Igor Stravinsky

featuring Marie-Claude Pietragalla

Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring - Sacrificial Dance The Rite of Spring, commonly referred to by its original French title, Le Sacre du Printemps (Russian: Весна священная, Vesna svjaščennaja) is a ballet with music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, original choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky, and original set design and costumes by archaeologist and painter Nicholas Roerich, all under impressario Serge Diaghilev. The music is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest, most influential, and reproduced compositions in history. It is iconic for 20th century classical or avant garde European music, with innovative complex rhythmic structures, timbres, and use of dissonance. The scandal of a riot at its 1913 premier, caused by its innovative technique and content, made it one of the most internationally well known and controversial works in performance history. The music for Le Sacre du Printemps is regarded as one of the pinnacles of human intellectual achievement. Composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, in his Six Talks at Harvard, said of one passage, That page is sixty years old, but its never been topped for sophisticated handling of primitive rhythms, and of the work as a whole, its also got the best dissonances anyone ever thought up, and the best asymmetries and polytonalities and polyrhythms and whatever else you care to name. The Rite of Spring is a series of episodes depicting a wild pagan spring ritual: "... the wise elders are seated in a circle and are observing the dance before death of the girl whom they are offering as a sacrifice to the god of Spring in order to gain his benevolence," said Stravinsky, of the imagery that prompted the genesis of the work. Though the music is capable of standing alone, and was a great success in the concert hall, in conception it is inextricably tied to the action on stage. Subscribe to Classical Music Only for more: https://www.youtube.com/@ClassicalMusicOnly?sub_confirmation=1 Follow Classical Music Only on our official website and social media platforms: https://www.facebook.com/ClassicalMusicOnly https://www.instagram.com/ClassicalMusicOnly https://x.com/ClassicalMuOnly https://www.classicalmusiconly.com #Stravinsky #IgorStravinsky #TheRiteOfSpring #SacrificialDance #ClassicalMusicOnly #ClassicalMusic

The intense final dance from Stravinsky's early ballet. Composed in 1912-1913, it changed the course of modern music as we know it. Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Michael Tilson Thomas Year Recorded: 1972

This is an attempt of a "visual metaphor" set on the Sacrificial Dance from The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky. The images are trying to show my own vision about the earth which has to become fertile in the spring, for which it is needed a ritual to please pagan gods, spirits and energies, which ends up with the sacrifice of the woman who dances until her own disintegration.