Stravinsky's Le Sacre Du Printemps

Hello,
I felt like recommending this piece, even though I assume most of you have heard it, but if you haven't, in a nutshell, here it goes,

you can look more information on this on the internet, or in books, but Igor Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps is my favourite composition of the twentieth century. I saw the Toronto Symphony Orchestra perform this, and I feel that it is for the twentieth century what Beethoven's 3rd or 9th was for the 19th.

It's both accessible to the general public, and devourable to the connoisseurs.

It's amazing how such dissonance, when taken into context of a pagan fertility rite of Ancient Russia, really sets the blood boiling. No recording can do it justice, but a live orchestra with 8 horns, 4 trumpets, two timpanists, plus an acoustically perfect hall, can put you into such a savage fury... the packed house I was in didn't even wait for their standing ovation; when the piece was done, there were cheers of "YA!" and ovations of astonishment. Apparently, when this piece was premiered at the turn of the century, it caused a riot. It was that radical.

From the Norton Anthology of Western music, purpose of the show was, "not to tell a story, as in previous ballets, but to show a ritual on stage, invoking the spirit of primitive life as a balm for the ills of modern urban society."

I wonder if any enterprising conductor ever programmed this piece with a choral mass?

By taking the primitive theme, the intense romantic spirit of nature, death, ghosts, dance, strained, erotic love, and energy are mashed together and bursts into dazzling flames.

So, for anybody who hasn't heard it, get a cd, and put your volume up VERY loud.

A good recording is the one by Essa-Peka Salonen of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

thankfully we have QcCowboy on this forum site, he gave a great link once upon a time for those who emjoy deep sea critters as well

YouTube - Deep Sea - Le Sacre du Printemps

It wasn't really the music that "caused a riot", but rather the very progressive choreography...

gms, you totally beat me to the punch on that one.

Anyway, Boulez does a wonderful job conducting this as an orchestral piece. I've said it before, but I'll say it again; I may not be a fan of Boulez's composition, he is an incredible interpreter and technically wonderful conductor.

Anyway, I've yet to see it live, but I have a few DVDs of this performed with Najinski's original costume design and choreography. Though the visual element is intriguing, the sound from the dancers just adds another "tribal" layer to the music, making it that much better.

A copy of this score is a must for anyone who wants to become (or study) conducting. Though you may never conduct the piece with a professional symphony, several grad programs (Wisconsin and Iowa are two that come to mind, but I'm sure there are more) use this piece because of its technical demands.

It's funny that you mention the Toronto Symphony with this, because someone in my studio just auditioned for a 2nd violin spot up there, and one of the excerpts was out of this piece (I think it was either 'Sacrificial Dance' or 'Purification of the Chosen One')

Boulez is good when it comes to very complicated pieces (especially rhythmically complicated pieces), but I don't quite like his other pieces as a conductor, like Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, among others, as opposed to Gardiner, who conducts it incredibly..