Today is the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring!
The Rite of Spring 1913: Why did it provoke a riot?
The Rite of Spring caused an outrage on its premiere in Paris a century ago. But was it the music or the dance?
By Ivan Hewett,
 |
| Mischief-makers: Igor Stravinsky with Diaghilev |
It was 100 years ago that the most famous scandal in the history of the arts took place, at a swanky new theatre in Paris. Anyone who was anyone was there. The cosmopolitan German aristocrat Count Harry Kessler said that “it was the most dazzling house I’ve ever seen in Paris”. Jean Cocteau wrote that “the smart audience in tails and tulle, diamonds and ospreys, was interspersed with the suits and bandeaux of the aesthetic crowd. The latter would applaud novelty simply to show their contempt for the people in the boxes… Innumerable shades of snobbery, super-snobbery and inverted snobbery were represented.”
What drew them on the night of May 29 1913 was the whiff of something potentially outrageous: a brand-new ballet from the Ballets Russes, which had entranced and shocked Paris ever since their first appearance there in 1909. What gave the event an extra frisson was that this Rite of Spring was the product of the most savage of all these so-called “Northern savages”.
Igor Stravinsky, the composer, had scored a massive hit the previous year with Petrushka, which added an exciting element of modernist collage to colourful Russian folklore. Vaslav Nijinsky, the choreographer, had caused a minor scandal a few months previously, with his blatantly erotic portrayal of the lovesick faun in Debussy’s L’Après-midi d’un faune.
Stravinsky was hoping the new ballet would be an even bigger hit than Petrushka. “From all indications I can see that this piece is bound to 'emerge’ in a way that rarely happens,” he wrote gleefully to Nicholas Roerich, who was the guiding spirit behind the ballet’s vision of pagan Russia. It’s a fair bet that Diaghilev, the great entrepreneur behind the Ballets Russes, was hoping for something more than an emergence. He wanted a scandal.
And he got one, though what actually happened that night is something of a mystery. The dancer Dame Marie Rambert remembered that “a shout went up in the gallery: 'Un docteur!’. Somebody else shouted louder, 'Un dentiste!’” Kessler said that people started to whisper and joke almost immediately. The conductor of the premiere, Pierre Monteux, was told by one of his double-bass players that “many a gentleman’s shiny top hat or soft fedora was ignominiously pulled down by an opponent over his eyes and ears, and canes were brandished like menacing implements of combat all over the theatre.”
These are just a few of dozens of eyewitness reports. As the musicologist Richard Taruskin points out, the Rite is the most over-documented premiere in history, and yet so many things are obscure. Was it the choreography that annoyed people, or the music? Were the police really called? Was it true that missiles were thrown, and challenges to a duel offered? Were the creators booed at the end, or cheered?
There were certainly plenty of good reasons for outrage, starting with the high, almost strangled bassoon melody that begins the work, soon draped with fluttering, twittering woodwind sounds.
It’s often said that the pulsating rhythms of the Rite of Spring are what caused the outrage, but pulsating rhythms at least have an appeal at a visceral level (an appeal certainly felt at the Rite’s premiere, where according to one eye witness one excited onlooker beat out the rhythms on the bald pate of the man in front). It’s more likely that the audience was appalled and disbelieving at the level of dissonance, which seemed to many like sheer perversity. “The music always goes to the note next to the one you expect,” wrote one exasperated critic.
At a deeper level, the music negates the very thing that for most people gives it meaning: the expression of human feelings. As Stravinsky put it, “there are simply no regions for soul-searching in The Rite of Spring”. This is what separates it so decisively from Stravinsky’s hit of 1911, Petrushka. There we’re immersed in a human world, which exudes the very specific cultural ambience of Russia. It’s true that the main characters are puppets, rather than rounded human beings. But they have characters, even if they’re somewhat rudimentary, and at the end there’s even a suggestion that Petrushka might have a soul.
