The Rite of Spring: How Innovative Really?

[KGill]

This piece seems to be considered by quite a lot of people to contain the seeds of most forms of modernism as we know them today. Taruskin puts it best, I find:

Stravinsky's radical simplification of texture, his static, vamping harmonies, and his repetitive, ostinato-driven forms were the perfect musical approach to the primitivist ideal- the resolute shedding of conventional complexities of linear thought and their replacement by long spans of unchanging content, accessible to instant, as it were gnostic, apprehension and eliciting a primitive, kinesthetic response.

Yes, Le Sacre is known to us principally for three things:

• Alien harmonies
  Rhythms
  Freedom of structure

I am going to put to whoever reads this two of my hypotheses about my (admittedly oversimplified) list and Taruskin's quote:
1. The only concept new in this ballet is the complete disregard for human emotion.
2. All of the purely musical concepts thought to virtually originate in this work were in fact present in Petrushka.
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Petrushka was in some ways so far ahead of its time that we are still not even close to catching up. It unites copious layering (much-vaunted in Le Sacre) and seethingly barbed articulation with strikingly blithe consonance and (at least seemingly) utter atonality, as well as hints at the later neoclassical period (but only hints, not really manifestations). More specifically, there are myriad passages in which the texture and harmonies are more or less static, followed by abrupt switches to something- a big feature not only in later Stravinsky (in fact, nearly all mature Stravinsky) but in Le Sacre. In fact, there are times in, for instance, the Russian Dance in Petrushka when it sounds quite similar to Satie's Parade (for instance)- except with a more involved melodic line. And how about the opening of the Fourth Tableau? The harmony is pure D major, completely smooth, with occasional irregular interjections from various groups, and absolutely no thematic material (at least, in a traditional sense). This starts at figure 83, and continues all the way to figure 87- nearly five full pages. And it resumes from 88 to 89. And, of course, after that, there are two full bars of the same kind of harmonies with only oboes, clarinets, and horns- no themes. From figures 90 to 93 (three full pages), the violas and celli have the exact same pizzicato accompaniment, with a more complex but equally repetitive figure in the four bassoons. The oboes repeat a slightly more melodic but similarly, well, repetitive thing for over two pages. As for layering- the bar before figure 97 (starting). Sudden interruptions: the bar before 100 ('A Peasant Enters with a Bear. Everyone Scatters'). After that, there is a theme which bears little or no relation to any heard previously (or afterward), over a grinding and very simplistic ostinato. The most interesting part of the section ('The Peasant and the Bear Leave'), later on the same page (!) involves the other woodwinds entering, pianissimo at first, while the ostinato and other theme is still going on, and gradually picking up more instruments and higher dynamics as the first clarinet, tuba, lower strings, bassoons, and horns die out. From 101 to 102, there follows pure consonant texture with nothing else. It's not simplified, but this is a section that demonstrates something else- something more like Satie, the other great rival to the Impressionists (at that time, at least). Skipping ahead, 108 at first offers us a not-so-startingly primitive theme- one which would barely be considered a theme by many standards. There's an ostinato, it's pulsing and unchanging. Dissonances? Figures 59-after 61 (to the curtain of the Second Tableau). Or in 'The Moor's Room'- the opening, or 66-67 especially. More layering: the Waltz, especially starting at 72. 78=dissonances. And so on and so forth. I realize that the 'dissonance' is usually (not always) constructed from multitonality formed in tone clusters, but one must remember that most of the dissonance in Le Sacre is from fourth chords, juxtapositions, or bitonality. In fact, if a lot of the chords in the latter work were inverted differently, we probably wouldn't think it was very dissonant at all.
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As for the disregard of human emotion, that's really one of the few new things Le Sacre has to offer (especially for a ballet). There is no atmosphere of sorrow for the victim; she dies in joy and out of obligation.
One other thought: As it turns out, the riot was actually caused by the choreography, not the music. After all, no one could hear the music after about the first scene or so.

I would be interested to know what people think of this. Also, please feel free to point out any inconsistencies/etc. in this post.

[vinteuil]

All music is derivative, like other art. The Rite of Spring did not go anywhere not hinted at before.
That said, HINTED is the key word

[steltz]

There is a phrase called a "tipping point", which is defined as the "levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable".

This fits the case of The Rite of Spring well. Although derivative in many respects from Stravinsky's other works, the "unstoppability" only became evident in this specific work.

And innovation doesn't come out of the blue -- it usually has a lot of background behind it. Example: the impetus for the concept of a keyboard concerto was Bach's Brandenburg 5. Without the developments that led to that work, the rest would either not have happened, or at least would have been delayed until another work became a "tipping point".

As for lack of emotion, I can't remember who to cite now, but Stravinsky had actually stated that he couldn't stand emotion in music, or something to that effect. (Someone here will probably be able to quote the right thing.)

This may explain the eventual path Stravinsky's writing took, but then there is also the tricky issue of how much influence Robert Craft had toward the end . . . .

[jsnfmn]

As for lack of emotion, I can't remember who to cite now, but Stravinsky had actually stated that he couldn't stand emotion in music, or something to that effect. (Someone here will probably be able to quote the right thing.)

Maybe this:
“I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, or psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc….Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence.”

I had a heated argument about this very topic with several musician friends of mine several months ago. I find the argument for Petrushka being the more truly original work compelling. Le Sacre certainly took many of the ideas presented in the earlier work up several notches and reinforced the total effect with its primitive scenario and shocking choregraphy, but its hard to find anything in there that hadn't been done by him before.

Also, I don't think that this necessarily means that you have to also consider Petrushka the greater work, which I don't. I'll be interested to see what other people think about this.

