Happy Birthday, The Rite of Spring

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring premièred on this day 100 years ago. Perhaps this recording won’t be as riotous as a century ago.

4038654242_a5f8432fc5_b100 years ago today, a work by Igor Stravinsky received its première performance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. That work was his Le Sacre du Printemps, something that we Anglophones call The Rite of Spring. Needless to say, the performance didn’t go over all that well. The Parisians “hissed” the new work, according to The New York Times‘s reporting.

In the century since that fateful night in a Parisian theatre, the work has since become one work of the symphony orchestra’s canon of music. It’s performed far more in a concert setting than in ballet form. Still, at 100, there are always new recordings of the work. One that crossed my computer screen is this cool visualization of the music. For those without a score of Le Sacre in front of them or for those who aren’t musically inclined, this shows the music in an accessible form: shapes.

It’s after the jump.

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