LESSON 1: IGOR STRAVINSKY - LIFE AND WORK

WATCH BALLET “THE RITE OF SPRING” – IGOR STRAVINSKY

It celebrates the 100th Anniversary. Performed on 29th May 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées dai Balletts in Paris, France by the Ballets Russes,  an itinerant ballet company based in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe.

READ ABOUT STRAVINSKY'S LIFE AND WORK AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BELOW.
SEND YOUR ANSWERS TO MY EMAIL: raffaelina.ferrante@gmail.com

IGOR STRAVINSKY: LIFE AND WORK

The Rite of Spring (French: Le Sacre du printemps, Russian: «Весна священная», Vesna svyashchennaya) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky, with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. When first performed, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation and a near-riot in the audience. It is considered to be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.

Stravinsky was a young, virtually unknown composer when Diaghilev recruited him to create works for the Ballets Russes. The Rite was the third such project, after the acclaimed The Firebird (1910) and Petrushka (1911).

The concept behind The Rite of Spring, developed by Roerich from Stravinsky’s outline idea, is suggested by its subtitle, “Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts”; in the scenario, after various primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death.

Stravinsky’s score contains many novel features for its time, including experiments in tonality, metre, rhythm, stress and dissonance. Analysts have noted in the score a significant grounding in Russian folk music, a relationship Stravinsky tended to deny. The music has influenced many of the 20th-century’s leading composers, and is one of the most recorded works in the classical repertoire.

Answer the following questions:

1.      Who was “The Rite of Spring” written by?

2.      Who was it written for?

3.      When and where was it first performed?

4.      What is the conceptual idea behind this work? What is the scenario?

5.       Research: Which other leading composers has Stravinsky influenced? 

 

Part of Nicholas Roerich’s designs for Diaghilev’s 1913 production of Le Sacre du printemps