Savage Beauty: Le Sacre du Printemps' Lost Potential

In Le Sacre du Printemps, Stravinsky attempted to do bring his audience on a musical journey which would transport them to a prehistoric time whose barbaric existence is at once jarringly cruel and irresistibly captivating. He attempts to do this by interjecting a harsh overbearing score—which at times can sound downright ugly in its metrical irregularity, uncomfortable instrumentation, unpleasant stacking of chords, and painful dissonance—with short interludes of airy breathtaking beauty.

One example of this juxtaposition can be found in the first few measures of the piece with an oboe solo accompanied by a bassoon in a thin texture. The texture soon thickens however with the addition other uncomfortably high pitch wind instruments. The piece which had started as almost peaceful, soon takes on a disturbing quality with metrical irregularities of melody and the piece overall. This quiet introduction, however, is quickly broken by the dissonant pulsing chords of string instruments and horns.

Other examples of a delicate beauty attempting to break through the garishness of the rest of the piece can be found throughout the piece. At the beginning of the Round Dances of Spring, right after the sacrificial victim has been chosen and abducted we hear brief clarinet solo. This light solo occurs over a tremolo of a high string in a very thin musical texture. Clean and simple it constitutes only of a few closely related alternate notes repeated in an almost sing-song pattern. This abrupt solo amidst the general heavy orchestration and thick texture of this piece is like a breath of fresh air and stands out all the more in comparison. Its clean sound is almost innocent and ephemeral; its haunting sound—perhaps representative of the individual voice of the sacrificial dancer or more generally of the beauty of nature among the tribe’s barbarism—disappears almost as abruptly as it started. This brief clarinet solo is repeated just one more time at the end of the Round Dances of Spring, this time however, it ends with an abrupt shift to another orchestra heavy piece.

I believe that through such examples that Stravinsky attempts to play with our understanding of what is beauty and ugliness by placing them in harsh juxtaposition. Unfortunately, I believe that Stravinsky attempts to separate that beauty from the harshness of the rest of the piece—perhaps to highlight the cruelty of the barbaric tribes. I feel, however, that this is perhaps where he and I must part company, because I do not believe that the beauty of the scenery he attempts to paint is separated from the actions of the tribes—after all to its participants, the pagan rituals holds some type of captivating beauty which entices them to repeat it every spring . This seemingly philosophical point has very important implications for how Stravinsky chose to use his musical innovations. His separation of the beautiful and familiar from what he might have seen as revolutionary in its barbarity also separated his musical innovations and insights from his audience. 


In my opinion, the separation that Stravinsky created between his music and his audience hampered him from demonstrating a level of sophistication which would have been truly spectacular.  I believe that Stravinsky failed to effectively capture the savage appeal the sacrifice holds for the barbaric tribe in his rite of spring and in turn failed to make an immediate connection with his audience on a fundamental level. This is a shortcoming which he felt soundly through his audience's initial resistance to his music at Le Sacre du Printemps' first performance; a resistance which I also exhibited when I first heard this piece. This simple lack of a connection for a human impulse which is as old as time could have been avoided if the composer had had more empathy for his audience and perhaps for the tribe he described. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this shortcoming of the piece has hampered and continues to hamper it from unlocking its true potential.