Robert Craft - The Rite of Spring, Genesis of a Masterpiece

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The Rite of Spring: Genesis of a MasterpieceAuthor(s): Robert CraftSource: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Autumn - Winter, 1966), pp. 20-36Published by: Perspectives of New MusicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/832386

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THE

RITE

OF

SPRING

Genesis of a Masterpiece

ROBERT CRAFT

PREFACE

I

PERHAPS I should begin by offering some justification for my

choice of

subject.1

There

is no

longer

any novelty

in The

Rite

of

Spring,

you

will

say,

and the fallout

from the

explosions

it

once

made

has

long

since settled.

Certainly

no

one

would

claim that it

exerts

any

immediate

influence

on the

new

music

of

today,

or at

any

rate

on the

new-fangled

new

music,

except

in

the sense of

an ancestor

which,

like

a

prize

bull,

has inseminated the whole modern

movement.

Com-

posers,

with

Stravinsky

himself at their

head,

have tended to

regard

it

as a

dead end

(bang

rather than

whimper)

for at least the

latter

four decades of its

existence,

during

which time the

compilers

of

cinema

sound tracks

have diluted

its

originality

and the

"titans of the

podium"

have

conquered,

or at

least

subdued,

it

and

added it as

a

trophy

(or

scalp)

to the

repertory.

Why

talk

about

it,

then,

if

its

musical

mysteries

are now

profane knowledge

(the

desacralization

complete),

if

I

have no

new

theory

to

propound,

and

if

in

any

case the

music is

neither

neglected

nor

in

need of

reevaluation?

The

answer is

in

a cache

of

manuscript

sketches-as

many

as

four-fifths of

the

total,

at

a

guess-recently acquired by

the

Andre

Meyer

Collection in

Paris from

M. Boris

Kochno,

Diaghilev's

heir

and the librettist

of

Stravinsky's

Mavra.

They

have been

inaccessible

until

now even to

students,

and few

people

indeed can

have

had

an

opportunity

to

examine

them,

which I

say

not

as an

attempt

to

in-

veigle

you

with a

bibliographical

scoop,

but

rather

because I

have been

living

only

a

very

short

time

with

the

discovery

myself

and

am

still

greatly

excited

by

it:

I

will not

promise

not

to

impose

my

own

feelings.

Preliminary

drafts

by

Stravinsky

are

rarely

seen.

After

disposing

of his earlier autograph manuscripts among patrons and friends, the

composer

has

kept

the later

ones

under lock

and

key. Having

inspected

1

The text

was read as a

lecture at

Ohio State

University,

Columbus,

November

29,

1966;

copyright

1966

by

Robert

Craft.

A

facsimile

volume

of

sketches

for The

Rite

of Spring

with

notes

by

Robert

Craft will

be

published

shortly.

*

20 ?



THE RITE

OF

SPRING:

GENESIS

OF

A MASTERPIECE

virtually

all

of them

myself,

however,

I can

testify

that,

at

least for

me,

the

present

collection

contains

by

far the

most

interesting

material.

At

the

time of

The

Rite

Stravinsky's

language

was uncodified

and his

ambit was unknown and unpredictable-all comparatively, of course,

for it

might

be

claimed,

without

arrogation,

that the same

holds true

today,

in a

reduced

context,

which is

why

the

composer,

who

has

reflected

as much

of

the

century

in which we live as

any

artist,

con-

tinues to

irritate

musical

historiographers

and to elude

the

successive

niches

they

prepare

for

him. The

composition process

exposed

in these

sketches

is

often

akin

to

Debussy

in

the

development

of harmonic and

intervallic

cells

from small units

to

unity,

but

it is

also and

for the

most

part quite

unlike

anyone

else.

In

fact,

the collection could be

called in evidence both for and

against

facit

e nihilo

explanations

of

the

creation

of The

Rite;

"for"

n

those

examples

which

seem

to

appear

in

bursts,

fully

formed,

like

asteroids,

and

"against"

in the

pages

on

which

slower

gestations

are chronicled.

In

many

cases of the latter

we

are

able

to

examine

(and

with

little

effort,

thanks

to

a

legibility

com-

pared

to which

Beethoven's

manuscripts

look

like

tachiste

art)

the

nascent

conception,

and

to trace

it

as

it

develops,

transmutates,

cross-

breeds,

or

serves

as

a

springboard

to other

directions;

and

if

we

cannot

actually invade the creating mind, we are able, as we watch its leaps of

logic

and

the

sharpening

of

its

images,

to

follow

the mind's

footsteps.

To

anyone

interested

in musical

embryology,

these facsimile

pages

are a

major

document.

The

depth

of

discovery

will

vary

with

the

equipment

of the

individual,

to

be

sure,

and each

reader

will

form

his

compromises

with

the material as he does with life

itself-a

high-flown

statement

with

which

I

hope

to

paper

over the

gaps

in

my

own work.

I

give

no

conspectus

of

The

Rite as a

completed composition,

and

I

have

pro-

vided

only

a skeleton

Baedeker,

the

slenderest

of

guide-rails,

to the

sketches,

the

"genesis"

of

my

title

being

a

description

of the

manu-

scripts

themselves,

not the

postulate

of

this

preface.

At

no

point

do

I

dilate on

the

structure of

the

music,

or offer a

general

musical

analysis,

and I

have even shirked the

task

of

cataloguing

the mass

of

detail

on

grounds

that

musicians can

perform

this

largely

mechanical labor

for

themselves,

and that it would be useless for

anyone

else. The

point

of

view

of the

commentary,

for the

time has

come to

define

it,

is that of an observer in possession of an omnipotent advantage, the

ultimate

implement

of

every

remark: I mean the

power

of

hindsight.

