THE RITE OF SPRING

Plan:

Sound Clip:

From 0:00- 1:15

Essay:

In Stravinsky's ballet, "The Rite of Spring" we are able to see many ways that he was able to express the 20th century aesthetics. When it first premiered people rioted, they were not used to the new stylistic choices that had been made and they did not understand what was going on. It was a far different ballet than what anyone was expecting and as a result they rejected it. The ballet was able to display a beautiful mix of rhythms and textures, but as a result it became nearly impossible to play and dance to. The syncopation was never quite done rhythmically and because of this it became one of the hardest ballets to dance to. In the start of the ballet the listener is able to hear modern 20th century ideals and growing war sentiment through the use of stratification, instrumentation, and sound color.   

At the start we are able to hear the bassoon playing the melody in the highest range that it can play. People had never heard this range on the instrument before, and as a result they had a hard time placing what instrument was playing. By creating this new sound color that the audiences had never heard before Stravinsky is able to create a disconnect with the people. They are immediately left to wonder what instrument is playing and have to acclimate to the sounds that they are hearing. This s able to show modern ideas because we are able to hear and experience something new. There were many new ideas that were being presented in the 20th century. New art forms such as cubism were rising in popularity. Artists were no longer painting on the realistic side, but were getting more creative with their medium and testing the boundaries. The use of the bassoon was a good was for Stravinsky to test the limits from the very start of the ballet and notify the listener that they were in for an interesting ride.

After introducing the bassoon Stravinsky does not give the listener too much time to get acclimated. At 0:20 we are able to hear a shift in the melody line with much more tension than the first 20 seconds. More instruments are added, playing in their lower registers to contrast the higher register of the bassoon. However, just eight seconds later at 0:28, we return almost abruptly back to the singular bassoon. In this short period of time he is able to show that the listener cannot just expect anything. They have to be prepared for changing times and always be alert. The ballet was released just a year before the start of the Great War (WWI), but sentiments in the countries were already getting tense. Each country had enemies that they were just wanting to be able to declare war on. The tension in the world was reflected in the piece through the block form, the changing ideas of the piece correlated with the changing ideas of the nations.

At 0:47 we are able to hear again the introduction of new ideas. The stratification of the instruments represents the stratification of the countries. While there were many allied countries the web of allegiance was extremely entangled and confusing. By having each instrument enter with a new idea and rhythm, we are able to hear the disjunctive nature of the piece and the world at the time. No instrument is playing the sam theme and as a result it sounds like they are all talking over each other in order for their idea to be heard. 

At 1:00 we are able to hear the strings for the first time in the piece. Instead of playing a form of the melody the strings rather provide a semi-transition from one idea to the next. This was very different than many other ballet's and concert pieces of the 19th century. The strings, mainly the violins, played the melody in many pieces in the Enlightenment and romantic periods. By having them as a secondary character to the brass and woodwinds we are able to see the shifting of power that was happening in the world. Other countries were trying to get away from the Eurocentric notions that they had been subjected to. 

At 1:10 we are able to hear the higher woodwinds paired with the lower winds and higher brass. Stravinsky played with instrumentation, and what instruments would get paired together to create new sounds. He would pair unlikely instruments together in order to create new sound colors that would keep the audience constantly alert of what was being played. This was not a piece to sit back and relax to, the listener was constantly kept on his toes.   As a result of pairing odd combinations of instruments we are able to hear ideas in new ways and he was able to push the boundaries of his medium so that he could get his listeners to think about what they were hearing. 

The ballet "The Rite of Spring" was groundbreaking for its time. Instruments were pushed to defy the expectations of the typical ballet. They were playing outside of their comfort zone in octaves and keys that they were not comfortable in. Similar to the world at the time, nobody knew what was going to come next, they had to be constantly alert and were never ready for the changes in key, tone, sound color, and volume that they heard throughout the ballet. Similar to how the world was not ready for a war, but knew that sooner or later one country was going to break and they would have to fight.