[KGill]

I do also consider Petrushka to be a more well-thought-out/constructed and interesting (and therefore better) work, but I'm not really trying to address that here. The Rite is by no means bad, whatever is thought about the actual innovation.
That's quite an interesting quote. When, may I ask, did he say that?

[jsnfmn]

That quote is from his Autobiography which was published in 1936, I just noticed that this is mentioned on Stravinsky's wikipedia page as well. There is another from his Poetics of Music published in 1942 though presented at Harvard between 1939-40 (a copy of which is at the Internet Archive):

"Do we not, in truth, ask the impossible of music when we expect it to express feelings, to translate dramatic situations, even to imitate nature?"

Both are in any case from many years after the composition of the ballets, so it's hard to know if those were evolved opinions or if he had held them all along.

[sbeckmesser]

There is nothing in Petrushka, nor in any earlier Stravinsky piece, nor any earlier orchestral piece I know of by anybody else, that has the rhythmic complexity of the Rite's Sacrificial Dance, or its kaleidoscopic treatment of melodic fragments. The texture of this passage is unique for its time and is anticipated only in earlier passages from the Rite itself! There's nothing remotely close in the contemporaneous works of Richard Strauss or Mahler or anybody else in the Austro-German line. Most French composers of the were still trying to get their heads around Debussy and Ravel (whose biggest rhythmic complexities were like the passages in 5 near the end of Daphnis et Chloe). In England Elgar had only just finished his comparatively rhythmically square 2nd Symphony. And while there may be considerable rhythmic complexities in the works of Ives (such as Three Places in New England and the Concord Sonata) they nearly always are not a simultaneous disruption of both meter and rhythm. Much of Ives can be conducted in long stretches of 2, 3, 4 or 5; the time signature doesn't change practically every other bar for long stretches at a time, as it does in the Sacrificial Dance. The rhythmic complexity even survives in Stravinsky's re-orchestration/re-notation of the Sacrificial Dance in the 1940s.

The first follow-ups to this type of texture were also by Stravinsky (L'histoire du soldat and Les noces). He then veered into his "neo-Classical" period and you don't see it appear much again in his works or those of others until Steve Reich made it one of the foundations of his musical vocabulary.

--Sixtus


S

[KGill]

I'm not saying the piece isn't innovative at all, I'm just saying it wasn't even close to coming out of nowhere, which seems to be the commonly held viewpoint. Also, if rhythmic complexity were the only criterion for innovation, our idea of music would be pretty different than it is. Le Sacre's harmonies were firmly anticipated by Bartok, Ives, Scriabin, Decaux, and a few others, as well as Stravinsky himself (mainly in Petrushka). It was mainly Petrushka and not Le Sacre that introduced new concepts in orchestral writing. I agree that the rhythms of Le Sacre (mostly in the finale) are very original, but that still doesn't necessarily make the piece as a whole very original.

[sbeckmesser]

One can find the "Tristan chord" among Bach's chorales. One can find a tone-row in Liszt. Sure, one finds some the Rite's harmonies in earlier music, though not its relentless use of polytonal techniques. You can find some precedents for every piece of music -- the Rite didn't come out of nowhere. But certain aspects of it did and to me the originality of the Rite is the fractured rhythmic treatment. It was so innovative that only Stravinsky seemed to be able to follow up on it, a situation that, as I mentioned before, was to obtain (with a few notable exceptions) up until Steve Reich and his brand of rhythmically based minimalism.

Take a look at the original choregraphy for Petrushka and the Rite (both now in DVD productions). The former is visibly much more in the French-Russian ballet tradition. That for the Rite is like nothing that had been seen up till then (and for that reason was unfavorably mentioned in the first reviews). And the choreographer for both pieces was Nijinsky who, as most choreographers would, was responding to the rhythms of the music, not its orchestration, harmonies, or melodies. He knew, undoubtedly with Stravinsky's personal help, that there was something very different going on.

--Sixtus

[KGill]

The former is visibly much more in the French-Russian ballet tradition. That for the Rite is like nothing that had been seen up till then

You don't think that has anything to do with the completely different plots? The Rite's plot was also completely different from most other ballet plots, given its lack of sympathy for human life.

[sbeckmesser]

One could imagine a Rite choreography with much more of the standard French-Russian ballet in it: pretty poses from everybody all the time. I've myself seen some recent settings of the Rite that look far more traditional-ballet than Nijinsky's (either that or still-too-pretty modern-dance). And Nijinsky's choreography is consistently innovative (and contorted) even when there's nobody about to be sacrificed, as in the whole first half of the Rite.

As for sympathy for human life, human sacrifices as part of religious services (even the symbolic one in the Catholic Mass) are always to propitiate a god or gods so that human life can go on. And, as of 1913, centuries of settings of the Mass had produced nothing like the Rite. What's cruel is not the sacrifice itself, but how it is performed: a young girl dances herself to death, watched and encouraged by the rest of the tribe, a scene not unlike what can happen in a boxing match (minus the fatality, one hopes). But, the gods demand it and a tribe's gotta do what a tribe's gotta do.

That said, to me Stravinsky's cruelest piece is Les noces, which turns a wedding into ritual tragedy, especially if you examine the words and see the original choreography (this attitude towards marriage stems from the folk-cultural origins of the piece). The music in Les noces is much more mechanistic than the Rite -- remember he wanted to write it for synchronized player pianos. And to me it is also Stravinsky's supreme masterpiece, where all the musical and thematic threads we've been discussing are pulled tautly and faultlessly together.

--Sixtus

PS: I have a posting in the other Rite of Spring thread about the new DVD/Blu-ray of the Mariinsky Production of the Rite using the original Nijinsky choreography. It is a must-see for all lovers of the piece.