Andrew Listens to...Le Sacre du printemps/The Rite of Spring (feat. Kendall Matias)

This week my collaborator and I conjure pagan spirits and/or the extinction of the dinosaurs in our deep dive on Stravinsky's epic.

Kendall: In the summer of 2010, I had the honor to spend 6 weeks at Interlochen Arts Camp. Interlochen is a world-renowned summer camp that has been home to many modern greats such as Josh Groban, Norah Jones, Ed Helm, Felicity Jones, and Linda Hunt. Students at Interlochen take classes during the day to work towards large works of art at the end of camp, and during the evening and weekends they participate in regular summer camp activities. During my time there, the Interlochen Orchestra performed The Rite of Spring. While I was at Interlochen for classical singing, many of my cabinmates were at camp for classical instruments. This piece holds a very special place in my heart and always brings me back to that incredibly special summer in the trees.

The Rite of Spring is most well known as a ballet (or as the dinosaur scene from Disney’s 1940 Fantasia). Stravinski was commissioned to compose this piece for the Ballet Russes dance company (*Andrew Edit: Ballet Russes was a Parisian company founded by Russian expat Sergei Diaghilev. “In 1914 Diaghilev and Stravinsky were successful citizens of imperial Russia. By 1918 they were stateless exiles from a Bolshevik Russia wracked by civil war” (Victoria and Albert Museum). An unknown composer at the time, Stravinski took large risks in the composition of the piece - introducing dissonance and discomfort into the music in a way that was groundbreaking. Composed in 1913, one should not listen to the piece without remembering that the Russian Revolution started only 4 years later in 1917. At this time in Russian history, the Russian people were at odds with the monarchy and the oppression of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Rite of Spring tells a story of pagan, rural Russia, bringing the viewer through a harsh and unforgiving world that is painted as barbaric. The piece is clearly a tool of propaganda with the goal to remind the Russian proletariat that they must be saved by Orthodoxy, or else fall victim to the acts of cruelty we see throughout the ballet. The most telling example of this is how the piece immediately ends when our virgin sacrifice dies. The audience is not allowed to see if her sacrifice resulted in anything - she is simply dead.

Andrew: I always approach my collaborators seeking to be shown new corners of the musical landscape, and Kendall truly stepped up to the plate. Now I grew up listening to big orchestral and choral pieces because my mother was in the Worcester Chorus and we were members of Music Worcester. But I never felt like I had a frame of reference for how to listen to this kind of music. Even the decade that I spent learning classical piano felt more like mental and physical exercises than musical appreciation. So when I sat down with this Stravinsky’s score, as performed by the London Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein, it felt a little bit like wading out into deep water. But then Kendall gave me a tremendous gift. She invited me to her home, made me dinner, and we listened to the whole thing twice, once while watching Fantasia and then again with the ballet plot summary in hand. And all the while we listened, Kendall would comment on what she was hearing, how the different parts of the orchestra were in conversation with one another, and how they told a story that was both a part of the ballet and something uniquely its own. I left her condo with a better grasp of how to listen and a thesis that drove my own writing about the subject. I hope you listen to each movement with our notes in hand and see what you hear.

Andrew Listens to...Le Sacre du printemps/The Rite of Spring (Linked to Spotify)

Part I: L'Adoration de la Terre (Adoration of the Earth)

1. Introduction

2. Les Augures printaniers// The Augurs of Spring

3. Jeu du rapt// Ritual of Abduction

4. Rondes printanières// Spring Rounds

5. Jeux des cités rivales// Ritual of the Rival Tribes

6. Cortège du sage: Le Sage// Procession of the Sage: The Sage

7. Danse de la terre// Dance of the Earth

Part II: Le Sacrifice (The Sacrifice)

8. Introduction

9. Cercles mystérieux des adolescentes// Mystic Circles of the Young Girls

10. Glorification de l'élue// Glorification of the Chosen One

11. Évocation des ancêtres//Evocation of the Ancestors

12. Action rituelle des ancêtres// Ritual Action of the Ancestors

13. Danse sacrale (L'Élue)// Sacrificial Dance

Part I: L'Adoration de la Terre (Adoration of the Earth)

