For my initial Song of the Week post I am going to post the most famous of all 20th century works, Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) by Igor Stravinsky. This work, without going into too much detail, ushered in much of 20th century Classical music along with the likes Schoenberg right before the War to End All Wars. I also recommend watching the 2009 movie, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky; the first 15-minutes are brilliant as it recreates all of the stress, dissonance, and riotous events that occurred during the premiere of Le Sacre du printemps. I also referenced Le Sacre du printemps in my recent article, Can Music Shock Anymore?
The performance chosen is the brilliant Joffrey Ballet recreation of the original 1913 premier of the Le Sacre du printemps. In this recreation the Joffrey Ballet tried to recreate everything as it would have been seen and heard during the premiere; choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky, costumes by Nicholas Roerich, and of course music by Igor Stravinsky.
No comments:
Post a Comment