At

the same time

this

historical

superiority

constitutes an

important

handicap

because

of

which

all

of

our

investigations

are

deterministic.

*

21

-





THE RITE

OF

SPRING:

GENESIS

OF

A MASTERPIECE

II

It

may

be

useful at this

point

to

retrace some of

the outward

career

of the work from inception to first performance. Like many of Stra-

vinsky's

ideas,

that

of The Rite

of

Spring

had

an oneiric

origin.

In

March

1910,

while

composing

the Finale of

The

Firebird,

he

dreamed

a

scene

in

which

a chosen

virgin

of

an archaic Russian tribe

dances

herself to

death,

the culmination of

rituals of

propitiation

to the

gods

of

spring.

Though

the

composer

disclaims

connection between

the two

scores,

some of the musical resemblances are

striking,

especially

the

incidence,

in

both,

of

the

Khorovod

form;

of the

volcanic

glissandos

in

the

horns;

of

the alternations of

metrical units of

twos

and

threes;

and even of melodic content: cf. No. 182 in The Rite, and the begin-

ning

of the second tableau

of The

Firebird.

Stravinsky

confided

his

prefiguration

of the

new

ballet to

Nicolas

Roerich,

painter,

ethnog-

rapher,

archaeologist, designer

of

Rimsky-Korsakov's

tomb,

and it

was one

of the

most

fortunate confidences

of

his

life,

for Roerich's

knowledge,

whatever

it

may

have

been,

inspired

Stravinsky

and

helped

to

sustain his

vision.

Roerich was

the

catalyst

of the

subject,

an

incomparably

more

effective

function

than that of set and

costume

designer by

which

he is remembered.

A little

more

than a

year

later,

the

interval

during

which

Petrushka

was

composed

and

performed, Stravinsky

and Roerich

met at the

home,

near

Smolensk,

of the

Princess

Tenichev,

patroness

of

Diaghi-

lev.

Here

they

composed

the

scenario,

Stravinsky

contributing

the

idea

of the

division

in

two

parts

to

represent

day

and

night,

and

Roerich

suggesting

the

episodes

based

on

primitive

ceremonies;

the

anthropological

titles,

with the

exception

of a

single

word,

are

by

Roerich. At the

beginning

of

July

(1911),

the

composer

visited

Diaghilev in Carlsbad and it was there that the ballet was commis-

sioned.

Stravinsky

has said elsewhere that the French title Le Sacre

du

printemps

was dubbed

by

Bakst

only shortly

before the

first

per-

formance,

but

it is

already

found

in

the

composer's

hand

in

a

receipt

dated November

19,

1911

(whether

0.

S.

or N. S. is not

indicated,

though

both

are

regularly

given

in

the

composer's

Russian

correspond-

ence)

for

partial

payment

(4,791

francs)

of

the commission.

Stravinsky

spent

the summer in

Ustilug,

his home

in

Russian

Volhynia,

composing

the

Augurs

of

Spring,

Spring

Rounds,

and

part

of the Rival Tribes. He recalls that his first idea was the focal chord of

F-flat

major

in the bass

combined with the

dominant-seventh chord of

A-flat

in the treble

(to

adopt

his own

nomenclature,

for he

has

always

referred

to

the triadic

combinations in

The Rite in

terms of

bi- or

23

?



PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

polytonality;

at

the same time

it

should be

said

that

he

rarely

employs

and never thinks

in the

vocabulary

of

musical

theory,

and that he

recently

remarked of

this chord

that

he

could

not

explain

or

justify

it

at the time but that his "ear accepted it with joy"). As a first idea, the

chord,

above

all its dominant-seventh

superstructure

and

the

major-

seventh

frame

of

the outer

voices,

was

indeed

a

discovery.

The

dom-

inant-seventh

is

reiterated

for some

280

beats

in The

Augurs

of

Spring alone,

interrupted

in all

that time

by

but

a

single

measure

of

cadence;2

it then forms a

bridge

to and

becomes

a

large

part

of the

substance of

the next

movement

as

well,

and

thereafter

flourishes

as

a

root of the

entire

piece-though,

of

course,

there is more

prospective-

ness

(or

less

adventitiousness)

in

Stravinsky's

exploitation

of

it

than

my

phrasing implies.

The

remainder of Part One was

composed

in

a

pension

in

Clarens,

"The

Lindens,"

in

the

autumn and

early

winter

of

1911-1912.

Part

Two was

begun

at the same address

on March

1, 1912,

but,

as

the

sketches

show,

at

a later

point

in

the

score than the

beginning

as

we

know it.

Part

Two

emerged

in

more helter-skelter fashion

than

Part

One: the

Sacrificial

Dance

was

already

in

germination

during

the

composition

of the Introduction.

Then, too,

several notations for The

Nightingale

are

interspersed among

the

sketches,

as

well

as

drafts of

the first

two

Japanese Lyrics.

The

interposition

of these other

opera

is

partly

accounted for

by

a

change

in

Diaghilev's

plans

and the

de-

cision that

The Rite

could not be

staged

in

1912. Until then

the

composer

had

worked toward a

performance

dateline in

June

of that

year

and

accustomed

himself to

the

idea

that

the

new

ballet

would

follow

The

Firebird

and

Petrushka,

a

third

premiere

in

as

many years.

But in

spite

of the fact that the final

dances

existed in

outline

by

mid-April

("Voila

'Le

Sacre'

bientot

fini,"

he

writes on

April

11

to

M. D. Calvocoressi, who was preparing the French translation of

The

Nightingale),

it

is

unlikely

that

the

full

score

could

have

been

completed

in

time

and,

in

fact,

drafts

for

instrumentation are

found

as late

as

eleven

months after

that

date.

