rite of spring remix

Listening to The Rite Of Spring as a kid, I was always galvanized. My parents had the Bernstein / New York Philharmonic version from the late 60s. I obsessively read the liner notes and listened. The music was always a gust of fresh air. In about ninth grade, I realized that the heavy string motif of "Spring Rounds" would make a really cool riff for a slow rock groove. This means, among other things, that I've had this in my head for the better part of 30 years, and that Stravinsky really did kick off the 20th century with this piece of music.

Stravinsky was so forward-looking. He really understood how dancers move, and how to whip a dance piece up into a frenzy. What interested me was that as I got going I ended up not chopping up and sampling too much: his groovy ideas are all right there, in 1913! And still so up-to-date that there are sections of it that you'd believe are the latest action movie soundtrack.

So much of the music people heard on May 29th, 1913, sounds old to our ears; either baffling and foreign or precious and antique. Then there's the Rite. I like to think it will always sound brand-new.

The video version is below, followed by an all-in-one mp3. (If you can't see it, you can always go to youtube and look up my username, barryhowardbrake.)



Here's the 26-minute music file. If you can't see it, just click here.

• 0:00 Dances Of The Young Girls
• 4:36 Augurs Of Spring
• 8:45 Spring Rounds 1
• 13:01 Spring Rounds 2
• 14:20 The Exalted Sacrifice - Intro
• 16:44 Spring Rounds 3
• 19:50 Naming And Honoring Of The Chosen One / Sacrificial Dance