Rehearsal number 54

Essentially two things:

1. Very fluid and flowing woodwind and string figure. More like a choir than it is a melody, or, a competing set of melodies that repeat relentlessly.

2. Excessively loud and bombastic rhythmic soli using the ostinato figure established earlier in the piece

Soft woodwinds handle the bulk of the melodic lines, and I hear them the most prominently over the strings Strings play same rhythm, but the melodies that are different bring a super strange choir like sound Repetition of this sounds super messy and intense

Rehearsal number 55

• Taking the strange ostinato figure established in the beginning of the piece, but making it a full bombastic soli

• Carrot marks? Super intense articulation? I need to use more of that in my music. Go all intense…

Rehearsal number 53

• This part… I mean, as insane as it gets

• I'm stunned by how much Stravinsky got away with here

• The gong, grand Cassa, and the timpani are totally bonkers and over the top. It's almost like an 80s hair metal band getting over-zealous with a gong and the pyrotechnics

• It's very well seems like he has organized these choir-like section into three different parts, roughly speaking

• The pulses are handled by the contrabass, cellos, percussion, clear brass, and the bassoons. You could make a case that the clear brass is more punctuation a pulse, but still, very pulse-like

• Chorale with weird planing (established in the previous rehearsal numbers): high strings, flutes, clarinet

• The counter chorale is played by the French horns, Oboes and English horn

• Interesting to note that the French horn is split between all parts. In other words, in order to really truly look at the music theory underpinning this part, look at the French horns. They'll give you everything that you need 

Rehearsal number 51

• Same weird cluster chord… Starts on a GbM7 and is spread to the violin in a 4X divisi as well as three flutes and an alto flute

• Same measured bass repetition. Totally freaky sound.

• Interesting to hear the doubling of the Eb clarinet with the Piccolo. It's quite a decent combo. brightness of the Eb clarinet balances out the brilliance of the Piccolo

Rehearsal number 52

• The oboe sounds so lovely here, but as a time based contrast, it works really well against the Piccolo and Eb clarinet combo scene in rehearsal number 51

• Notice the fact that the woodwinds go back-and-forth between two notes, thus two chords. It's a wild and scary sounding ostinato. Gotta remember to do this.

• I will also want to remember to use a super low French horn for a sus sound. Like, below where it really sounds good

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?!?

Rehearsal number 50

• 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.

Rehearsal number 48

• So beautiful… The trills make it feel like a moving target. Sort of like the squirrelly little kid who never got hit in dodgeball

• The grace notes, because doubled, have this weird stodgy feel to them

• Clarinet Piccolo and bass clarinet are really far apart, I think three octaves. This is an excellent example of McKays "extreme registers."It sounds gorgeous

Rehearsal number 46

• As close to a fanfare as I suspect Stravinsky will get in this piece

  • Trumpet and C, all flutes, are playing in Bb major

  • Interesting to note that this fanfare has a three octave spread between the piccolo, flute, alto flute, and trumpet.

  • Really solid pairing of alto flute and trumpet here. Like the color combo

• Clarinet also playing in B-flat major. It makes this part of the piece of bright spot.

  • The clarinet give girth to a three active monophonic line

  • They fill out other notes in the harmony, weirdly.

Rehearsal number 47

• Violin I in C mixolydian, I think, though the third is missing. Violin I comes in a little bit later to make it more intense and loud

• Cellos have a dope harmony line supporting violin II. Lots of really interesting things going on there

• What the fuck is the polycord on the hits?!? What the fuck…

Overall, I think that Stravinsky and Ravel have something in common, or perhaps it's all composers have this in common: they will stick to an idea for a tiny bit of time, orchestrate at a very particular way, and then switch it up. Anything new afterwards will be orchestrated in a different way. I have focused too much on smooth orchestral transitions between each part. I could shake it up a little bit.

Ravel focused on tone color. You can see that in Daphne and Chloe perfectly, and he sticks to it pretty clearly. Stravinsky just don’t give a shit. He just does crazy shit every few measures and he seems to expect the players to fill the gap and make up for it. That's a mindset shift that I would like to have. I'd like to challenge them a little bit

Rehearsal number 44

• Trumpets are doing their measured triils that I love

• The French horn has the melody… At the very top of its range no less! Wow. Notice the stopped French horn at A5… not a bad idea to support the soloist when notating a part that high.