Diaghilev's

disappointing

news

must

have

come

by

the

end

of

January

1912:

Stravinsky spent

most of

February

in

London

with

the

Ballet,

which

he

would

hardly

have done

if The Rite

were

still

docketed for

spring

performance.

But

though

work on

the

composition

was

suspended,

the

interruption

did

not

slacken the

composer's pace

or

result in

a

loss of

momentum.

Nor,

in

my

judgment

and in

spite

of

"everything

that

grows/holds

in

per-

2

In a

television

interview

for

the

Norddeutscher

Rundfunk,

March

1965,

the

composer

criticizes his

repetition

of the

chord,

comparing

it

to

the

"more

interesting

development"

of the melodic material

of

Augurs of

Spring.

24

*



THE

RITE

OF

SPRING: GENESIS

OF A MASTERPIECE

fection

but

a

little

moment,"

did

it

damage

the

time scale. In

fact,

the

break

may

have

been

necessary

to

the

time architecture of

Part

Two

in

which

plateaus

of

slower,

less eventful

music

prepare

for the

high

point of the final dance. Stravinsky has always known when he and his

work

required

a

change

of

scene,

a

fact

that

helps explain

his

sudden,

restless

junketings

about

the

globe.

In

1912,

owing

to

Diaghilev's

ministrations-and

at

his

expense,

because of the

postponement-

Stravinsky

attended

premieres

and

galas

of The Firebird

and

Pe-

trushka

all

over

Europe.

His

concern for the

performance

of

his music

dates from this

time,

incidentally,

and I

might

add that it still

propels

him,

for

though

it

hardly

seems

possible

that after 53

years yet

an-

other

reading

of The Rite

of

Spring

could interest

him I assure

you

it does.

Between

sojourns

to

Monte

Carlo, Paris,

and

Venice,

work went on

apace,

more of

it in

Ustilug,

where

the

composer

returned for the

summer,

than

anywhere

else.

By

November

17, 1912,

back in Clarens

but now

at

the

Hotel

du

Chatelard,

the

end seemed to

have

been

reached. The sketches contain three

premature

notifications

of the

fact,

though

the actual

finish

line

was still

four months

away.

In

Paris at the

beginning

of

November

Stravinsky

had

unveiled

the

music in

a

piano reading

to a

group

of

friends, among

them

Florent

Schmitt,

Maurice

Delage,

and

Ravel,

the

respective

future

dedicatees

of the Three

Japanese

Lyrics. Schmitt,

then

music

critic

for

La

France,

left his

impressions

of the

event

in

the

November 12

issue

of

his

paper,

and

they

seem

to me

remarkable

enough,

predating

the

performance

by

more than

half

a

year

as

they

do,

to warrant

quota-

tion

in

full:

. .

je

ne

puis

vous

en

parler

que par

oui

dire:

a la

meme

heure,

en

un lointain

pavillon

d'Auteuil,3

que

desormais

revet

a

mes

yeux

la

magnificence

du

plus

somptueux

des

temples,

M.

Igor

Strawinsky

faisait

entendre

a ses amis

les

'Sacres4

du

printemps'

dont

je

vous

dirai un

jour

la

beaute

inouie

et

vraiment

la

revelation,

quoique

privee,

de cette

nouvelle

preuve

du

genie

du

jeune

compositeur

russe

avait

a elle

seule

plus

d'importance

que

toute

la

musique

qui,

pendant

ce

temps,

pouvait

se

jouer

dans

l'univers

entier,

pour

ce

que

l'oeuvre contient de

liberte,

de

nouveaute,

de

richesse

et

de

vie.

Stravinsky

also

played

the

score

for,

and this

time

together

with,

3

Stravinsky

recalls

that it was

in

the home

of

Delage,

and

he

remembers that

Maximillian

Steinberg

who was

also

present,

"jerked

his

shoulders in

mockery

of

the

'primitive'

rhythm

and

this,

as

you

see,

has

offended

me until

now."

4

Schmitt

pluralizes

the

title in

his

every

reference to the

work

even

including

his

notice

of the first

performance

(La

France,

June

4,

1913).

25

-



PERSPECTIVES

OF NEW

MUSIC

Debussy5

on the

same

trip,

but

privately,

at the

home of Louis

Laloy6

in

Bellevue.

We next hear of

Stravinsky

working

at the orchestra

score

in

a

Lausanne-to-Berlin train sometime between the 18th and 20th of

November: he attended

the Berlin

Urauffihrung

of The Firebird

on

the 21st. While

in Berlin he

met

Arnold

Schoenberg,

and the

two

composers

heard each other's

newest

works,

Petrushka

at the

Kroll

Opera

on December

4,

the Lieder des Pierrot

lunaire

(as

it

was

then

called)

at the Choralion-Saal on

December 8:

Stravinsky

still has

his

Pierrot

ticket stub

and

the

program

with

the

quotation

from

Novalis.

I

mention

this

conjunction

for

the reason that

by

December

18,

Stravinsky,

back

in

Clarens,

had

composed

the

first two of

the

Japanese Lyrics inspired, according to his own accounts, by Pierrot

lunaire,

though

as

we

come

upon

these miniatures in

the

present

collection

they

seem to

devolve

naturally

from The Rite.

At the

end

of

December

Stravinsky

entrained for

Budapest

and the

baptism

of

The Firebird

there,

continuing

on

January

4

to Vienna for a

stay

of

two weeks in the Bristol

Hotel.

