It's said that Stravinsky composed the "Dance of the Adolescents" in Rite of Spring based on a dream he had of a young girl dancing herself to death while a group of elders stood around her and watched. This haunting notion is ever-present in the mood of the piece. There is something so dark and so beautiful about the dream and it is this same eerie intrigue that makes the music so irresistible. Yesterday I got the wonderful opportunity to page-turn for Susan DeWitt Smith while she played the two-piano arrangement of Rite of Spring at the Keller Auditorium in Portland, Oregon. Being so close to the dark and intense energy was an absolutely unforgettable experience.
short analysis of the dance of the adolescents:
The pounding polychords (an E major triad and an Eb seventh chord) in the second piano part which are played with an eigth note rhythm and displaced accents that destroy any feeling of meter, introduce the darkly tense mood of this piece and serve as the only tones that are heard for the first 8 bars. The use of this dissonant bitonality introduced immediately not only serves to set the mood of the piece but also becomes a form of structure in the piece which jarringly seems to almost interrupt many of the melodic motives that are introduced.
Repetition is how Stravinsky seems to establish a sort of structure in the piece. Whether through the dissonant chords, quintal harmonies, ostinato-like bass lines or nonretrogradable melodic motives; he uses altered rhythmic figures and dissonant harmonic motives repeatedly to give the listener a sense of returning to something familiar. The ostinato at measure 23 comes back in toward the end of the piece. On page 18 in the third system in the first piano part; the simple nonretrogradable melody is again reintroduced an octave above on page 19 in the second system. Repeating figures like this and coming back in with the polychordal texture, Stravinsky creates a structure in an other wise hard to follow piece.
“Dance of the Adolescents” is aurally hard to follow due to the dissonance created by the various secundal harmonies, polychordal texture that dominates the piece and the obscured tonal center. The piece does however seem to focus on Eb and while on page 28 in the second system there is a key change and the three flats disappear, the tone of Eb is still emphasized throughout the entire composition.
short analysis of the dance of the adolescents:
The pounding polychords (an E major triad and an Eb seventh chord) in the second piano part which are played with an eigth note rhythm and displaced accents that destroy any feeling of meter, introduce the darkly tense mood of this piece and serve as the only tones that are heard for the first 8 bars. The use of this dissonant bitonality introduced immediately not only serves to set the mood of the piece but also becomes a form of structure in the piece which jarringly seems to almost interrupt many of the melodic motives that are introduced.
Repetition is how Stravinsky seems to establish a sort of structure in the piece. Whether through the dissonant chords, quintal harmonies, ostinato-like bass lines or nonretrogradable melodic motives; he uses altered rhythmic figures and dissonant harmonic motives repeatedly to give the listener a sense of returning to something familiar. The ostinato at measure 23 comes back in toward the end of the piece. On page 18 in the third system in the first piano part; the simple nonretrogradable melody is again reintroduced an octave above on page 19 in the second system. Repeating figures like this and coming back in with the polychordal texture, Stravinsky creates a structure in an other wise hard to follow piece.
“Dance of the Adolescents” is aurally hard to follow due to the dissonance created by the various secundal harmonies, polychordal texture that dominates the piece and the obscured tonal center. The piece does however seem to focus on Eb and while on page 28 in the second system there is a key change and the three flats disappear, the tone of Eb is still emphasized throughout the entire composition.
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The last few months, I've been working on an animated graphical score of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Last week I completed the first part:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02tkp6eeh40
Enjoy!
Stephen Malinowski
Music Animation Machine
stephenmalinowski.com
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