Page 258 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Figure 15.8
In 1909, Henri Matisse painted the first of two canvases titled Dance for a Russian patron. Here he achieves a raw primitive power by exaggerating a few basic lines and employing a few cool tones. Two years later, he created an even more intense vision of the same scene.
Figure 15.9
nineteenth century. Yet the choreogra- phy for these Russian ballets required not the refined, graceful gestures of Ro- mantic ballet—the elegant sort that we associate with Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and The Nutcracker (see Chapter 12). In- stead, these are modern dances with an- gular poses and abrupt, jerky motions, as in the Matisses shown in Figures 15.8 and 15.9. The dancers do not soar in tutus, they stomp in primitive costumes. Indeed, here Stravinsky adopts the aesthetic of Primitivism, a style that attempts to cap- ture the unadorned lines, raw energy, and
elemental truth of non-Western art and apply it in a Modernist context. In The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky expresses these elements through pounding rhythms, almost brutal dissonance, and a story that takes us back to the Stone Age.
the premiere
Although The Rite of Spring has been called the great masterpiece of modern music, at its premiere it provoked not admiration but a riot of dissent. This pre- miere, the most notorious in the history of Western music, took place on an un- usually hot evening, May 29, 1913, at the newly built Théâtre Champs-Élysées in the most fashionable section of Paris. With the very first sounds of the orches- tra, many in the packed theater voiced, shouted, and hissed their displeasure. Some, feigning auditory pain, yelled for a doctor, others for two. There were arguments and flying fists as opponents and partisans warred over this Rus- sian brand of Modernism. To restore calm, the curtain was lowered momen- tarily and the house lights were turned on and off. All in vain. The musicians still could not be heard, and consequently, the dancers had difficulty staying together. A sense of the chaotic scene comes through in a review by a visiting critic of the New York Press:
“I was sitting in a box in which I had rented one seat. Three ladies sat in front of me and a young man occupied the place behind me. He stood up during the course of the ballet to enable himself to see more clearly. The intense excitement under which he was laboring, thanks to the potent force of the music, betrayed itself presently when he began to beat rhythmically on the top of my head with his fists. My emotion was so great that I did not feel the blows for some time. They were perfectly synchronized with the beat of the music!”
In Dance (1911), Matisse uses greater angularity and more in- tense colors, and thereby inspires a more intense reaction to this later version of a primitive dance scene.
236 chapter fifteen european impressionism and modernism
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©2010 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York//Photo: Archives Henri Matisse
©2010 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York//Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY
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