There’s no sign that any of the creatures in the Rite of Spring has a soul, and there’s certainly no sense of a recognisable human culture. The dancers are like automata, whose only role is to enact the ritual laid down by immemorial custom. An iron necessity rules everything: there has to be a game of Rival Tribes, there has to be Dance of the Young Girls, and an elder has to bless the earth. And finally, a young girl has to be chosen and then abandoned to her fate, which is to dance herself to death.
Which brings us to the other great innovator of that long-ago premiere, Vaslav Nijinsky. This strange young man, with his oddly shaped body and strange naive air (“One became aware of strange absences in his personality,” said Stravinsky) created something as epoch-making in dance as Stravinsky’s score was in music. Whereas classical dance aspired upwards, in defiance of gravity, Nijinsky’s dancers seemed pulled down to the earth. Their strange, jerky movements and awkward poses defied every canon of gracefulness.
Given all this, it’s no surprise there was a scandal. And yet, among the shouting and hissing, there were one or two sensitive observers who realized they were witnessing something deeply original, rather than merely shocking. The French writer Jacques Rivière observed that “there is something profoundly blind about this dance. There is an enormous question being carried about by all these creatures moving before our eyes. It is in no way distinct from themselves. They carry it about with them without understanding it, like an animal that turns in its cage and never tires of butting its head against the bars.”
To be reminded of that brute animal unconsciousness at the zoo is one thing; to have it enacted by a troupe of highly trained dancers and musicians, in a theater full of Parisian sophisticates, is quite another. Perhaps the riot was a sign of disquiet, a feeling that the world had lost its moorings, and that barbarism was about to be let loose in the streets. Given that the First World would soon break out, that feeling wasn’t so wide of the mark.
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The Sound of Hope
In Venezuela, Classical Music Fights Poverty
Is music literally capable of saving lives? According to Dr. José Antonio Abreu, it definitely is. His story is a reason to celebrate, and a powerful reminder of the power of music for children.
In 1975, Dr. Abreu, a Venezuelan economist and musician, founded El Sistema, ”The System,” a classical music youth training program for children in some of the poorest Venezuelan communities. Now publicly funded with branches in the United States, United Kingdom, and Portugal, El Sistema helps Venezuela’s 125th youth orchestras with training, funding, and the ability to travel worldwide to perform some of the highest level youth classical music in the world.
Why use music as the mechanism for social change? When asked about his vision for El Sistema, Dr. Abreu said:
“Music has to be recognized as an agent of social development, in the highest sense because it transmits the highest values – solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. And it has the ability to unite an entire community, and to express sublime feelings.”
Seventy to ninety percent of the children who participate in the program come from the poorest neighborhoods in Venezuela– like Sevilla, a slum in Caracas. Abreu’s success in navigating the program through thirty-eight years of political turmoil is testament to his determination and conviction about the power of music for children. Watch the 60 seconds video here, or watch the clip below!
Is music literally capable of saving lives? According to Dr. José Antonio Abreu, it definitely is. His story is a reason to celebrate, and a powerful reminder of the power of music for children.
In 1975, Dr. Abreu, a Venezuelan economist and musician, founded El Sistema, ”The System,” a classical music youth training program for children in some of the poorest Venezuelan communities. Now publicly funded with branches in the United States, United Kingdom, and Portugal, El Sistema helps Venezuela’s 125th youth orchestras with training, funding, and the ability to travel worldwide to perform some of the highest level youth classical music in the world.
Why use music as the mechanism for social change? When asked about his vision for El Sistema, Dr. Abreu said:
“Music has to be recognized as an agent of social development, in the highest sense because it transmits the highest values – solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. And it has the ability to unite an entire community, and to express sublime feelings.”
Seventy to ninety percent of the children who participate in the program come from the poorest neighborhoods in Venezuela– like Sevilla, a slum in Caracas. Abreu’s success in navigating the program through thirty-eight years of political turmoil is testament to his determination and conviction about the power of music for children. Watch the 60 seconds video here, or watch the clip below!
Imani Winds: Tiny Desk Concert
When Igor Stravinsky began composing The Rite of Spring, his ballet for vast symphonic forces, he could hear the music in his head but couldn't quite figure out how to write it down. It was just too complicated.
