Marshall Jiang

Rite of Spring and Three Pieces

Table of Contents:

Introduction – pg 1
Beginnings – pg 1
Rite of Spring – pg 1
Three Pieces – pg 2
 The Rite of Spring was one of Igor Stravinsky’s most famous and influential works. From
its first, strained bassoon solo to its climatically end, the Rite kept its audience entranced. So
how did this primordial work, which caused a mass riot at its opening performance influence
modern music?

Beginnings:

One cannot begin the investigation into The Rite of Spring without looking at
Stravinsky’s roots in music. Stravinsky’s first exposure to orchestral music came at a
performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty. There, he first developed his taste for
orchestral music. Later in his life, he went on to study with Russia’s leading composer of that
time Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and was greatly influenced by him. Later compositions of
Stravinsky showed mimicked Rimsky-Korsakov’s imaginative scoring and instrumentation.

Rite of Spring:

The Rite of Spring’s unusual beginning highlights two important influence of this piece.
The very first sounds from the bassoon illustrated Stravinsky’s creativity and ability to change.
Before his piece, most orchestral compositions’ melodies begun and was mainly played by the
strings section. Stravinsky however used the bassoon and the clarinets (woodwinds) as the main
melody/harmony in the beginning. The very first bassoon solo also utilized the highest notes
possible by that instrument, creating the strained, village sounds at the beginning. Fellow
composer Camille Saint-Saëns famously stormed out of the opening at Théâtre des Champs-
Élysées in Paris infuriated by Stravinsky’s “misuse” of the bassoon.

The beginning bassoon solo exemplifies Igor Stravinsky’s use of folk music throughout
the ballet. Of course, the whole ballet was based on pagan rituals and culture, but such parts as
the opening solos came from folk songs (in the case of the solo, it was Lithuanian).

To create the special sounds of the Rite of Spring, Stravinsky employed a plethora of
instruments not normally used. Such examples are the Eb clarinet, alto flute, bass clarinet,
piccolo trumpet, bass trumpet, and the Wagner tuba. Stravinsky also ordered a very large
orchestra, with woodwinds in numbers of five. This abnormal orchestration (at that time),
coupled with the extreme registers of the other instruments, created the unusual sounds. This
allowed the harsh, brutal melodies to be even more pronounced than they already are.

The Rite of Spring showed the subtle beauty of harsh, grating melodies. Debussy heavily
influenced Stravinsky in this technique but Debussy, at its most dissonant, was never harsh. This
piece almost single handily destroyed the notion of tonality and laid the ground works for new,
terrifying melodies (Think Jaws).

Some of the primordial sounds of the Rite of Spring were due to the fact that Stravinsky
used the strings and winds section as, basically, percussion. This is very evident in second part of
the first movement (The Augurs of Spring) where the first and second violins, violas, cellos, and
basses play straight eighth notes, creating the pulse and drive of the movement with the brass
emphasizing certain beats. The Augurs of Spring also showed Stravinsky’s pioneering work in
ostinati, evident in the 8-horns accents.

Probably the most significant contribution to modern music Stravinsky makes with his
Rite of Spring is his play on meter. Instead of the steady one-two one-two of a march, or the one-
two-three of ballet, Stravinsky uses such unusual time as eleven four in the part two of the
second movement. To create the unpredicted mood in the end, where the Chosen One dances
herself to death, Stravinsky constantly changes the meter around to create tension. According to
Philip Glass:

“the idea of pushing the rhythms across the bar lines [...] led the way [...] the rhythmic
structure of music became much more fluid and in a certain way spontaneous”

This sometimes causes the performers themselves to be thrown off-balance like the dances, and
the performers cling to each downbeat. His use of the art of rhythm influenced later greats like
Aaron Copeland. His use of bar lines led the way to “additive motivic development,” which is
where notes are added or taken away from the theme with no regard to the meter.

