Stravinsky wanted the Rite to be his all that noise at the première had to be eliminated, along with the clutter that seemed to clog up his music. There were only seven performances of the original Ballets Russes production, four in Paris and three in London these were followed by two Russian concert premières under Serge Koussevitzky in February 1914, and then a triumphant concert performance under Pierre Monteux at the Salle Pleyel in April where the composer was carried on the shoulders of some audience members after the performance. Not only was the ballet mocked, but his music – indeed, the very idea of the Rite which he had honed with the painter and ethnographer Nicolas Roerich – had been eclipsed by the work of Diaghilev's lover, and the consolation of some fresh oysters a few days later fortuitously provided the illness that was to prevent the composer from ever having to see Nijinsky's Rite again. Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Expositions and Developments (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), p. Obviously Stravinsky could not share Diaghilev's satisfaction he was angry. Bullard, The First Performance of Igor Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps (PhD diss., University of Rochester, 1971), I: p. Louis Vuillemin, ‘Le Sacre du Printemps’, Comœdia Illustré, reprinted in François Lesure (ed.), Anthologie de la Critique musicale: Igor Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps: Dossier de Presse (Genève: Editions Minkoff, 1980), p. 46.Īccording to one reviewer, ‘at the end of the Prelude the crowd simply stopped listening to the music so that they might better amuse themselves with the choreography’. Stravinsky and Craft, Conversations with Igor Stravinsky, p. 46–7.Īs for the music, not even the dancers could hear it for all the noise Nijinsky had to shout out numbers in the wings to keep them together. See Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Conversations with Igor Stravinsky (London: Faber, 1979), pp. In a sense, Nijinsky's Rite was precisely what the doctor had ordered, judging by Diaghilev's comment after the performance: ‘exactly what I wanted’, said the impresario. Marie Rambert, Quicksilver: An Autobiography (London: Macmillan, 1972), p. In fact it was the choreography that provoked the scandal: ‘Un docteur, un dentiste, deux dentistes’ shouted its detractors as dancers mimicked movements that seemed to require some kind of medical attention. Legend has it that it was the music that incited the audience with its barbaric rhythms and dissonances.

Pole of sonority