A

letter from

Delage

reached

him

there

with

the information

that

Roerich's

costumes

were

ready

and

"splendides,"

but

Stravinsky's

own

correspondence

at

this time

fails

to

mention The

Rite

or, indeed, anything

other than

the

acrimonious

treatment

of

Petrushka

by

the

orchestra of

the Vienna

Opera,

the

bruises from

which

were so

deep

that the

composer

still

licks

them

today

in

even

his casual

declarations of

dislike

or

disregard

for

the

Austrian

capital.

I turn

again

to Schmitt

for

contemporary

evidence,

and then

to

Stravinsky

himself in an

interview from his

rooms at

the

Savoy

Hotel in

London

the

following

month.

Schmitt

writes:

La

generation

de l'an

2,000

fermee

aux

Berlioz

ou aux

Moussorg-

ski

de

l'epoque,

s'exaltera

tardivement a

la

cent-soixante-douzieme

des

Sacres

de

[sic]

printemps

et

les

Farnesiens

de

la

musique

mettront a

vif le sol

austro-balkanique

pour

y

recueillir

pieusement

les

megots

d'Arnold

Schoeneberg

[sic].

5

On the occasion

described

by

Schmitt,

Stravinsky

was at

the

piano

alone;

the

composer says

that

Cocteau's famous

drawing, though

dated

1913,

is an

impression

of

this

performance.

The two-hand

reduction

antedates the

four-hand,

the latter

having

been

prepared

to

give

a

fuller

account

of the

music

at ballet

rehearsals.

Stravinsky

believes that the

four-hand

score was

complete

to about

the

middle of

the

Sacrificial

Dance when

he

played

it

with

Debussy.

6

This audition is

wrongly

ascribed

by

Laloy

to

the

spring

of

1913.

Debussy's

letter to Stravinsky concerning it is undated, but the postmark is November 8, 1912

(misprinted

as November

8, 1913,

in

Conversations

With

Stravinsky,

Faber, 1959).

Laloy's

own letters to

Stravinsky

shed

further

light

on the

relations

of the

two

composers,

incidentally,

as for

example

in

this

extract

dated

November

16,

1916:

"Nous

devons

dejeuner

samedi

chez

Debussy.

Le matin

on

repete

deux

morceaux

de Saint

Sebastien.

Pourriez-vous venir

aussi?

Je sais

qu'il

en

aurait

grande

joie."

26

?



THE RITE

OF

SPRING:

GENESIS

OF

A MASTERPIECE

La

preuve

en

est

que

je

regois

cette

lettre

d'Igor

Strawinsky:

"J'arrive

de

Vienne ou le

'fameux' orchestre

de

l'Opernhaus

a

sabote

mon

Petrouchka. On a declare

qu'une

aussi laide et

sale

musique ne pouvait se jouer mieux. Vous ne vous figurez pas les

ennuis et les

injures

que

l'orchestre m'a

fait subir."

(La

France,

January

21,

1913.)

Says

Stravinsky:

Petrushka

was

performed

at St.

Petersburg

the

same

day

as

here and I see the

newspapers

are

now

all

comparing

my

work

with the

"smashing

of

crockery."

And

what of

Austria?

The Viennese are barbarians.

Their

orchestral

musicians could

not

play my

Petrushka.

They hardly

know

Debussy

there,

and

they chased Schonberg away to Berlin. Now Schonberg is

one of

the

greatest

creative

spirits

of

our era.

(The

Daily

Mail,

Febru-

ary

13,

1913.)

Stravinsky

remained in London

throughout

February

for

the debut

of Petrushka in

Covent Garden.

The

triumph

of the

ballet was

not

only

a

pleasant

contrast to Vienna but

it

was

also the most

unani-

mously

acclaimed

success of

the

composer's

career,

even

to

today;

from the contents of his social

scrapbooks

of the

time I

would

say

that

he

has

never

again

been lionized

or,

at

any rate,

allowed

him-

self to be

lionized

to such an

extent.

A

number of

interviews

appeared

during

this

visit,

some of them

surprisingly

charitable about

Wagner

and

Tristan

(at

that

late

date )

and

including

a

variety

of

state-

ments

about

The Rite.

"My

new

ballet,

The

Crowning

of

Spring,

has no

plot,"

he

told

the

Daily

Mail. "It is a series

of

ceremonies

in

ancient

Russia,

the

Russia of

pagan

days."

But

the London

Budget

for

February

16

quotes

him

as

saying

that

"Monsieur

Nijinsky

has

worked out the

story,

and

we

are

calling

it 'Le

Sacre du

prin-

temps,' which might be translated 'The Innocence of Spring.'"

Work on

the Introduction to Part

Two was

recommenced

at the

beginning

of

March.

The

manuscript

of the full

score,

now with

Stravinsky's

son

Theodore

in

Geneva,

is

dated

March

8 at

the

end,

but the

eleven

measures

from No. 86

to No.

87

were

added three

weeks

later,

on the

29th,

and,

though

I

have

been unable

to

discover

when and

in

what

precise

way,

the

ending

was

altered after

that;

the

present

collection

does not

include the

ending

in

the form

we know

but

only

the

three

premature,

and

truncated,

versions

mentioned

above. Once, about ten years ago, Stravinsky confessed that the idea

of

changing

the

ending

came from

Sergei

Rachmaninov,

a

composer

as inimical

to

him

as

any

I can

imagine.

It

appears

that

the

two com-

patriots

found

themselves

together

one

day

in

the Berlin

establish-

.

27 ?



PERSPECTIVES

OF NEW

MUSIC

ment of the Russische

Musik

Verlag

when the author

of

THE

prelude, leafing

through

a

copy

of

Stravinsky's

score,

ventured

to

suggest

that

the

treble-register ending

was a mistake and

that a

solid

bass chord was needed. (More recently Stravinsky recalls that

Rachmaninov

merely

noticed

a

misprinted

treble clef in the

horn

parts.)