• Strings and trumpets, oboe and English horns, all of these are gorgeous. they are all playing an F7 chord while the French horn soloist seems to outline an A chord, very linear sound, could be an A Major or A Minor chord, but the linearness and polytonality of it seems to leave no question about it's intention.

Rehearsal number 45

• Nice descending figure. Sounds weirdly diminished

• I love the French horn in the section, as well as the trombones and tuba.

• I also love how Stravinsky writes the percussion to fill in the gaps beautifully. He does this with timpani and grand cassa

Rehearsal number 43

• I have so many questions for David Shipps. This part? Ridiculous.

• Melodically it's in C# Major

  • Flutes and piccolo

  • Oboes in English horn

  • I'm super confused about what he thinks the transposition is in the clarinets. Could use a little clarity there.

  • Strings, maybe??

• What on earth does eighth note equals eighth note mean? Seriously? It’s above every single bar… was that a typo?

• Bassoons playing a weird tritone pattern, all jumbled up. C and Gb

• French horns doing a partial choir thing…

  • French horns 1 & 2, 5 & 6, are doing melodic duties but in a different key than C# Major?

  • French horns 3 & 4, 7 & 8, are doing same note repetitions. The thing that I noticed Holst doing. It’s the “Melody on top, supporting notes beneith” thing.

  • This switch roles, A lot

• Whatever drugs Stravinsky was on, do share a bit. This is insane in a great way.

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.

Rehearsal number 40

• Pizzicato in violin I means this part is buried. Gone. Textural only. Violin II doubles the flute and piccolo, but with a measured tremolo. This sounds totally bonkers and I've got to remember to do it.

• Wow! The trumpets! They sound like measured tremolo strings. They're so percussive and lively!

• The French horn seems like it's hitting a D power chord in its melody while the flute section and violin II are hitting Eb mixolydian.

• Trumpets seem like they hit an Eb7 chord which fits the flutes and violin II.

• Violin I also hits an E flat seven cord

• Maybe he likes the dissonance of dominant 7 chords in his polytonality?? Dunno.

Rehearsal number 41

• Feels like brass were made for these sorts of lines.

  • This seems like a very Ravel-like thing to do… A tone pyramid. Sweet!

• Strings fully in a background role, here. It's one of those "you feel it more than you hear it" sorts of things. Come to think of it, strings are relegated to this role quite a bit in this piece so far.

Rehearsal number 37

• This part of the piece is so loud and so intense that it almost doesn't matter what the strings are doing. You won't hear them.

  • At this level of volume, grand aassa makes a great deal of sense as well as having a timpani double it

• French horn and trumpets in C, both four instruments each, on a massive sustained sound. Loud as fuck.

  • The French horn is playing a C major chord, but the trumpets are playing a Eb7 chord

• The trumpet and flute were made for aggressive lines like these! It sounds almost militaristic.

  • Noticed the differing articulations between the two instruments. The trumpets are playing a double tongue figure While the flutes are just playing single notes, and the Piccolo clarinet is playing staccato

Rehearsal number 38

• Again, wall of sound.

• The bassoon is playing a major triad with an E7 sharp five at the very end, at least as how I see it. That is, if Stravinsky was thinking about polytonality. Who the fuck knows?!?

• Noticed the fingered trills between flute and clarinet… These trills do a contrary motion thing. Nice!

Rehearsal number 39

• French horn figure right before the rehearsal number sounds more like a glissando than four distinct notes at this tempo.

• The trills are passed around, too. From clarinets to violin and viola

• Lots of downward polyrhythmic figures (something that he resorts to, and it doesn't matter that they're not heard. It's almost as if he was writing them so he could see them, not hear them)

Rehearsal number 32

• Cellos and contrabass pull the entire rhythm off base. These two instruments re-distribute the pulse and pull the rug out from underneath the listener

• It's almost as if he wanted to see how far he could take that one simple motif that he established almost in the beginning of the peace: A4– C5 – B4 – C5 (trumpet in C)

  • The same motif is reflected in the French horn, piccolo trumpet, later on in the tuba, and in so many other places. It's almost as if he really wants to get the full measure of that ostinato, and base much of the piece on it

Rehearsal number 33

• It's almost as if he was thinking, "I gotta take this to the next level."

