To what extent can The Rite's innovations be boiled down to rhythm alone?

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James and Bethan (Student No. 0816502)                03/05/2009

To what extent can The Rite’s innovations be boiled down to rhythm alone?

The Rite of Spring, first performed to much controversy in 1913, is a ballet unlike any other of its time, before its time or possibly even afterwards. It has almost nothing in common with the idealisms of Tchaikovsky. In terms of subject matter, it is vastly different even to Stravinsky’s earlier ballets. It is this difference, a plotline which is harsh and based not on fantasy or folk tales, but on supposed ancient tribal history, which separates it from its contemporaries and predecessors and is reflected so obviously in the music. The most prominent musical difference between The Rite and other contemporary works is the popular claim that Stravinsky has minimized the influence of harmony, melody and overall tonality at the expense of rhythm and meter; in other words, that rhythm is the driving force of the work. From the perspective of the casual listener, this manifests itself as the phenomenon of the percussive nature of instruments that are normally melodious.

Stravinsky himself acknowledged the importance of the subject matter to the resultant music from the very start of the composition process.

The idea of Le Sacre de printemps came to me while I was still composing The Firebird. I had dreamed a scene of pagan ritual in which a chosen sacrificial virgin danced herself to death. This vision was not accompanied by concrete musical ideas, however...

One could surmise that the order in which the two entities - music and storyline - arrived is of great relevance. However, although the above quote is the most recent and the best-known, other accounts given by the composer seem to contradict it, suggesting that it was the musical ideas that came first. Nonetheless, when compared to The Firebird or the works of Tchaikovsky, which were specifically commissioned, the desired musical effect to be composed presented to the composer half-formed, it is understandable that Stravinsky’s decision to choose a radical and original plot (in terms of subject matter previously covered by the arts) had a profound effect.

The academic with the most hard-line approach to the issue of rhythm and meter versus harmony and tonality is Pierre Boulez, who states, in an essay on The Rite, that ‘Harmonic relations or melodic figures [...] serve to support a rhythmic invention’ and that ‘Before worrying about what chord we are hearing, we are sensitive to the pulse emitted by this chord [...] what we hear is the rhythmic impulse almost in its pure state.’ The implication of this is that any melodic or harmonic variation has been composed merely to facilitate rhythmic development.

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Few, if any, researchers would agree entirely with Boulez’s uncompromising view of the work. However, clear evidence is presented for prominent rhythmic characteristics, often supported by less prominent melodic and harmonic features. Academics such as Pieter C. van den Toorn, as well as Boulez himself, make the claim that The Rite is composed of independent blocks, grouped together to form motifs, and that any harmonic progression can only occur between blocks. Van den Toorn then identifies two rhythmic types: the former characterised by an irregular metre and groups of blocks which ‘alternate with one another in constant and rapid juxtaposition’; the ...

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