But

for whatever

reasons,

by

whatever

vicissitudes,

Stra-

vinsky

did

add

such

a

chord,

a classical

close

that

accomplishes

what

Rachmaninov

had

in

mind,

if

the

story

is

true,

and

what

he

would

have

had

in

mind,

if it

is

false,

for

the final

cadence is

both

anachro-

nism and anticlimax.

The

publicity

attending

the

premiere

of The

Rite,

May

29,

1913,

has obscured

the fact of four

subsequent

performances7

owing

to

which, though all four were still

noisily

contested, a few musicians

and

cognoscenti

recognized

that a

masterpiece

had been born.8

III

All

dances were

originally

sacred . . .

and

any

sacrifice

is

the

repetition

of

the

act

of

Creation . .

. all

sacrifices

are

performed

at the same

mythical

instant

of

the

beginning;

through

the

paradox of

rite,

profane

time and

duration are

suspended.

Mircea

Eliade:

The

Myth

of

the

Eternal

Return

A

description

of

the

stage

action

being

a

necessary

preliminary

to even

a

cursory inspection

of the

sketches,

I

will

proceed

to

the

question

of

what the

ballet The

Rite

of

Spring

is

about. But a

glance

at

the title

page

discloses

that

nothing

is

said about a

ballet,

and

the

word

"pictures"

in the

subtitle

is

conspicuously

non-choreographic.

No less

conspicuous

is the

absence

of a

Russian

title-for the

reason,

one might assume, that Le Sacre du printemps does not accurately

translate

it,

except

that the

Russian

headings

of

the thirteen

subsec-

tions

are

retained,

even

in

the

latest

edition,

along

with French

ver-

sions

(composed

by

"someone

with

a

special

taste in

titles,"

says

7

Stravinsky

did

not hear

any

of

these.

The

day

after the

premiere

he

dined

on

oysters

and

on the 31st

was

taken

to

a

hospital

in

Neuilly

with

typhoid.

While

convalescing

there,

incidentally,

he

corrected the

proofs

of

that

last

work of his

nonage

(or

so he thinks

of

it)

the

Symphony

in E-flat

and added the

clarinet

counterpoint

to

the

strings

at

the

recapitulation

in

the

Largo

movement;

this

explains

the

high

D-sharp

in

the

bassoon,

too: it

was written

after

The

Rite.

8

Several of the German

reports

of the

event

drag

in

Schoenberg's

name

for home-

front

comparison,

and

the

Stravinsky/Schoenberg

syndrome

that

imposed

its

nation-

alist

and,

as

I

now

think,

deleteriously

exclusive

dialectical

character

on

the musical

thought

of

half a

century,

seems

to

date

from the

aftermath of

The Rite.

Thus,

the

Allgemeine

Musik-Zeitung

for

August

8,

1913 states

that

"Strawinski

erfreut

sich

hier

einer

iihnlich

exponierten

Stellung

wie in

Deutschland

Arnold

Schinberg."

28

-



THE

RITE

OF

SPRING:

GENESIS

OF

A

MASTERPIECE

Stravinsky)

that are

also

largely

inexact. But I

must

go

back

to

the

beginning

and

try

to

be

methodical.

The

composer

prefers

the

Rus-

sian

title of

Part

One,

A

Kiss

of

the

Earth-"of"

meaning

both

"by"

and "to"-to the unspecificFrench, which means The Adorationof

the

Earth;

and he

objects

to the first

subtitle,

Danses

des

adolescentes.

The

dancers,

young

females of a

primitive

tribe,

are

demi-savages,

and

their

dance is a

celebration

of

puberty. They

appear

on

the

scene,

which

represents

the

country

of

the

northern

steppes-"a yellowish

foreground

and

a

violet distance"as

Stravinsky

remembers

Roerich's

backdrop-two

measures

before

No.

27,

not,

as

the

composer

has

said

elsewhere,

at

No.

13,

which is

the

curtain

cue,

marked

"Day"

in

the

four-hand

score.

The composer prefers the English Ritual of Abduction to the

French

Jeu de

Rapt

as a

title

of the

next

movement,

even

though

the title

in

the

sketches,

as

he

translates

it,

is "Game

of

Chasing

a

Girl."

Stravinsky

says

that a

ceremony

of

young

men

locking

arms

in

a

circle

around

a

young

girl

survived

in

country

weddings

in

Russia in

our

own

century,

and

that

he

had

seen

it

once,

near

Nov-

gorod,

in

his

youth.

At

No.

37

the men

appear,

each

of them

seizing

one

of the

unbreached

girls;

the

composer

warns

choreographers

hat

it is a

Sabine-typemass-rape

and not

an

action

that can be

symbolized

by

a

single

pair

of

dancers:

except

for

a

short

passage

in

the

first

dance of

Part Two

the

only

solo

dancers

in the entire ballet

are

the

Sage

and the

Chosen

Maiden. The

next

title, Spring

Rounds,

or

Khorovods,

describes a form

of

"singing

and

dancing

in a

circle,"

"Khor"

meaning

chorus,

and

"vod,"

leading.

In

the

first

part

of

the

piece,

five small

circles of

dancers

slowly

gyrate,

then

in

the

orchestral tutti

coalesce

into a

single

large

circle.

During

what

Stravinsky

calls

the

Khorovod Chant

(Nos.

48-49 and

Nos.

56-57)

the women stand apart from the men extending their arms in ges-

tures

of

exorcism;

at

No.

57

they

leave

the

stage

and

the men dance

the

orchestral coda

(Vivo)

alone.

Choreographically

peaking,

the

music of

The

Rite

was

conceived

in

terms

of

male-female

dialogues

of

action,

like

any

other

ballet.