  • Look at the textural figures, those long chromatic, polyrhythmic lines: flutes I & II, alto flute, oboe I, clarinet piccolo, clarinet (3x), and bass clarinet

  • i've seen this countless times… Where a composer wants more, just add so many instruments that it becomes this beautiful wall of sound and mass. In the hands of a lesser orchestra than the London Symphony, the recording that I'm listening to, this section wouldn't sound even remotely cool.

  • I remember a story my old teacher told me about The Rite of Spring recording that Stravinsky conducted. He said it was terrible because Stravinsky wanted to hear every single little note. Apparently, he took the entire piece so much slower so he could do just that, and as a result, the momentum and pulse were just absent. Makes me think that I should 100% hire David Shipps to conduct my work in the studio so that I don’t get bogged down in the details. Besides, I have no trouble giving good friends some extra dough for being in front of an orchestra and I get to hang out and drink coffee in the control room.

Rehearsal number 34

• Woodwinds are so loud that the strings take a background roll

• The piccolo soar over the top. No wonder they used for war

• Low strings echo and double the timpani for more power. Otherwise, no percussion is in this section!

• Strings seem to add this immense pulse and flow at the same time. This blows my fucking mind. What on earth was he thinking when he created this? Ridiculous.

Rehearsal number 30

1. Violin one in divisi playing measured fingered trills in 16th notes while the 4V – LE SOLE (perhaps viola solo or four Violas maybe??) are playing a 16th note downward sloping line

2. A similar design is happening with the cellos and contrabass. The first chair Cellist or perhaps three Cellists all at once are playing a downward sloping line while the rest of the cellos and contrabass play other lines continuing the poly meter from the previous section

3. Violin two doing a massive blend of differentiated motion, but doubling the clarinet in their accent at the same time. Nice.

Rehearsal number 31

1. Notice the pulse switches to oboe and English horn here; Stravinsky clearly alternates between the fuzzy and soft woodwinds when it comes to pulse and melody in different sections. In that way, he seems to have a little Ravel influence.

2. The bassoons counter melody is super sick. I can barely hear it, but that's perfect. It's a nice contrast to the brilliant quality of the Piccolo here.

3. Wait… How can a violin do an upward Pizzicato?? With the thumb? It has to be… The London Symphony recording that I'm listening to sounds like they're only doing down plucks with their pointer finger

Rehearsal numbers 28 and 29

1. Interesting polymeter, blend of differentiated motion, in both the cellos and contrabass. Same motivic thing seen earlier is now in the Timpani (as well as many other places).

2. Something to keep in mind: you do not need to simply add a single note to a single instrument to get a sustained sound. What this section proves to me is that I can add a great deal of pulse and movement if I dovetailed the woodwinds, wrote repeated figures in the strings, and generally embraced motion as sustaining sound as well as blend of differentiated motion

   • Clarinet (B) has the same repeated figure, as does the flute, alto flute, piccolos, and oboes. Each of them have repeated ostinato melodies that dovetail to save breath. This is much more interesting than a single whole note in a measure, and it achieves a great deal more pulse

   • The bassoon is still doing the trail, dovetailed!

3. I love the trumpets here. They sound diatonically planed, but that's just not the case.

   • GbM7 to Ab7 to a Bb7 to a C half diminished 7

   • GbM7 isn't part of melodic minor at that point of the scale, but from Ab7 to a Bb7 to a C half diminished 7, they match the IV, V, and vi of melodic minor perfectly.

   • I have a strong hunch that Stravinsky trusted his ears way more than the music theory. In other words, I think he changed the first chord to match what appealed to him rather than just forcing that chord to be a M7#5 as it would be in melodic minor

Rehearsal number 23

• Clarinet and Viola doubled in E triad shape versus a trumpet in C with the violin one and violin two sections doing roughly B minor add11 ostinato figure.

• Seems very much like a polytonality moment

• I love the first violin here. The grace notes are lovely and determined sounding. The down bowing makes it interesting and intense

Rehearsal numbers 24 and 25

• The bed he creates here highly dovetails the bassoons, but the violins are able to play the same figure throughout the entire section.

• Bassoons hit measured fingered tremolo between F4 and E4 while bassoon two has an unmeasured trill at C4 , possibly to D4,. Both of these have a pleasant tone.

