The Rite of Spring Premiere

The 1913 Paris premiere caused a riot and made rhythm and dissonance a modernist manifesto.

Related

ModernBallet MusicPolyrhythmCross-rhythm

On 29 May 1913 the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris presented Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. The audience argued and whistled, and the police came in. The premiere scandal had found its synonym.

Time and place

29 May 1913, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris. The Ballets Russes performed it, with choreography by Nijinsky and Pierre Monteux conducting. Stravinsky and Nijinsky put a ballet about a spring sacrifice on the stage.

What happened

The ballet has two parts, the Adoration of the Earth and the Sacrifice. Short motives, changing metres, stacked tonalities and heavy accents turn the spring ritual into coarse rhythm. The choreography gave up turned-out toes and graceful arms; dancers turned their legs inward and sank into the body. On the first night the audience moved from laughter to argument, some threw objects at the stage, and the police entered to keep order. The second performance was much calmer.

What changed

Rhythm moved from background to protagonist, and dissonance stopped being something that had to resolve. Ballet no longer belonged only to a graceful classical vocabulary, and modern dance and later orchestral music took permission from this evening. It also made the premiere event part of modern art: reputation could be built by scandal, then tested in the concert hall.

Listen for the turn

The Rite itself is not in the library. Begin with Stravinsky's Four Etudes, whose piano language already has hard edges five years before the premiere; then Piano-Rag-Music, where popular rhythm is folded into modernism; finally Les cinq doigts, where the harmonic sting remains inside a simple melody.

Related

This turn belongs to Modern and connects Ballet Music, Polyrhythm and Cross-rhythm.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "Le Sacre du printemps" — dates and reception checked, not quoted
• Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music (Oxford University Press) — narrative checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.