Igor Stravinsky Rite Of Spring Essay

20th century orchestral music encompasses orchestral works, concertos, ballets and symphonies that have been written and performed since 1900. This era had no particular dominant style and composers have created highly diverse kinds of music. One impressionist piece that demonstrates these characteristics is Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, The Kiss of The Earth (1913) is a pinnacle 20th century orchestral piece, which boldly rejected structured harmony and the comfort of a traditional orchestral composition (Toor, 2010). Furthermore, Stravinsky’s use of neo-classism along with complex rhythms helps to set the timbre of the piece as being both calm and chaotic. This essay will analyse and evaluate how Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Kiss of the Earth, experiments with the music elements duration, pitch, timbre, expressive techniques, and other compositional devices to compose a 20th century innovative work.
Duration is significant in Rite of Spring as it contributes to the style (neo-classism) of the piece. The metre constantly changes from common time, triple duple back to common time and simple quadruple in the start of the piece (0:00-0:58), to achieve a timeless effect. This
Most of this is influenced by the Lithuanian folk tunes, where it is sometimes reduced to tiny repetitive patterns of mere two or three pitches. (The Guardian, 2012) This is evident in bars 66-75, where the pizzato violin introduce repeated 4 note figure based on minor 3rd and perfect 4th. This bitonality is incorporated to anticipate what is to come, as it depicts both harsh and sensual mood, which is further evident in 1:57. In addition, there is biotical statement of material in minor to relative major. Everything after the point V/U going on V prolongs the arrival of V by shifting subdominant functions. (Hill,