The

composer's

present

English

title

for

the next

episode,

The

Ritual

of

the

Two

Rival

Tribes,

contains

more

information

than

the

Russian

original.9

The ritual is

a

tribal

war-game,

a contest

of

strength

as

determined,

for

example

in a

tug

of

war.10

Two

sharply

9

A

misprint

in the

Russian

has

been

carried

over

to

the

1965 edition:

dvukhgoro

is

one

word,

not

two.

10

Ritual

combats

between

two

opposing

groups

and the

pursuit

of

girls

are

characteristic

of

New

Year's or

"renewal of

the world"

ceremonies

in

many primitive

societies.

(See

Eliade, op.cit.)

29



PERSPECTIVES

OF NEW

MUSIC

contrasted

groups

are

identified,

the first

by heavy,

comparatively

slow

figures

in

bass

register

(the

first two measures

at

No.

57

and

the

brass chords

before No.

59),

the second

by

fast

figures

in

treble

register (the third measure of No. 57). The clash occurs (the fifth

measure

of No.

57)

where

the music of

both

is

superimposed.

The

next

event,

the Procession

of

the

Oldest

and

Wisest One is

heralded

by

the entrance

of the

tubas at

No.

64. A

clearing

is

prepared

at

the

center

of the

stage

and the

Sage's

arrival

there,

with the

women

of

the

tribe in

his

train,

coincides

with

the

first

beat

of

No.

70,

the

orchestral tutti

which

signifies

the

gathering

of

all the

people.

The

next

Russian

title

(at

No.

71)

is

translated: The

Kiss

of

the

Earth

(The

Oldest

and

Wisest

One.)

The

Sage,

helped

to his

knees

by

two attendants,bestows his sacramentalkiss in time with the chord

of

string

harmonics.

The next title

should be

changed

from

The

Dance

of

the Earth

to The

Dancing

Out

Of

The

Earth,

or

The Dance

Overcoming

The

Earth;

the

word

vypljasyvanie

dancing

out)

is,

inci-

dentally,

Stravinsky's

aforementioned

unique

contribution to

the

titles. The

composer

has

said that

he

imagined

the

dancers

"rolling

like

bundles

of

leaves in

the

wind"

during

the orchestral

convulsions

at

the

beginning

of

this

piece,

and

"stomping

ike

Indians

trying

to

put

out a

prairie

fire"

during

the

latter

part

of

it. The curtain

closes

on

the

second

beat

of

the

third

measure before the

end,

as

in

the

four-hand

score,

not,

as in

the

sketches,

at

No.

78.

Stravinsky

had

intended no

more than a

short

pause

between the

two

parts,

but at

the

first

performance

an

intermission

was

instituted as

a

stratagem

to

check

audience

hostilities.

The

composer

recalls

that

the

second

part

did

begin

under an

amnesty,

but

then the

music

itself

is much less

provocative.

In

accordance

with

the

musical

representation

of

day

and

night-

which is also a furtherdialogue of the sexes, Part Two being essen-

tially

femalel--the

house

lights

were

to have been

extinguished

at

11

M.

Bejart

observed

this

in his

staging

at

the Paris

Opera

(May 1965)

at the

same

time

making

Part

One

exclusively

male.

The sexes

were

united in his

version

only

in

the

Sacrificial

Dance,

but

there so

literally

that the

spectacle

was

adjudged

unfit

for

the

chaste

regard

of

Madame la

Pr6sidente

(who

apparently

wishes to

reestablish the

prudery

of

the

Corneille-period

bienseance).

In

fact,

the

unmistakably

explicit

mesial

movements

of

the

dancers did

serve notice that

in

ca.

three-quarters

of a

year

the

tribe

could

expect

a

population

explosion,

but the

effect

was

merely

comic

and,

anyway,

sex in

ballet is

always epicene.

To match

the

Elue of

Part

Two

Bejart

created an

Elu

in

Part

One,

a

reasonable

notion

given

his

stag

first

half,

though these twin eloi suppose an altogether different kind of drama (Adam and

Eve).

The

choreographer

was on

the

right

path,

I

think,

in

that

he

eschewed

"chore-

ography"

for

various

imitative actions

which,

however,

except

for

a

beautiful

bird-

like

hopscotch

by

the

Elue

in the

next-to-last

dance,

and a

brilliant

leap-frogging

exit

by

the

men

at the

end

of Part

One,

were

on the

animated

cartoon

level.

The

dancers

were

nude,

of

course

(an

exceptionally

warm

spring

that

year),

and

so was

30

?



THE RITE OF

SPRING:

GENESIS OF

A MASTERPIECE

the end

of Part

One,

and

Part

Two

was to

have

begun

in

darkness.

As a title for

the

second

part,

Stravinsky prefers

The

Exalted

Sacri-

fice-rather

than the

"great,"

which

suggests

size-but the

French,

which omits the adjective, seems a still better choice. The curtain

opens

two measures before

No.

91-at

the

word

"Night"

n

the

four-

hand score-to

a

dance,

again

in

Khorovod

character,

by

six

females.

The

French

title,

Cercles

Mysterieux,

is

wrongly

plural

and

richly

ambiguous

(problems

of

geometry?

a

kind

of Eleusinian

cliques?),

though

the

English

version favored

by

record-sleeve

writers,

Mystic

Circle

of

the

Adolescents,

is

also

misleading, conjuring

as it

does,

scenes

of

teenagers

hooked

on

heroin or LSD.

In

fact,

the dancers

pace

the

perimeter

of a circle

(drawn

on the

ground)

which

repre-

sents the cycle of nature and in which the Chosen One is to die. The

alto flute

(at

No.

