Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Rehearsal Numbers 9-12

Rehearsal 9

• Alto flute: fluttery, compound melodies in a warm territory
• Oboe: pops out with a solo in it’s golden range
• Added colors… clarinet in D, flute, B♭ clarinet, weird melodic textures
• Alto flute grouped in 10, flutes in 5 and 7. Really strange and fun!
How on earth anyone conducts this is beyond me. Can't hear the beat for how obfuscated it is.

Rehearsal 10–11

• Back to a weird pulsating rhythm.
• Rhythm detail: same figure as earlier with grace-notes in the bassoons
• Contrabass is playing in these offbeat accents that read as strong beats, simply because of their register and power
• Highly polyphonic and weird…. demands strong rhythmic foundation
• Trumpets cut through; other parts form a moving wall of sound, melodically speaking.
• Strings? They’re barely audible, provide sustained bed beneath active lines
• I would love to sit in a chair right behind the conductor to hear these two sections specifically.

Rehearsal 12

• Reestatement of main theme from Writer Spring
• Clarinet tril in chalameau range is a "motion as sustaining sound" design.
• Beautiful contrasts. Strings entering here in a chord sounds magical compared to what he previously established with the woodwinds. Massive time based contrast with regards to timbre.