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Adamm W. Creel

Professor Michelle Seaton

FA 207 A

18 November 2018

Igor Stravinsky: Straight Outa Oranienbaum

Music has a way of capturing the minds and emotions of the audience. Classical

composers by use of nothing more than the sounds of instruments are able to capture and hold

the emotions of the audience, and even stir up those emotions into a volatile elixir. Modern

composers often add lyrics to get the emotional response they are looking for, and to root an idea

in the mind of the listener. At times the audience can become frenzied by the composer, and this

may lead to volatile reaction, leading to a ballet rioting harder than a rap concert. Igor Stravinsky

has composed several amazing works as one of the most influential of the modernist composers.

His masterful works sparked a riot in Paris that overshadow a riot in Detroit decades later, thus

showing where the real musical powers stem from.

Early on, music was integral in the life of Igor Stravinsky. In an interview in 1957

Stravinsky explained how starting at seven years old he had piano lessons, and they were very

dull, but he had to do them. “Oh I was eight years old… I had piano lessons from 7. But regular

piano lessons I took at 9. And it was a very, very dull, but I had to do it. And exercise were dull.

And everything seemed to me too large, too big” (Stravinsky). Being the son of a Russian opera

singer Igor was immersed in music from an early age. This immersion helped to grow his talent

for composition.
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Shortly before graduating from St Petersburg University, Stravinsky met with one of his

fellow law student’s father, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Talent can see talent, Rimsky-Korsakov

being impressed with the early compositions of Stravinsky agreed “to take Stravinsky as a

private pupil” (Taruskin). At the same time Rimsky-Korsakov advised Stravinsky “not to enter

the conservatory for conventional academic training” (Taruskin). On this advice and tutelage

Stravinsky was able to work on composition as well as graduate based on studies in philosophy

and law in 1905. The following year he married his cousin Catherine Nossenko.

Rimsky-Korsakov not only mentored a budding Stravinsky, he also spread his

accomplishments and publicized the works of his protégé. With Rimsky-Korsakov’s influence

“the Symphony in E-flat Major and The Faun and the Shepherdesswere played by the Court

Orchestra in 1908” which with his “weekly gatherings of Rimsky-Korsakov’s class” propelled

the fame of Stravinsky (Taruskin). After Rimsky-Korsakov’s death in 1908, Stravinsky was

asked by Serge Diaghilev to create some arrangements for his ballets in Paris, France. These

compositions were well enough received to lead to want more, and not just small parts for

shorter ballets. Diaghilev commissioned “the musical score for a new full-length ballet on the

subject of the Firebird” (Taruskin) in 1910. This would be a key point in Stravinsky’s career as a

composer. With the Successes of Firebird and Petrushka Stravinsky “had conceived the idea of

writing a kind of symphonic pagan ritual to be called Great Sacrifice” (Taruskin).

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, California, some 75 years after Stravinsky finished the work

on his symphonic ritual, a young man named O’Shea Jackson, better known as Ice Cube (Kautz),

published a song that would lead to his own pivotal moment in music infamy. Debuting on the

1988 album Straight Outta Compton the song “F__ Tha Police” shocked the music community

and caused outrage in law enforcement communities. This all came to a head in 1989 when on
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June 19 in Detroit Michigan, Ice Cube’s group N.W.A. against the wishes of the Detroit Police

preformed “F___ Tha Police” on stage. The police “ended up taking out the amplifiers while the

song was being played. Members of the audience didn't take that well, and some of them began

rioting outside of the venue. A total of 18 people—nine adults and nine juveniles—were arrested

for misdemeanor that night” (Berry). This was just one example in a line of music leading to riot,

and not even the first.

Back in 1913 having finished the Great Sacrifice, though now titled Le Sacre su

printemps or The Rite of Spring, composed by Stravinsky and choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky

was set to unveil. “The first performance of The Rite of Spring at the Théâtre des Champs

Élysées on May 29, 1913, provoked one of the more famous first-night riots in the history of

musical theatre. Stirred by Nijinsky’s unusual and suggestive choreography and Stravinsky’s

creative and daring music, the audience cheered, protested, and argued among themselves during

the performance, creating such a clamour that the dancers could not hear the orchestra”

(Taruskin). There were by “one account … about 40 people were arrested” (Hewett). It was not

just the dance that was shocking “Stravinsky himself said that when he first played the beginning

of the Rite, with its dissonant chords and pulsating rhythm, to Serge Diaghilev, the founder of

the Ballets Russes, Diaghilev asked him a "very offending" question: "Will it last a very long

time this way?" (Stravinsky replied: "To the end, my dear.")” (Hewett).

Not all of Stravinsky’s compositions ended in a riot. The primer of Petrushka a season

before The Rite of Spring “was not such a forbidding score, by any means” (Hewett). Nor was

The Rite of Spring premier the last time one of Stravinsky’s compositions played without some

questioning by the audience.

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While starting as a ballet in Paris, Petrushka was recently performed by the Oregon

Symphony. However, the symphony goers got more than they bargained for in the adaptation by

conductor Carlos Kalmar. Not just a feast for the ears, the puppeteers and even orchestra

provided a wonderous feast for the eyes. This symphony told a wonderful tale of hopelessness,

love and even death. All while the audience was bombarded with amazing visuals of the titular

character’s plight throughout the symphony, the accelerando of the fight leading to the sad, sad

death of Petrushka. The percussion section was able to fully ham it up as they portraid various

carnival goers and acts throughout the performance. Rather than remaining in the classic dress

that marked the first part of the evenings symphony, the orchestra donned colorful scarves.

Rather than sit and play stoically they at times rose and danced in the carnival manner that was

key to the symphony.

It was fun to see the orchestra rise and fall like the tides, starting off with a smaller

arrangement for Joseph Hayden’s Symphony No. 103 in E-Flat major, “Drumroll” and gaining

members as needed for William Walton’s Johannesburg Festival Overture. The conductor

disappeared post intermission for the performance of Arthur Honegger’s Pastorale d’ete’

replaced by Norman Huynh, only to once again swap out so that Kalmar could bring to life the

climax of the evening. Keeping with the carnival theme that spawned from Petrushka all of the

selections for the orchestra flowed magnificently for the night at the symphony that not only was

a pleasure to hear, but a pleasure to observe. Happily there was no riot afterwards. Yet having

listened to The Rite of Spring (Orchestra) I don’t see what all the fuss was about.
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Works Cited
Berry, Peter A. TODAY IN HIP-HOP: N.W.A ARRESTED IN DETROIT FOR PERFORMING “F*!K THA POLICE”.
19 June 2018. Internet Article. 18 November 2018.
<http://www.xxlmag.com/news/2018/06/today-in-hip-hop-n-w-a-arrested-fuck-tha-police/>.

Hewett, Ivan. Did The Rite of Spring really spark a riot? 29 May 2013. Internet Article. 18 November
2018. <https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22691267>.

Kautz, Justin. Ice Cube. 11 June 2018. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Internet Article. 18 November 2018.
<https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ice-Cube>.

Orchestra, New York Philharmonic. "The Rite of Spring." cond. Leonard Bernstein. By Igor Stravinsky.
1958. YouTube. 18 November 2018. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP42C-4zL3w>.

Stravinsky, Igor. "A Conversation with Igor Stravinsky" with Robert Craft. The Wisdom Series. NBC. 17
November 1957. YouTube. 18 November 2018.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJIXobO94Jo&t=507s>.

Taruskin, Richard and White, Eric Walter. Igor Stravinsky. 12 October 2018. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.
Internet Article. 18 November 2018. <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Igor-Stravinsky>.