93)

and

the

clarinet duet

thereafter

accompany

the

movements

of,

respectively,

one

and two

solo

dancers,

and these

are the

exceptions

cited

above.

The

Khorovod

is

interrupted

one

measure before No.

101,

then

briefly

resumed and

abruptly

con-

cluded,

at

one

measure

before

No.

102

where,

to

quote

the

four-hand

score,

"One

of

the maidens

is chosen

by

lot

to

fulfill

the

sacrifice;

from

this

point

to

the

Sacrificial

Dance the Chosen

One stands mo-

tionless."

During

the

ensuing

orchestral

crescendo

the men

appear

at the sides of

the

stage,

as

though

for an

ambuscade,

and in the

eleven-beat measure the women retire. The

composer

imagined

the

next

dance,

The

Naming

and

Honoring

of

the

Chosen

One,

as a

"choreographic

hocket,"

a

ricochet

of movement from

stage

left

to

stage

right,

the men

on one

side

leaping

during

the

rhythmic groups

of

threes,

those

on the

other

side

leaping during

the

rhythmic groups

of

twos.

The

Evocation

of

the

Ancestors,

or

Evocation

of

the Ances-

tral

Spirits,

is another

male

dance.

At No. 125

the elders12

appear

and at No. 128 squat before the sacredcircle like a court of judges.

Of

the actual

action of the

ancestors

Stravinsky

recalls

only

that he

intended a

type

of

ghost

dance

known

to

virtually

all archaic

com-

munities,

and that

the

women

were

to

perform

it

while

the men

hovered

at

the sides

marking

time. At

the

beginning

of the

Sacrificial

Dance

the

Chosen

One

is

alone

with the

elders.

Then,

at No. 149

the men

reappear

and mark

time

to

the

ostinato

figure,

the

quintu-

plet

figure

being

associated with

the

Chosen

One.

At

No.

167

the

dance is

again

resumed

in

the

presence

of the

elders

only,

until

at

the

stage,

except

for a

phallic

totem

in

bulk

like a

fifty-foot

Mickey

Mouse

balloon

in a

Macy's

Thanksgiving

Day parade.

12

On

different

occasions

Stravinsky

has said

that

they

are

five like the

bassoons,

and

seven,

like

Baudelaire's

Septs

vieillards.

31-





THE

RITE

OF

SPRING: GENESIS OF

A MASTERPIECE

quotation:

how

many

readers will

recognize,

at

a

glance,

the

first

subject

of

the Dance

of

the Earth?

6

i f j c - f f

r f

Ex.

1

In

comparing

he

full score with

this

source,

it

seems

to me

the

reader

will have to

acknowledge

hat

the

paramount

ransforming

tricks

are

the

rhythmic

overhauling

and

the

changing

of

the

tempo

(if

it

was

changed;

there

is

no

indication,

but I

think

we-though

it

would be

safer

to

speak only

for

myself--naturally

attribute

a

slow,

choral

char-

acter

to

the

example).

As for

the

melody

itself,

the readerwill detect

its

family

resemblance

o the

principal

Khorovod

theme,

coming

upon

it

in

context,

and with

the characterization

f the second

group

of con-

testants in

the

Ritual

of

the Two

Rival

Tribes;

and

having

established

these connections and

other interrelationsof

the sort he

will

soon be

deducing

that all of

the melodic

material

of

The

Rite

belongs

to

a

common

morphology

with

common

stylistic

characteristics.

Let us

compare

this

example

and

the

lode

that

Stravinsky

found

in it

(or

invested t with), thoughnot so much to enlightenthe listenerwho, no

doubt,

can

easily

spell

out

these

simple operations

for

himself,

as

to

offer

him

a

sample

of

things

to

come and hence a

warning,

if

he

is

still

undecided,

that

perhaps

the remainder

of

the lecture should

be

cut.

We

discover,

first,

that the

composer

translates

the

melody

from

the

top

to

a middle voice

(see

page

33 of the

sketches);

second,

that

he

forms

harmonic

aggregates

from

it,

superimposing

he notes

as

if

they

were

appoggiature;

hird,

that

he

exploits

its

whole-tonecontent-

the

harmonization

n

major

thirds-in

an

ostinato

bass-figure

with

the

F-sharp (rather than the C) as the root tone; and, fourth, that he

renovatesthe

rhythm.

Stravinsky

was

well aware that

the latter

was

his

most

powerful

transforming

stroke;

he has

written

in

the manu-

script

at

this

point

(page

34)

that

"music

exists

if

there

is

rhythm,

as

life exists

if

there

is a

pulse."

The

remaining

tems on

my

list

require

no

more than

enumeration.

They

are,

principally,

the fact that

the

pitch

of

an

entry

sometimes

differs

in

early

and

final

sketches;

and

that

metronome marks are

often

at

such variancewith

the scoreas

to

suggest

a

radically

different

conception

of the characterof the music;which is

important

becausea

composer

may

have

a

character

n

mind

before

he

has,

say,

a theme.

The

fact

that

ideas do

not

always

occur

in

the

sequence

of the com-

pleted

composition

is

not

a

phenomenon peculiar

to

Stravinsky,

of

*33



PERSPECTIVES

OF NEW MUSIC

course,

but the

unfailing

appearance,

in

the

latter

part

of

whatever

movement

he

is

composing,

of a

capsule

sketch of

the

next

movement,

is

extraordinary. Finally,

it should be

said that

while

instrumental

specifications are rarely drastically different between sketches and full

score,

the

changes

are more

substantial,

nevertheless,

than in the case

of

any

other

Stravinsky

opus

except

Les Noces. The

present

collection

does not afford

a

complete survey

of the

instrumental formation

of the

work,

and the

late

stages

are not

accounted

for at

all,

a fact I

judge

from

a

few

draft

pages

for

the full

score still in

Stravinsky's

pos-

session.

