Stravinsky Listener’s GuideIgor Stravinsky and His Rite of Spring2013–2014 Classical Connections SeriesConcert One: Friday, September 27, 2013Program: Fireworks | Le sacre du Printemps

When are you all grown up? When is your age no longer worth mentioning?

For 17 years, I’ve been starting the Classical Connections Listener’s Guide with “Welcome to the Xth season of Classical Connections…” But at some point a person—or a concert series—has been around long enough that its age is no longer newsworthy. Except maybe for major anniversaries.

So welcome to the, uh, 2013-2014 edition of Demirjian Classical Connections! The series aims to help you build a stronger, deeper connection between you and the music. If you’re new to Classical Connections, it’s a simple idea: focus on a single work, take it apart, explore what makes it special, then put it back together. We do the same thing at our Young People’s Concerts. Classical Connections just aims at a more mature demographic!

The 2013-2014 Classical Connections season features four composers: Igor Stravinsky, Giacomo Puccini, Michael Gandolfi, and Camille Saint-Saëns. We’ll explore a grand symphony of the late 19th century, the most earth-shattering score of the 20th century, and a brilliant new piece of our own era. Plus an in-depth

look at one of the greatest and most popular operas of all time. It’s a wonderful lineup of fabulous music.

Let’s get started with Igor Stravinsky and his amazing Rite of Spring. But first, you’ll hear Stravinsky’s controversial arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner” followed by Fireworks, an early orchestral showpiece that eventually led to the commission for The Rite of Spring.

This concert is part of University of Dayton’s “Rites. Rights. Writes.” year-long initiative. More at:

udayton.edu/artssciences/graul_chair/rrw/

N E A L G I T T L E M A N A R T I S T I C D I R E C T O R & C O N D U C T O R

DAY T O N P H I L H A R M O N I C

On Thursday evening May 29, 1913 the glitterati of Paris made their way to the Théatre des Champs-Elysées to see Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes troupe perform the second program of their Paris season.

The glitterati were ready to rumble!

Scandals were nothing new at the Ballet Russes. Just one year earlier, Vaslav Nijinsky’s autoerotic gesture at the end of Prelude to Afternoonof a Faun had been the hot topic of Paris society, so rumors of a new scandal brewing had everyone appropriately excited. The fuddy-duddies were ready to take offense. The cutting-edgers were ready to defend.

The May 29 program was full of familiar favorites: Les Sylphides (to piano pieces by Chopin) opened, with Le Spectre de la Rose (to Weber’s “Invitation to the Dance”) and the Polovstian Dances from Borodin’s opera Prince Igor (“Take my hand, I’m a stranger in paradise…”) on the second half. The scandal-to-be was the piece just before intermission: The Rite of Spring.

Exactly what happened is open to interpretation. Each witness had their own story to tell, and many of the stories contradict each other. But there’s general agreement on this: the orchestra played, the dancers danced, the audience rioted.

The idea for the ballet had come to Stravinsky three years earlier, while he was composing The Firebird (also for the Ballet Russes): “I had a fleeting vision which came to me as a complete surprise, my mind at the moment being full of other things. I saw in my imagination a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring.” Stravinsky shared his idea (which he called The Great Sacrifice) with painter/set designer Nicholas Roerich and then with choreographer Nijinsky. Diaghalev approved the plan in the summer 1911, and Stravinsky set to work on the piece, now titled Sacred Spring in Russian and Rite of Spring in French.

In less than a year the composing was done and Stravinsky was busy orchestrating. In April 1912 he played the full score at the piano for Diaghilev and conductor Pierre Monteux, who had led the Ballet Russes’ 1911 premiere of the Stravinsky/Nijinsky Petrushka.

P R O G R A M

S E R I E S S P O N S O R Dr. Charles & Patricia Demirjian

S E R I E S M E D I A S P O N S O R Dayton City Paper

O F F I C I A L A u T O M O B I L E Bob Ross Auto Group

O F F I C I A L H O T E L Dayton Marriott

O F F I C I A L D A T A P R O V I D E R DataYard

C L A S S I C A L M E D I A PA R T N E R Classical WDPR 88.1

Broadcast on WDPR 88.1, November 16, 2013 at 10:00 a.m.

Classical Connections Listener's Guide © Neal Gittleman, 2013

D E M I R J I A N C L A S S I C A L C O N N E C T I O N S

Friday, September 27, 2013 8:00 p.m., Schuster Center

Q&A after the concertNeal Gittleman conductor, presenter

IG OR ST R AV INSK Y (1882-197 1)Fireworks

Le sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring)

I. Adoration of the Earth II. The Sacrifice

Stravinsky andHis Rite of Spring

The Riot of Spring

B Y N E A L G I T T L E M A N

SERGEI DIAGHILEV

NICHOLAS ROERICH

VASLAV NIJINSKY

After a few moments of relative calm, the curtain went up and the dancers started jumping and stomping. Audience decorum quickly broke down: grumbling, hissing, whistling, catcalls, arguments, even fist fights! Stravinsky escaped to the lobby, horrified. Nijinsky ran backstage and stood in the wings shouting counts to his dancers, who couldn’t hear the music over the din of the audience. Only one person in the building seems to have kept his cool: Monteux, who calmly and efficiently led the orchestra through the score from beginning to end.

What happened after the Riot of Spring? Four—some say five—curtain calls. So somebody must have liked it! The remaining five performances of the run were disruption-free. Concert performances in Paris a few months later were met with cheers, bravos, and a standing ovation.

