spring (arr. Vosbein) (1913/2011)
- Scherzo à la russe (arr. Marciniak) (1944/1977)
- Song of the Volga Boatmen (ed. Simpson) (1917/1989)
- Suite from "The Firebird" (trans. Nefs) (1919/2013)
- Suite from "The Firebird" (trans. Knox) (1919)
- Suite No 2 for Wind Ensemble or Small Concert Band (tr. McAlister and Binney) (1921/1988)
- Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920, rev. 1947)
- Symphony of Psalms (1930/1948)
Resources
- The Rite of Spring, Wikipedia Accessed 7 November 2016