July : Stravinsky : Rite of Spring

[Seán]

I have several versions of Le Sacre and it is lovely to be able to savour the different interpretations of this wonderful work. One that stands out for me is the Gergiev led recording with the Kirov Orchestra: it is a red raw, full blooded Rite, hugely enjoyable.

[Jared]

If I may wade in on a subject upon which I know nothing, the BBC Music Mag has just given this Naxos Historical Re-Release 5 stars (unsurprisingly)... thought I might just bring it to your attention:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stravinsky-Ball ... 614&sr=1-1

[Seán]

If I may wade in on a subject upon which I know nothing, the BBC Music Mag has just given this Naxos Historical Re-Release 5 stars (unsurprisingly)... thought I might just bring it to your attention:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stravinsky-Ball ... 614&sr=1-1

Thanks Jared, for anyone who wants to explore the world of Stravinsky this 22 CD set comes highly recommended by yours truly, it can be had on Amazon for £36:

[james]

I agree that the Stravinsky box set is great value and is well recommended.

I am not too sure how to proceed from here .. lot of CD's of the Rite just put the whole thing on two tracks [part I and part II] .. I am thinking of trying to analyse it by looking at individual movements but I m not finding a lot of information.

Here is the list of sections of part I ..

Rite of Spring, Part I (Adoration of the Earth):
1. Introduction
2. The Augurs of Spring: Dances of the Young Girls
3. Ritual of Abduction
4. Spring Rounds
5. Ritual of the Rival Tribes
6. Procession of the Sage
7. The Sage
8. Dance of the Earth

The whole of Part I only lasts 15-20 minutes ..

james

[Diapason]

I think that's a good way to look at it but I can't even figure out where the 'joins' are. To the score with me, I think.

[fergus]

I am not too sure how to procede from here .. lot of CD's of the Rite just put the whole thing on two tracks [part I and part II] .. I am thinking of trying to analyse it by looking at individual movements but I m not finding a lot of information.

I have found in the past, particularly when faced with music that I personally cannot get to grips with that if I can break it down into its constituent components that I am better able to understand it as a whole when I rebuild it, so to speak....just my two cents worth James.

[bombasticDarren]

I am not too sure how to procede from here .. lot of CD's of the Rite just put the whole thing on two tracks [part I and part II] .. I am thinking of trying to analyse it by looking at individual movements but I m not finding a lot of information.

I have found in the past, particularly when faced with music that I personally cannot get to grips with that if I can break it down into its constituent components that I am better able to understand it as a whole when I rebuild it, so to speak....just my two cents worth James.

I have listened to the Rite many many times and I have never taken an interest in the plot. I know it's about sacricial dancing but that's as clear as I am on the matter - I just love the tunes, the rhythms and the intensity of the music. I might have to try a proper listen-through after reading this thread

[Ciaran]

I very often listen with the score (there's so much going on! With the score you can hear even more!) so I'm quite conscious of the 14 sections, not to mention the unusual instruments called for.

Stravinsky (even when speaking English) tended to refer to it by the French title Le sacre du printemps which could be translated as the consecration or coronation of spring. Apparently the Russian title Весна священная (Vesna svyashchennaya) means something like "That which is sacred of spring".

[james]

I have been searching for more information on the *story* of the ballet and I found the following ..

http://library.thinkquest.org/21702/lite/rite.html

synopsis:

Part I: the adoration of the earth. The curtain rises to reveal young men and women in separate groups. Their surroundings are primitive and dominated by the dark forces of nature. At first the dances are light hearted but they slowly change to have more aggressive and savage movements. The young men take possession of the women and carry them offstage. A fight ensues until a wise old man makes peace. There is a stunned silence, then the men throw themselves on the ground in worship, rise again, and start an even more frenzied dance.

Part II: the sacrifice. The young women are standing on the stage near a fire, one of them will be chosen as a sacrifice to the earth. The chosen one stands alone and still in the middle of the stage after a mystic dance, and the young members of the tribe gather around her and dance in a "crescendo or brutal excitement." Finally the chosen one joins them and the dancing grows more and more violent until it climaxes and the chosen maiden falls exhausted and dies. The men then carry her over to the sacred stone and fall prostrate. The rite is over.

There is also a good account here

http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/messiaen/ ... note.do...

The Rite of Spring, third (after Firebird and Petrushka) of Stravinsky¹s
scores for the Ballets Russes, was given its first performance in Paris on 29 May 1913, a date made famous by one of the most notorious riots of musical history. The Rite has become an icon of modernism, for many people the work with which 20th-century music definitively begins, thanks to the brutal, exhilarating dissonances and to the complex rhythms from whose ruthless momentum the work derives its unique power. This is especially so in the concluding ‘Sacrificial Dance’ which employs a wholly original scheme of rhythmic dislocation (significantly Stravinsky could at first play the music before he could find a way to write it down) rising to a climax of orgiastic power all the more overwhelming for its implacable discipline.

Stravinsky began composing in the late summer of 1911 after a meeting with Roerich to settle the details of the ballet’s scenario. The work’s two halves represent day and night. Originally, the ancient Slavic games of Part 1 were planned to have a continuous musical acceleration, with ‘Spring Rounds’ placed second (and played much quicker) and the ‘Ritual of Abduction’ as the penultimate section, just before the solemn blessing by the Sage, which releases the ‘Dance of the Earth’ – ‘the frenzied dance of the people drunk with spring’. Stravinsky’s earliest account, written in December 1912, continues by describing the ‘secret night-games’ on which the curtain rises in Part 2, after the sinister nocturnal prelude. The victim is chosen by lot and she enters ‘a stone labyrinth while the maidens glorify her in a wild, martial dance’ .

ends==

[Claus]

I have several versions of Le Sacre and it is lovely to be able to savour the different interpretations of this wonderful work. One that stands out for me is the Gergiev led recording with the Kirov Orchestra: it is a red raw, full blooded Rite, hugely enjoyable.

This is the version I have and I really like it! I have already listened a few times and will try to get a few more listens in with your excellent notes James. I will report back with my findings.