• Violin solos doing a full doubling of the bassoons, but no dovetail is needed. Pleasant and mellow territories as far as tone.

• There's a weird polytonality action happening in the strings and bassoon dovetails. When broken down, my guess would be an A minor chord and a G minor chord

• French horn and flute melodies have a gorgeous C mixolydian melody, I'm thinking

Rehearsal number 26

• More of a transition part I guess, but the French horns moving downwards as well as the oboes moving downwards makes this part feel less consequential than the parts before and after

• The same bird-like tone in the oboes as you could get in the flutes in rehearsal number 21. Gotta remember the downward grace notes. Parrots principle at work? Vast majority of composers write grace notes starting from a lower note. Why not the higher?

• The same musical bed is continued. I always worry about staying too long on a loop, but this bed is so interesting that perhaps this can be amended. If I have a really super interesting loop, and the things that are happening around it are really interesting as well, I could probably stay on it for longer. Otherwise, loop lock…

Rehearsal number 27

• I think this part is far more put together with its polytonality. I tend to hear the melodies a whole lot more than I do the bed that has been established. Perhaps this is another reason why the bed works so well for so long. There is so much happening around it.

• Alto flute sounds gorgeous here. It's almost haunting, far more glowing and restrained comparatively to the flute, which comes in on the fourth measure after the change to rehearsal number 27, and it makes it sound like it's peeking out of the mix because it's in its bright territory

• French horn joining polytonality established in rehearsal number 24 and 25. This is a great way to make any loop more intense, simply just adding more stuff onto it

Rehearsal numbers 19 and 20

• I like to think of this melody as the happiest, most Humpty Dumpty melody of the rite of spring

• The melody works great with the bassoons, and the trumpet at its bottom register is definitely flat sounding but works perfectly with the bassoons totally, somehow. I need to remember this combination

Rehearsal number 21

• flute sounds like a bird! Lovely grace notes from above sounds epically bird-like

• Notice the oboe switching the grace notes in the beginning of rehearsal number 21, but then the oboe one stops the grace notes due to the flutes grace notes and getting out of their way

• Beautifully written pointillism, in a way, for the passing round of the Humpty Dumpty melody. It just sounds awesome with all the weird instrumentation and ranges he's found.

Rehearsal number 22

• I love to see the violin solo trail at C4 which is mellow and the bassoon at C4 as well which is pleasant.

• I never thought of using trills to create an unsettling sound, nor have I thought it might be cool to double the woodwind and string solo instruments to make it a bit more powerful and weird sounding. why not!??

Rehearsal Numbers 16 and 17

• Piccolo's in the register they are in have a super squeaky sound to it, and Stravinsky writes a C7 that pops out of the mix really easily due to the register compared to the rest of their melody, and the higher transposition of the Piccolo. You have two piccolo's kind of fighting each other for the same space, but doing slightly different ostinato-like melodies

• The French horn is in con sordino with a low relative intensity. The trumpet in D is written Senza Sordino but has a high relative intensity. There are four trumpets in C all played con sordino in a highly linear voicing.

• Clarinets are more felt than heard as they double the rhythm of the brass in this section with a linear style arpeggio.

• You really only hear the trumpet in D due to it's not having any mute but having a high relative intensity. The other melodies are more supportive, but also incredibly unsettling to listen to in the background.

• The Oboes are barely heard but more felt, they create a sustained tone.

• Bassoons create sustained town via a trill, which is one of McKay's tricks: motion as sustained sound. Also Stravinsky seems to love the dovetailed woodwinds, and I've seen him do this often, even in Petruška.

• Clarinet's double the horns with arpeggios, but also play this fancy flutter tongue that's downward figure with the flutes. It's interesting to note that he writes flutter tongue but he also marks these passages as staccato with a massively fast 16th note polyrhythm. Fucked! Viola is heard under this mess with a repeating ostinato figure.

Perhaps the right of spring could be analyzed like this?

Competing simultaneous ostinatos with strange percussive effects, but within a traditional homophonic texture in that a sustained sound always unifies and balances the orchestration.

1. The cello and bass ostinato versus the Viola ostinato versus the violin I pizzicato ostinato vs the English Horn ostinato. This creates the pulse of the homophonic texture.