Kendall: The piece begins with what has to be one of the most iconic bassoon solos in all of classical music. I imagine a goose & her mate flying through the sky before landing on a grassy knoll. As the woodwinds go back & forth with one another, the birds bring us across a field landscape to familiarize the listener with the world we find ourselves in. In reality, this entire section takes place with the curtain closed. The woodwinds are featured prominently, with only hints of the other sections of the orchestra. As soon as the woodwinds are joined, there is an ominous and unsettling presence in the other instruments. We start the ballet feeling afraid, not before the bassoon melody comes back to usher us into the rising of the curtain.

Andrew: In the plot of the ballet, an old woman takes the stage during “Augurs of Spring” and begins to foretell the future. This movement begins with a staccato and ominous set of brass and strings. In my listenings to this piece, I associate the brass with the heavy hand of Fate, and in this case, Fate wields the old woman’s prophecies to draw our protagonists to their doom. The woodwinds that I associate with the girls sound a little like birds being swept together in a gale. And yet there is still a playfulness to the juxtaposition of brass and woodwinds. And as the movement ends, the gale picks up intensity until there’s an overwhelming wall of dissonant sound that takes the audience into the next movement with a big dominant chord. The menace of the forces of fate narrows in on the group of girls.

Kendall: The “Ritual of Abduction” begins with a force of timpanies and a sense of urgency. The plot of the ballet shows us the young girls who are poised for sacrifice being lined up by the river to be inspected. We feel this through the intense brass and percussion sections that almost seem to chase the woodwinds, painting an image of soldiers versus the virgin sacrifices. The use of various dynamics between the sections of the orchestra combined with the harsh, staccato rhythm prepares the audience for the coming conflict.

Andrew: The next movement, “Spring Rounds”, begins with a moment of relative calm and tranquility in the woodwinds, though the tremulous strings keep the audience aware of the encroaching danger. Then, blustering into the calmness, comes the heavy tuba. In the plot of the ballet, the young girls are dancing the khorovod, an East Slavic folk dance, where the participants hold the hand or the little finger of their dance partners while dancing in a circle. The circle dance symbolizes moving around the sun in ancient Russian culture and was a pagan rite symbolizing unity and friendship. In my imagination, the girls are pleading, cajoling, distracting their captors; their playfulness juxtaposing the plodding certainty as they realize they’re trapped. The whole movement tends more and more toward dissonance until it explodes with fervor before retreating back to the woodwind solo over those strings, having returned again to the opening of the act. The danger has been averted, for now.

Kendall: In “The Ritual of the Rival Tribes” we are shown what the other people in our pagan village have been doing. The dancers split into two groups, represented clearly in the percussion sections vs the woodwinds. This section takes a break from some of the dissonance we have heard in previous movements and almost has a playful element. While the core of the piece is still present, there is a more melodic quality that demonstrates that not all parts of this pagan society are rooted in violence.

Andrew: As we approach the end of Part 1, Stravinsky gives the audience 39 seconds of the “Procession of the Sage”. It starts immediately strident in the brass with chaotic percussion, building and layering before a sudden stillness. In the plot of the ballet, the games of the previous movement are paused by a holy procession of elders, led by the Sage. But these reverend men are represented by the same dissonant brass that stood for the old augur, marking these men as the same menace as Fate. The girls’ signature woodwinds are wholly absent, lost under the weight of patriarchal majesty.

Kendall: As the conclusions of Part 1, “Dance of the Earth” feels chaotic. There feels to be no melody, even though each of the parts of the orchestra are playing smoothly together. The brass section leads us to a staccato rhythm, never resting on one particular note for too long. The symbols and tympanies respond with urgency. We can feel the chaos that is erupting on the stage. The middle part of the movement becomes piano in volume, creating a sense of calm before the storm. There is a driving melody brought in by the woodwinds that slowly brings the orchestra back up to a strong forte. We are being ushered into the next part of the piece by jarring dissonant notes that lead to an abrupt ending - an ominous foreshadow of what is to come for our sacrifice.