Today, 100 years after The Rite's premiere, the fearless musicians of Imani Winds make it all sound remarkably easy, given that they've condensed Stravinsky's massive walls of sound down to just five instruments: bassoon, clarinet, flute (doubling on piccolo), oboe and French horn.
Joy in the Congo: A musical miracle
"Joy in the Congo" seems an unlikely -- even impossible -- title for a story from the Congo, considering the searing poverty and brutal civil war that have decimated that country. Yet in Kinshasa, the capital city, we found an unforgettable symphony orchestra -- 200 singers and instrumentalists defying the poverty, hardship, and struggles of life in the world's poorest country...and creating some of the most moving music we have ever heard. Follow Bob Simon to the Congo to hear the sounds and stories of the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra.Beauty has a way of turning up in places where you'd least expect it. Kinshasa, the capital, has a population of 10 million and almost nothing in the way of hope or peace. But there's a well-kept secret down there. Kinshasa has a symphony orchestra, the only one in Central Africa, the only all-black one in the world.
It's called the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra. We'd never heard of it. No one we called had ever heard of it. But when we got there we were surprised to find 200 musicians and vocalists, who've never played outside Kinshasa, or have been outside Kinshasa. We were even more surprised to find joy in the Congo. When we told the musicians they would be on 60 Minutes, they didn't know what we were talking about but, still, they invited us to a performance.
We caught up with them as they were preparing outside their concert hall, a rented warehouse. As curtain time neared, we had no idea what to expect. But maestro Armand Diangienda seemed confident and began the evening with bang.
The music, Carmina Burana, was written by German composer Carl Orff 75 years ago. Did he ever dream that it would be played in the Congo? It wouldn't have been if it hadn't been for Armand and a strange twist of fate. Armand was a commercial pilot until 20 years ago when his airline went bust. So, like ex-pilots often do, he decided to put together an orchestra. He was missing a few things.
Bob Simon: You had no musicians, you had no teachers, you had no instruments.
Armand Diangienda: Yes.
Bob Simon: And you had no one who knew how to read music?
Armand Diangienda: No, nobody. Nobody.
Armand's English is limited. He preferred speaking French, Congo's official language.
Bob Simon: When you started asking people if they wanted to be members of this orchestra, did they have any idea what you were talking about?
Translation for Armand Diangienda: In the beginning, he said, people made fun of us, saying here in the Congo classical music puts people to sleep.
The music, Carmina Burana, was written by German composer Carl Orff 75 years ago. Did he ever dream that it would be played in the Congo? It wouldn't have been if it hadn't been for Armand and a strange twist of fate. Armand was a commercial pilot until 20 years ago when his airline went bust. So, like ex-pilots often do, he decided to put together an orchestra. He was missing a few things.
Bob Simon: You had no musicians, you had no teachers, you had no instruments.
Armand Diangienda: Yes.
Bob Simon: And you had no one who knew how to read music?
Armand Diangienda: No, nobody. Nobody.
Armand's English is limited. He preferred speaking French, Congo's official language.
Bob Simon: When you started asking people if they wanted to be members of this orchestra, did they have any idea what you were talking about?
Translation for Armand Diangienda: In the beginning, he said, people made fun of us, saying here in the Congo classical music puts people to sleep.
But Armand pressed on. He taught himself how to read music and play the piano, play the trombone, the guitar and the cello. He talked a few members of his church into joining him. They brought their friends which brought more problems.
Translation for Armand Diangienda: We only had five or six violins, he said, for the 12 people who wanted to learn how to play the violin.
Translation for Armand Diangienda: So they took turns, he said. One would play for 15 or 20 minutes at a time. That was very difficult.
But more instruments started coming in. Some were donated; others rescued from local thrift shops -- in various states of disrepair. Then it was up to Albert -- the orchestra's surgeon -- to heal them. He wasn't always gentle with his patients, but they survived. Armand told us that when a violin string broke in those early days, they used whatever they had at hand to fix it.
Bob Simon: You took the wire from a bicycle?
Armand Diangienda: Bicycle, yes.
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