Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Rehearsal Number 42

Rehearsal number 42

• Mind is officially blown all the fuck apart: I've never seen a more dense piece of orchestral music in my entire life. This beats everything else I've ever looked at.

  • The French horns are low hanging fruit as far as analysis goes. They roughly come out to a G diminished chord

  • All clarinets end up becoming an Eb7 chord

  • Oboes, possibly English horn, violin II, and viola's are all a C# diminished 7 chord

  • The flutes are all Eb-7

  • Violin I and cellos and contrabass are all F#7

  • Trumpet is an A7

• Interestingly, the cellos and contrabass truly peek through the mix, despite how crazy this is.

• It’s another section where Stravinsky almost relies upon the forgiveness of the orchestra to do his crazy bidding. No wonder people hated this piece when it first came out. It must have driven them nuts.