Stravinsky and the Rite of Spring: the Beginnings of a Musical Language

by Pieter C. van den Toorn

This is a broad, comprehensive study of Stravinsky's famous ballet. In the early chapters, van den Toorn draws on the composer's correspondence, sketches, and annotations of the original Nijinsky choreography to trace the compositional process from the initial Stravinsky-Roerich collaboration to the celebrated premiere of the ballet on 29 May, 1913. He discusses the numerous revisions that followed the completion of the score, as well as Stravinsky's changing aesthetic attitudes. In chapters 3 and 4, the author turns to The Rite's most striking feature - its explosive rhythm and timing. A central concern here is the traditional context for the music's revolutionary rhythmic practice. In the course of his discussion, van den Toorn refers to many of Stravinsky's other works. His theory of meter and rhythm is thus shown to be relevant to Stravinsky's music as a whole. The concluding chapters are devoted to The Rite's harmonic and melodic materials, as traced to Stravinsky's teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov. The text is supplemented by some 90 musical examples. Readership: musicologists and students of the music of the 20th century.

Genres: Music

225 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Pieter C. van den Toorn is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include The Music of Igor Stravinsky (1983), Stravinsky and the Rite of Spring (1987), and Music, Politics and the Academy (1995), Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring won the Deems Taylor-ASCAP award in 1989 and the Outstanding Publication Award of the Society for Music Theory (SMT) in 1990. Articles on a variety of subjects ranging from Beethoven to Stravinsky and atonal music have appeared in the Journal of Music Theory, Music Analysis, Perspectives of New Music, and the Journal of Musicology.