Part I of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring

Part I of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring Outline

Intro/Thesis-

·      Stravinsky musically expresses 20th-century aesthetics by alternating instruments of different sounds in the “Right of Spring” that expresses modernism.

·      Intro to modernism

Body Paragraph 1- Fragmentation-

·      Broken into smaller parts

·      The mood of sound and color of the instruments separated

Body Paragraph 2- Disjunction

·      Alternating instruments-

·      Decreasing Intensity to focus on other instruments

·      Rhythmic change

Body Paragraph 3- Stratification

·      Building up instruments

·      Creates drama & increase intensity

·      Harmonic Function between the different instruments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf0e_n49dcQ

In the late 19^th century to the early 20^th century, modernism was the time for new traditional aspects, such as art, culture, literature and more.  For example, Salvador Dali in modern art, created some interesting combinations of paintings that looked bizarre and unnatural. For instance, his best work created which is called “ The Persistence of Memory”. This is an example of Surrealism. In the Right of Spring, Stravinsky musically expresses 20th-century aesthetics by alternating instruments of different sounds expressing modernism.

In the Right of Spring, Stravinsky expresses modernism such as fragmentation. Since there is really no time signature in this piece, fragmentation is breaking the music into smaller parts than usual. I believe that there is some fragmentation on 3:44, because during this time the string instruments and wind instruments lasted a bit shorted amount of time than at 3:31 minutes. The hammers that the different instruments do in 3:31 were more powerful than the second one.     

Another modernism aesthetic that Stravinsky expresses is disjunction. In the video during 4:34, the bassoons first play the melody. The melody and rhythm was then alternated between the people playing the clarinets, then the flutes further more the trombones carrying the same rhythm and melody. All of a sudden stop by the timpani’s that ended the melody for a couple of seconds, and returned back to that repeated melody by a wind instrument I cannot name. This is evidence that Stravinsky used disjunction as a modern aesthetic.     

I believe that throughout the whole 1^st part of this song, the major aesthetic that really stood out was stratification. It is really hard to focus on the different instruments that are being played at the same time, especially when they are constantly being switched and alternated. In addition, I really like how the video was edited to the times that the different instruments come in, and help the listener see what instruments play. However, it is a bit easier to see in the video at 5:06 the different layers of instruments playing at the same time. The violins with the base playing soft enough to hear the wind instruments playing on top of the violins. Stratification was definitely an aesthetic that Stravinsky used to express modernism.

In conclusion, throughout modernism there were many changes against tradition. The Right of Spring, Stravinsky musically expressed 20th-century aesthetics by alternating instruments of different sounds expressing modernism.