V

-the

mujic of

the

footure

on the barbarihams

of

the bashed?

Finnegans

Wake

It

is difficult

or

impossible

to

sweep

away

the

incrustations

of

fifty

years

and reconstruct the

effect of The

Rite

of

Spring

in

1913.

(Cf.

Huizinga's

classic discussion

of the

problem

of

trying

to

imagine

the

vividness

of

color and sound

in

medieval

life.)

Moreover,

the

attempt

to

compare

that

remote musical

age

with

our own would entail a full

modern

history

of the

art;

and not

only

of the

art,

for

if

we

can no

longer

imagine

the

original

effect

even of

the

sheer noise of

The

Rite,

it

is

also because

we have

suffered so

many

louder and

less musical

concussions

since.

We

know that the

music

was

received,

and was

in

part

intended

as

an

act

of

iconoclasm;

Stravinsky

still

associates the

creation

of it with his hatred

of

the

Conservatory

and

of

the three

syllables,

which,

pronounced

in

the

order

Gla-zu-nov,

will

spoil

his

temper

even now.

Only

yesterday

the

composer

remarked

that

he

"knew

nothing

of the

classical tradition at the time of

The Rite"-

he meant

the

St.

Petersburg

academic

tradition,

and he

was not

giving

himself hard marks-"but I did know how to write The Rite." Which

seems

good

enough.

Let

us

try,

nevertheless,

if

only

as an

illustration

of the

problem,

to

probe

some

of the reasons

for

the

impact,

in

1913,

of

the

rhythmic

element

alone;

or,

isolation

being

impossible,

of the

dominant

aspects

of

rhythmic

novelty,

for

no

one

was

unmoved or

uninfluenced

by

its

rhythmic

innovations,

even

those

who

perceived

that

the

structural

basis of

them was the

simple

device of

ostinato

which

was

employed

in

every

dance. Consider the

exoticism

of the

polyrhythms

in

the

Procession of the Sage, and how in 1913 they must have seemed to

have

had more in common

with African than

with other

European

music;

and

remember

that

the

prestige

of the

philobarbaro

(to

borrow

Plutarch's

word)

in all the arts

was much

greater

then

than now.

34?



THE

RITE

OF

SPRING:

GENESIS OF A MASTERPIECE

Imagine,

too,

how

the

semblance of mechanisation

in

the robotic

beat,

which at

times

holds

the

stage

virtually

by

itself,

must

have

seemed

as

modern as

airplanes

in

1913. And contrast this

with

1965

when

crude pulsation has melted away to such an extent that we rarely

denigrate

conductors

as

time-beaters

anymore

but

only

as

cue-givers,

stopwatch

watchers,

coordinators or arbiters between

chance

effects

and

calculated

and

controlled

ones;

in

such

surroundings

The Rite

holds no

sway,

of course

(Goethe:

"in

great

art

chance

and

fancy

are

gone.

What

is

there

is

there of

necessity"),

but

that

should

surprise

no

one,

for

children at

a

certain

age

are

never

as

impressed

by

their

parents

as

they

are

by

their

playmates.

In

1913,

with

The

Rite,

new

music

acquired

a

modern

facade

(no

pejorative

connotations),

a

two-

dimensional, icon-like objectivity (three cliches of the time) it had

hitherto

lacked,

and

which made it seem

newer

(it

is

nearly

the

other

way

around

today)

than,

for

example,

the

music of

Schoenberg,

with

its

tumescent

Innigkeit

and

paranoid

self-consciousness

(all

period-

piece

adjectives,

like the

Stravinsky),

for it is not

difficult to

suppose

something

of

the effect

of The

Rite as a

challenge

to the emotion

of

Middle-European

music,

and to see

why

the

new

spirits

in

French

music

welcomed

the

young

Russian as

though

he

were

a

second

front.

Other factors of the new rhythm were the primacy of syncopation,

of which

Stravinsky

became the

patron

saint,

and the

irregularity

of

accentuation

and meter.

The

shifting

of

accents

by varying

the

meters

or

by

dislocating

the

beat

is,

in

fact,

the one

ingredient

of the

early

Stravinskyan

legacy

that is still

a

part

of the

canon

of

contemporary

music,

and

is

still in

daily

circulation.

But

the

irregularity,

in

the

case of

the

long-familiar

Rite,

has

lost

its effect. Most

of the

seven

and

five meters

subdivide into

groupings

of twos

and

threes,

a

fact

the

revised editions

acknowledge;

and the

possible patterns

of

twos

and

threes,

no matter how

they

are

juggled,

do not offer a

high

potential

of

the

unexpected,

for

after one

or

two

or

three

repetitions

of

either

the

time

will

always

seem

to be

ripe

for the

other.

In

the

last

section

of

the

Sacrificial

Dance,

the

case

in

point,

where

the

basic meter is

three

and

twos are

the

exceptions,

the

effect

can sound

precariously

like a

waltz

with

jumped

record

grooves.

The

most

subtle

aspect

of

rhythm

in

The

Rite

lies in

a

very

different

area,

and

one

that,

so

far as

I can

discover,

has

never

been

noticed.

It

is the absence of dotted rhythms, of the iambics of Bach and eight-

eenth-century

classicism

and,

indeed,

of

European

music as

a

whole

during

the three

centuries

preceding

our

own. It is

surely

an

achieve-

ment,

of a

kind,

merely

to

have

created a

work of

such

scope

without

35

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Documents

Robert Craft - The Rite of Spring, Genesis of a Masterpiece