What was scandalous quickly became a sensation and, ultimately, a masterpiece. Nijinsky’s choreography, ground-breaking in 1913, looked rather quaint when the Joffrey Ballet mounted Millicent Hodson’s reconstruction in 1987. But the music of The Rite of Spring has never lost its thrill. Stravinsky’s score remains one of the most daring and powerful pieces of all time.

And please, folks, no fist fights!

Here’s Monteux’s recollection: “The room was small and the music was large, the sound of it completely dwarfing the poor piano on which the composer was pounding,

completely dwarfing Diaghilev and his poor conductor listening in utter

amazement… The old upright piano quivered and shook… I must admit I did not understand one note…

My one desire was to flee that room and find a quiet corner in which to rest my aching head. Then [Diaghilev] turned to me and with a smile said, ‘This is a masterpiece, Monteux, which will completely revolutionize music and make you famous, because you are going to conduct it.’ And, of course, I did.”

Because of the music’s complexities, the rehearsal period was extensive (17 orchestral rehearsals—14 more than we’ll need). There was plenty of time for word of the wild music to leak out. From Nijinsky’s rehearsal studio came reports of crazy, primitive gestures inspired, in part, by eurythmics, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’s controversial new system of physical movements tied to musical gestures.

When they entered the theater that night, the audience knew something was up. They were ready to attack or defend depending on their tastes and inclinations.

BALLETS RuSSES PROGRAM JOFFREY BALLET RE-CREATION

PIERRE MONTEuX

COCTEAu CARICATuRE OF STRAVINSKY PLAYING

THE RITE OF SPRING ON THE PIANO

1881

June 17: born in Orienbaum, Russia to operatic bass Fyodor Stravinsky and Anna

Kholodovskaya, an amateur singer and flutist.

1887Begins piano lessons.

1889First composition, Tarantella for Piano.

1900Composition studies with Rimsky-Korsakov

at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

1909Premiere of Fireworks. Sergei Diaghilev hears it

and commissions Stravinsky to write for his Ballets Russes troupe.

1910While composing The Firebird for Diaghilev,

Stravinsky gets the idea for The Rite of Spring.

1913The Rite of Spring’s riot-causing premiere.

1920Pulcinella ballet score launches a new musical

style—neo-classicism—which dominates Stravinsky’s output for the next 30 years.

1940Moves to the u.S. to escape war in Europe. Settles

in Hollywood, where his neighbors include George Gershwin, Charlie Chaplin, and Harpo Marx.

1954Begins experiments with “12-tone composition”.

1966The Owl and the Pussycat, a song for soprano and

piano, is his final work.

1971April 6: dies in New York City of heart failure.

Banned in Boston! Those words used to mean something. Before the Red Sox started winning World Series again. When Boston meant puritanical rules, not liberal politics.

Massachusetts used to have many rules about what could and couldn’t be done in the arts. Once, Igor Stravinsky ran afoul of those rules.

During World War II, it was customary to play “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the start of all concerts (sometimes at the end, too). Stravinsky often conducted programs of his own music, so he led the anthem many times.

In 1941 he decided to make his own version. Partly at a student’s suggestion. Partly because he thought Walter Damrosch’s standard orchestration sounded odd alongside his own modern works. Partly as a patriotic gesture to celebrate becoming an American citizen.

Stravinsky made three versions: one for a capella choir, one for orchestra, one for chorus and orchestra. Today their slightly juiced-up harmonies sound refreshing but not at all shocking. But 1941 audiences were divided on Stravinsky’s anthem. Some loved it. Some mocked it. Some took offense.

The climax came on January 14, 1944 when Stravinsky conducted a Boston Symphony concert. One newspaper review said Stravinsky’s anthem sounded “like a performance of the customary version by an orchestra which either cannot read or cannot play music.” When Stravinsky arrived at Symphony Hall the next night he was met by a Boston Police official, who informed

him that he had violated a Massachusetts law prohibiting “rearrangement of the national anthem in whole or in part”. Another performance could lead to a $100 fine.

Stravinsky’s music was removed from the BSO folders and replaced with the familiar Damrosch version. There was

no arrest. No $100 fine. As Boston scandals go, no big deal. But a scandal, nonetheless.

Not arrested? What’s with the mug shot? It’s a fake, an unflattering pic from a 1940 visa application with the words “Boston Police” added. It couldn’t be a photo from Stravinsky’s 1944 “arrest” because it’s clearly dated “4 15 40”.

A fake photo. Before the internet. Before Photoshop. I guess Stravinsky was ahead of his time!

1881James Garfield inaugurated and assassinated.

Birth of Picasso. Booker T. Washington founds Tuskeegee Institute.

1887Annie Sullivan spells “WATER” for Helen Keller.

1889Wall Street Journal, Volume 1, Number 1.

1900Max Planck introduces quantum theory. Baseball’s

American League begins play. Boxer Rebellion.

1909Ohio’s William Howard Taft inaugurated 27th

u.S. President. Selfridge’s opens in London. Peary reaches North Pole.

1910W.E.B. DuBois founds the NAACP. Halley’s comet

returns. First Father’s Day celebrated.

1913Grand Central Terminal opens.

1920League of Nations. Red Sox sell Babe Ruth to the

Yankees. Harvard (!) beats Oregon in the Rose Bowl. Prohibition. Baseball Hall of Fame opens.

1940Dunkirk evacuation. Battle of Britain. FDR wins third term. Reds win the World Series in seven.

Lescaux cave paintings discovered.

1954Brown v. Board of Education.

1966Revolver. In Cold Blood. Mao’s “Little Red Book”.

London Times moves classifieds off the front page.

1971Kennedy Center opens. Fillmore East & West close.

Igor’s Other Scandal

A Stravinsky Timeline