Rite of Spring

Once you have heard this music, you will never forget it. Le Sacre' - not a few people pronounce the title with a mixture of awe, horror and fascination. Stravinsky's ballet music is and remains the standard bearer of the classical repertoire. If you wanted to describe the music that caused the biggest scandal in music history in Paris a good 100 years ago, you could use terms like orgy, black mass and high mass for the rhythm. It is dance music, but for a very different, dark kind of dance: earthy, throbbing, sharp-edged, brutal - music that still overwhelms and intoxicates today. At the time of the premiere, few people knew what they were witnessing.