The Rite of Spring

May whoever listens to this music never experience the insult to which it was subjected and of which I was the witness in the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Paris, Spring 1913,’ wrote Stravinsky in 1968, of the premiere of his Rite of Spring. Written for a huge orchestra to a setting of scenes from pagan Russian, this elemental ballet with its vaulting, violent energy and assymetrical rhythms almost from beginning to end, has become a major landmark of 20th century music. Stravinsky’s orchestral palette, different and distinctive in every work, is never more exotically colourful than in his one act opera The Nightingale, which is a virtual catalogue of avian imitations.