The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky

Dancers from the 1913 premiere of Rite of Spring

For our ninth and final work, we will study the most wild piece yet; Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Premiered in 1913 in Paris at the Ballets Russe, the piece was so revolutionary that a riot broke out during the performance, because part of the audience hated it and the others loved it.

Stravinsky was born in Russia, lived for a time in Switzerland, in 1920 moved to Paris, then moved to Hollywood and became an American Citizen. He teamed up with an traveling ballet troupe of Rusian dancers and choreographers called the Ballets Russe. For them, he wrote several large scale orchestral scores for some of the most innovative ballets ever performed. They included The Firebird, Petrushka, and the Rite of Spring.

Stravinsky's innovations including writing for a very large orchestra, with many extra and rarely-used instruments, and he often wrote very difficult and atypical parts for the instruments. The entire ballet lasts about 35 minutes and the score calles for:

Woodwinds: 2 piccolos, 3 flutes, 1 flute in G, 4 oboes, 2 English horns, 2 B-flat clarinets, 1 E-flat clarinet, 2 bass clarinets, 4 bassoons, 2 contrabassoons.

Brass: 8 horns, 4 trumpets, 1 trumpet in D, 1 bass trumpet, 3 trombones, 2 tenor tubas, 2 bass tubas

Percussion: timpani, bass drum, cymbals, antique cymbals, gong, triangle, guiro

Strings: 8 first violins, 7 second violins, 6 violas, 7 cellos, 6 double-basses

We will be watching the Keeping Score episode; Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, presented by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. Below is a video of a performance of the Sacrificial Dance at the end of the Rite of Spring, when the sacrificial virgin literally dances herself to death

Related Links:

The Keeping Score multimedia website with interactive features 

The Stravinsky Foundation

BBC Radio 3's Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky page

Stravinsky Timeline at Boosey and Hawkes