Stravinsky: Rite of Spring cover image (Muzyka, 1965)

This past week as I listened to some archived Tanglewood broadcasts on the Boston Symphony website, I came to the realization that I did not own a recording of Stravinksy’s Le Sacre du printemps, a bit of a surprising oversight given the breadth of scope that my media collection has taken on in recent years. And so I decided at that point to regain familiarity with this piece, taking a deeper dive, so to speak.

Initial Impressions

My first impressions of this piece go back (as they likely do for so many enthusiasts first exposed to the piece in the mid- to late-20th century) to my first watching of Walt Disney’s Fantasia, the 1940 film which presented this music nearly in the same generation as it was premiered. Now, some 101 years after that eventful premiere, the music still feels fresh and exciting, while serving as a harbinger of so many pieces to come between then and now.

Fantasia had a theatrical re-release in 1990, and judging from my perceived age at the time, I believe that was the run during which I was first exposed to the Rite, and many other pieces. For a developing classical music fan, and enthusiastic cartoonist at the time, the film was an eye-opening, transformative experience. I purchased the double-cassette soundtrack to the movie and would listen to it over and over on my Walkman and on the stereo at home. I remember well, as my mother would uphold, shaking the far end of our house as I blasted the Dance of the Adolescents from the Rite, trying to nail the unusual beats as I conducted and danced. As with so many unusual-sounding beat patterns, I am amazed years later to be looking at the score and coming to realize that the beginning of this movement is in a simple 2/4, but has a way of feeling very disjointed by virtue of its accentuations.

Earlier this year, I realized that a number of the pieces from Snooch’s Silly Symphony 2014 were featured on the sequel Fantasia 2000. Pines of Rome, Firebird, and Carnival of the Animals all made it onto my list and gave me a new understanding of the pieces, as well as a new frustration for all the cuts that were forced into the scores to maintain the integrity of the film making.

And so, here is another entry, this time from the former Fantasia.