jacob

Well, I don't hear the Rite of Spring as being atonal, if atonal-ness requires a feeling of groundlessness...a lot of the piece consists of static harmony. This harmony is often complex, sometimes made of two or more chords or modes stacked on top of one another (polytonality, perhaps), but what doesn't happen is harmony drifting so fast that I can't keep track of it. If there were a spectrum from modal (noodling around in a scale statically) to tonal (changing chords but with a definite hierarchy) to atonal (too much change), I would put a lot of the Rite in the modal category.


What most has entranced me about the Rite of Spring is the rhythms, the way that Stravisky can take one or two motives and make an insanely unpredictable (while coherent!) melody or phrase with them.

Oh, and let's see, my favorite movements are "Ritual of the Ancients" and of course "Dance of the Earth" though those are translated titles. I tried to arrange the latter for band once.