Modern works today are sometimes direct variations of this great piece. No other piece,
with the exception of Gustav Holst's The Planets, is more routinely borrowed from than The Rite
of Spring. From the Disney film Fantasia, to the music of Aaron Copeland, to the Tatooine
desert in Star Wars, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is everywhere.

Three Pieces:

Three Pieces is a lesser-known clarinet solo written by Stravinsky for an unaccompanied

clarinet. However, lesser known, this piece still had an impact of music literature.

Using his experiences in The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky had a play on rhythm and bar
lines yet again. Never in the whole piece does the meter stay the same for more than three to four
measures (with the exception of the second, which does not even have bar lines). In the second
movement, Stravinsky “messed up” the basic rhythmic sub-units. As previously stated before,
the second movement contained no bar lines and is totally defined by the tempo markings of:

Eighth Note = Eighth Note

Sixteenth Note = Sixteenth Note
Three Sixteenths Notes = Eighth

Thus Stravinsky redefined the engine behind the piece. To make it even more confusing,
Stravinsky sometimes grouped the sixteenths notes into two, prompting performers to be more
careful about their rhythms in the movement.

In a testament to Stravinsky’s adaptability, he used a12-tone style to compose this piece

alongside a deep jazz influence. In the first movement, he loosely based it on Schoenberg’s
atonal pieces, showing that he could compose in any style he wanted (this was due to a “war”
between Schoenberg atonal camp and Stravinsky’s traditional tonal language at that time). In
addition, the third movement (and some parts of the second) had distinctive jazz roots. Most of
the third movement seems like its part of a jazz improvisation, with funky rhythm and grace
notes mixed together.

The last surprise of Three Pieces is its preference on instruments. The first two
movements are to be played on an A while the last two on a Bb. This creates a, though slight,
distinct sound change between the third movement and the rest of the piece. Also, bringing on
two clarinets for an unaccompanied piece creates the “the theater” much more effectively.
 Works Cited

Friedland, Sherman. “Stravinsky Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo.” Clarinet Corner. 4 Apr. 2004.

14 Apr. 2008 <http://clarinet.cc/‌archives/‌2004/‌04/‌stravinsky_thre.html>.

Glass, Philip. “Igor Stravinsky.” Time 8 June 198. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://www.time.com/‌time/‌

time100/‌artists/‌profile/‌stravinsky.html>.

Gutmann, Peter. “Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.” Classical Classics. 14 Apr. 2008

<http://www.classicalnotes.net/‌classics/‌rite.html>.

Music. Dept. home page. Queens College. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/‌~howe/‌

music784/‌Stravinsky%20Sacre-1.mp3>.

“A Musical Chameleon.” Dayton Philharmonic. Dayton Philharmonic. 14 Apr. 2008

<http://www.daytonphilharmonic.com/‌content.jsp?articleId=1104>.

Queenan, Joe. “Q is for quirkiness, R is for Rite of Spring.” Gaurdian Music. Gaurdian Music.

14 Apr. 2008 <http://music.guardian.co.uk/‌classical/‌story/‌0,,1977699,00.html>.

Stravinsky, Igor. The Rite of Spring . Dover, 2000. Google Books. 14 Apr. 2008

<http://books.google.com/‌

books?printsec=frontcover&dq=Rite+of+Spring&ei=9BMESPaJKI28zASovpGGCw&si

g=7CHShO5eho8Xd_5cJaHMS60hKk8&id=Kgw48vZKakQC&output=html>.

- - -. Three Pieces. Eagle Court, London: J & W. Chester, 1976.

Taruskin, Richard. Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions. Oxford University Press, 1996 .

Google Books. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://books.google.com/‌books?id=YCzqyPhS-S4C>.

Thomas, Micheal Tilson. “Stravinsky Rite of Spring.” Keeping Score. San Fransico Symphony.

14 Apr. 2008 <http://www.keepingscore.org/‌flash/‌stravinsky/‌index.html>.