Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Rehearsal Numbers 49 & 50

Rehearsal number 49

Love this brutal part!!
- Bassoon and contrabassoon perfectly doubled with the cellos and contrabass. The bassoon is pleasant, the contrabassoon is warm, the cellos and contrabass are mellow and mellow.
- I've never seen a fifth this low, divisi and doubled. Kind of like how muddy and brutal it sounds.
- I love the syncopation here, too. It seems more of a traditional orchestral compositional thing to do, to put instruments on the offbeat to get some rhythmic excitement into a piece. Stravinsky uses it in a really super dark way.
- The violin II, half of the cellos, and half of the violas are playing down bows on beat
- The other half of the cellos and Violas, and two bass clarinets are playing on the offbeat. I really love the sound here, again.
Look at the gorgeous grace notes. Why the fuck am I not writing more grace notes in my music?!?

Perfect doubling up the French horn and flute here
- A strange type of planing, weirdly tonal, but super dark and dissonant. The best I can figure is that he's planing a GbM7 chord without the fifth
You gotta be nice to the French horns. They're delicate flowers and they're not to be abused.