2. The oboe is more sustained sound. Bassoon creates sustained tone via a trill. These two instruments creates the sustained sound of a homophonic texture.

3. Piccolo, flute, clarinet Piccolo, French horn, trumpet in D, trumpet and C, violin two pizzicato doing more percussive and textural effects overall while the ostinatos are raging beneath all of this. Melody and pulse of a homophonic texture.

Rhythmic ostinatos in The Rite of Spring are kind of like an undertow, the sustained sounds are like a beautiful ocean far off in the distance, while everything else that's happening above it, the strange percussive effects and textures that you hear in the woodwinds brass and percussion sections are like the waves crashing down on one's head, begging to annihilate.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

Rehearsal number 13

• Arco non-divisi gives a double stop way more force in the strings

• Viola's down bows naturally means we hear the higher note more

• Most audible: Eb4 violin, Bb3 viola, Fb3 celli, Cb4 (written) contra bass

• The actual chord is bonkers! Eb-7 add b9 #5 Eb7/Fb add b9 #5

• On piano, this chord sounds crazy and messy, but with strings, it sounds perfect

• The French horns add this girth to the emphasis… The French horns are squarely in their warm and mellow territory, and there are eight of them!

Rehearsal number 14

• The cello is doing an alternation between an E chord and a C chord. Interestingly, both of these chords are related by a major third in their roots.

• The bassoons are playing sixteenths in contrast to the cello eighth notes. Sounds perfect together... cello pizzicato and bassoons playing twice as fast in the same register.

• The bassoon's first outline a C chord an E minor chord, which keeps to the movement of the major third between the roots of these chords. The oboe plays the theme established by the French horn in rehearsal number seven.

Rehearsal number 15

• The triplet figure here gets passed around like a hot potato

• Oboe to trumpet to oboe to violin I (pizzicato) to the trumpet

• Beautifully written flute part here marks a division in the section by contrast. Feel free to use the flutes in this percussive, jet whistle way to make things really intense and ballsy, or as Ravel did when he would use percussion to mark a new section. Punctuation as McKay would state it.

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.

Melodic layers and orchestral texture

• The passage is highly polyphonic. It’s gorgeous.

• Rehearsal letter 7:

  • English Horn echoes the main melody first stated in beginning of the entire ballet.

  • Clarinet in D: short downward-sloping four-note bursts in a pleasant register. Sounds sad and scary when melodies go downward like this, kindof like they are spinning downwards. Maybe that melody listened to too much Nine Inch Nails. Bah dum!

• Rehearsal letter 8:

  • Multiple simultaneous melodies; flute takes a bright, strongly linear, acrobatic melody that jumps octaves.

  • Alto flute functions as texture but remains clearly melodic. It’s felt more than projected.

  • Clarinet piccolo in D doubles a similar line to rehersal 7, but stands out due to relative intensity vs. the flute.

• Observations on doubling and clarity:

  • When two instruments are doing interesting melodic work at the same time (e.g., flute and clarinet piccolo in #8), contrasting registral placement and differing melodic structure (linear vs. closed and bursty fragment) help them be heard distinctly; putting the lines in very different registers increases perceptual separation.

Rhythm and articulation

• Stravinsky achieves a highly unsettling rhythmic effect with relatively little material between rehearsal letters 7–8.

• Cello solo: plays Pizzicato on the offbeat, creating displacement against the pulse.

• Bass clarinet: strongly linear rhythmic ostinato with frequent grace notes.

• Clarinets (two in A): rich territory, doubled writing with many grace notes.

• In rehearsal letter 8 the bassoons take over the rhythm role in roughly the same manner as the clarinet and bass clarinet had in rehersal number 7.

• Also at rehersal 8 the clarinet in A shifts from unison doubling toward more blend of differentiated motion. This is a nice trick I’m going to remember.

Sustained sonorities and harmonic color

• Rehearsal letter 7:

  • Alto flute provides a warm sustained color on strong beats.

  • French horn sustains a concert D5, contributing a warm “golden” territory.

  • “Elbow” (likely an instrument/line labeled in the score) trails as a sustaining motion in the same warm register.

• Rehearsal letter 8:

  • Contrabass soloist sustains a mellow B♭2 as an anchoring sound.