1. The amount of fluttering polythematic design here makes for a very dissonant but entirely interesting sound.

   • I can barely hear the sustained French Horns (which are squarely in their most mellow sonority), the flutes (trilling about in their pleasant color tone range).

   • The only sustained sound I can hear is the violin trills that are just barely inside their most pleasant register.

2. Notice the switch in timbre between the oboe (fairly sharp and brash sounding) to the cor anglais (fiarly round and darker).

   • Love how that these two parts are played fairly close to each other in terms of relative intensity, but the idea is that their tonal colors would be both roughly “golden.”

3. The last part of this section has a chromatically planed major triad split between the second flute (rich territory), an alto flute (warm territory), and the cor anglais (glowing). The color of these three combined with the first flute in it’s pleasant territory as any melody of any choir ought to be with this design, stands out.

   • The triad sounds incredibly dissonant and again throws Fux and Gradus Ad Parnassum completely away.

   • The violin trill in a pleasant range is a nice color contrast to the extraordinarily colorful woodwind figure.

   • The violin trill also provides a simultaneous contrast of free form rhythm (the trill) when paired with the more measured rhythm of the chromatically planed triad and melody.

1. Further down the firm denial of Fux’s Gradus Ad Parnassum: Notice the bassoons doing a well-designed dove-tail in perfect 4ths. Mad.

2. The English Horn seems to be spinning around itself, like a kid on a merry go round

3. In each section, I’m beginning to see the dovetailing of each instrument. Strong move: Keeps the sound of an instrument limited by breath present without having to kill a woodwind player outright (or watching him/her go blue in the face)

1. A thought when it comes to unaccompanied solos: Feel not afraid to use fermatas.

   • Unaccompanied bassoon melody high up in it’s range. In the hands of a novice bassoonist, this melody would no doubt sound quite squeaky.

   • Interesting to note that the height of the melody in it’s range was specifically chosen for the bassoon. Ravel might’ve looked at this and said, “why not English Horn?”

   • Contrast of the bassoon in this range to the french horn, clarinet in A, Eb, and the bass clarinet. Harsh woodwind has the melody, soft woodwinds have the polyphonic countermelodies.

2. Notice that contrary motion doesn’t exist. Firm denial of Fux and Gradus Ad Parnassum.

3. English horn provides a little relief for the bassoonist.

Just about every serious composer looks with awe and drea at The Rite of Spring, and I include myself in this category. My teacher in college, the wonderful Carol Hess, introduced The Rite of Spring to us hapless, hopeful undergrads. I was mystified by it’s power, uncompromising intensity, and set an intention to study it more seriously… one day.

Compositional Outlook of The Rite of Spring

What follows is a brief overview of the compositional outlook by Stravinsky in The Rite of Spring.

• Stravinsky tended to melodically and harmonically structure the Rite in three ways:

  • Shorter, more lyrical melodies in general (3-4 note patterns) with heavy rhythmic and melodic variation.

  • Employing boistrous, explosive, and rhythmic designs for the orchestra, at times overwhelming the listener with the depth of power.

  • Getting dark with his harmonic vocabulary towards the latter half of the Rite.

• Stravinsky loved changing time signatures. Any casual glance at the score will show how he loved shaking the meter of the music all up. He pretty much liberated himself from the historical constraints of rhythm.

• Polyphony. He used the hell out of it.

• Polytonality. He often wrote melodies in one key, harmonies/rhythmic accompaniments in another. Yet, there was always a sort of consistency. It sounded dissonant sometimes. Altogether, the dissonance is quite pleasing.

• Melodies established in earliest parts of the Rite have a tendency to resurface, thus creating a melodic through-line that binds parts together. I love doing this in my film scores, and it was a joy to see that Stravinsky hadn’t completely abandoned this practice.

• As far as orchestrations go, Stravinsky loved really weird instruments in the woodwinds. He would often change the timbre of each section, but by focusing on the woodwinds.

  • There’s a school of thought that asserts that woodwinds can be broken down into two basic groups: Soft woodwinds (flute and clarinet) and harsh woodwinds (oboe and bassoon).

  • Stravinsky made full use of the auxillery woodwinds and changed up the sound from one part to the next.

Compositional Live-Blog

I don’t know exactly whether or not I will keep doing this, but I have a mind to share my own thoughts as I work my way through the Rie of Spring. I tend to go section by section, until I finish my analysis.

I won’t commit to finishing this publically, but who knows. I might just do that. I’ll start here.