Part II: Le Sacrifice (The Sacrifice)

Andrew: The epic “Dance of the Earth” ends the first Part in a moment of silence. Now the second part begins in “Introduction” to The Sacrifice. Now I’d love to be able to tell you all sorts of deep meaningful gleanings from this movement, but I was overwhelmingly distracted by how this was entirely copied by John Williams on “The Dune Sea of Tatooine/Jawa Sandcrawler” (linked) from the original motion picture soundtrack of Star Wars episode 4: A New Hope, at least for the first 30 seconds. It’s eerie, menacing, and slow. Once feels as if the doom approaches, plodding and unstoppable. The woodwinds, brass, and strings are all in sync, making the danger seem softer, more gentle, perhaps even a sense of resignation. At the end of the movement, a since bassoon, a single tuba, and a single violin play a mournful conversation.

Kendall: In “Mystic Circles of the Young Girls” we are immediately brought into what feels like a dream. The strings represent the girls, dancing and playing with one another. The iconic bassoon comes in again for a solo, dancing with another in a way that seems to so clearly embody dialogue among the dancers. Slowly the entire orchestra joins in on the melody introduced to us by the bassoon, as if we can see and feel all of the girls joining together in a ritual circle. The mysticism is not allowed to last long, as we hear another far away bassoon solo that feels scarier and dissonant. We are reminded that fun and games are not to last, but that one of the dancers is soon to be chosen to fall to her death for sacrifice. The oboe leads a dissonant cry, followed by the urgency of the brass section, that leads us into the next movement.

Andrew: “Glorification of the Chosen One” finds the trap of Fate sprung and one of the young girls is selected, being twice caught in the perpetual circle, and is honored as the "Chosen One" with a forceful dance. In the music, the bass and percussion are back with a vengeance, in arms against the wood winds. The gale force winds from “Augurs of Spring” have returned, trapping our protagonist in a whirling gyre, spinning her away toward her death.

Kendall: “Evocation of the Ancestors” starts with a bold strike to the tympany followed by a low blow of a tuba. At only 57 seconds, this piece makes a large impression considering how short it is. Here, the girls are praying and begging to the ancestors. We can feel their desperation in the brass melody and can feel how little it means when it is shut down with a dark response from the percussion section. In a second pleading, the brass section plays the same melody again, this time softer and transposed down a chord. The melody is played for a third time, in a strong fortissimo, as a final pleading.

Andrew: In the penultimate moment of the piece, “Ritual Action of the Ancestors”, the Chosen One is entrusted to the care of the elderly men. It sounds sly and snakelike, in a duet between alto flute and cor anglais. For me, it makes me imagine the corruption of the innocent- a little Varris from Game of Thrones. Then villainous brass returns; at first seeming very far away, but returning in full force, building up to a massive outburst of French horns, all leading to the sacrifice. But then movement ends so quietly, a brief respite from the fiery conclusion of the sacrifice.

Kendall: “Sacrificial Dance” is the conclusion of the piece. We hear an epic battle taking place between the woodwind section (representing our protagonist) against the evil brass (representing our antagonist). In this scene, the virgin dances herself to death in the presence of the old men. You can feel the struggle of the dancer as she is pulled in different directions, attempting to escape. Eventually it becomes clear that there is no escape, and she must dance. The staccato notes help us feel the unwanting participation of our dancer, and the brass melody continues to move her along against her will. The strong tympanies continue to drive forward a feeling of ominousness combined with the military-like quality of the trumpets and tubas. Eventually the music breaks into chaos and has a sense that the sections of the orchestra are playing separate pieces, until there is an abrupt stop. Here the sections join each other again, but not for long. One can imagine our dancer flitting herself into the air, along the ground, and eventually crawling while she looks for escape. The music continues to build until she simply cannot stay alive any longer, ending abruptly, signaling the death of our dancer.

I want to thank Kendall for this tremendous exploration of a massively impactful piece of music

Next time: Andrew Listens to… May Flowers