Talk:The Rite of Spring/Archive 1

"According to some sources"

 * According to some sources, Stravinsky described the performance as "execrable" and thought the segment as a whole "involved a dangerous misunderstanding".

This is from the liner notes for Stravinsky's own recording of the piece and was published as being copyrighted under his name, transcribed from an interview. As such, it is more than mere reportage. Richard K. Carson 07:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Since no one has complained about the above comment, I have tweaked this section. Richard K. Carson 06:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Players vs Instruments
Currently the instrumentation reflects the number of instruments required rather than the number of players. Should this be changed? 24.91.251.238 02:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It looks fine to me; what do you have in mind? —Keenan Pepper 03:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

GA Re-Review and In-line citations
Members of the WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 01:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Reggae?
I was listening to the radio and heard what sounded like a reggae group playing part of The Rite of Spring. The DJ never said who performed it, though. Has anyone heard (or heard of) this? 63.245.182.235 05:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Article name
Should this article have the name Le sacre du printemps? -Acjelen 21:00, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * It is far better known to the English-speaking world as The Rite of Spring, and should be named such in the english section of the encyclopedia. Moltovivace 23:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree. I find Le sacre du printemps is used much more frequently than its English counterpart in scores, performances, and in academic discourse. I don't believe the article should necessarily be retitled from The Rite of Spring. However, the commonness of its French title is given short shrift by its placement within the translation parenthesis. A sentence such as "The Rite of Spring, commonly referred to by its original French name, Le sacre du printemps" would be much more honest to this issue.Anderfreude 04:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * No one has seen my suggestion to be problematic, so I changed it.Anderfreude 04:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree that on a English language based site the English title should be kept. It makes for easier searching and cataloging, I would simply suggest that a redirect action be added for Le sacre du printemps and reference be made to this being the name in the original French, but again this being an English language site keep the English language title as the primary. FLJuJitsu 23:10, 7 Sept 2007 (UTC)

Transliteration of Russian title
"Vesna svjaščennaja" does not really reflect current pronunciation in modern Russian, as the щ is no longer šč but rather šš, i. e. a very long voiceless "sh" sound. Does anyone agree with me? -andy 80.129.116.55 00:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Nocturne
Didn't Siouxsie and the Banshees use this piece to open their concerts in the early 80's? I believe it's included with "Isreal" on the Nocturne album. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.63.201.84 (talk) 01:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

Wikipedia 0.7 Nomination
Well done, your article The Rite of Spring has passed through the Nomination Process. '''Social Studiously My Editor Review! -''' 12:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Preferred wording?

 * "there are many different translations of the original titles; the ones given are Stravinsky's preferred wording." I had to tag this as needing a citation.  Why would Stravinksy's "preferred wording" be in English?  And why are the French titles no given?  A reader might think this ballet was written in English.--Hraefen Talk 20:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think what they mean is that it is his preferred translation into English since when changing languages, sometimes wording gets screwed up.--Whitey138 01:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Redundant references to piano versions
Just noticed that what I just added is largely redundant with the same info addressed in an earlier section; am deleting it and reconsidering. Whoops. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RFGS (talk • contribs) 21:35, 5 June 2007‎ (UTC)

Recordings
I wonder if there could a section about notable recordings. The only recording mentioned is the one by Stravinsky himself. Atavi 11:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * What I wonder at this point is, what makes the listed recordings notable? This is the sand pit that the article on The Planets has slid into. If we're going to have a discography, it seems to me that it has to be a complete one, otherwise it is by definition POV. This is why I feel that without an agreed-upon template for what makes a recording notable, there shouldn't be any recordings listed. In a very quick scan of some piece-specific articles on Beethoven & Brahms, I have found no such lists of recordings. --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 15:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Reason for delisting
The article was removed for good article per review which found it no longer met the good article criteria. However, the only reason was a significant lack of sources.--Exarion 04:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The review had not yet received an adequate number of recommendations to determine consensus at the time of delistment. For this reason, the discussion has been restored. Although, the few recommendations were all for delisting, therefore, the article shall remain delisted unless the article is improved resulting in a consensus for the article to retain GA. The restored discussion can be found here. Lara Love  T / C  06:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * An adequate number of reviewers have now determined a consensus to delist this article. That review can be found here.  The article therefore remains delisted as at this time.-- VS  talk 07:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Commonly Referred To?
"The Rite of Spring, commonly referred to by its original French title, Le Sacre du printemps..."

Is it really "commonly" referred to as such? This is the first time I've heard the French title, and I've always heard it otherwise... MusicalConnoisseur  Got Classical? 05:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In my experience, yes, the French title is used in an English-language context almost as frequently as the English title. There may be regional differences, of course.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review
This article is at Good Article Review for review and possible delisting of its GA status, due to not meeting criterion 2b, as far as I can tell. "Article is badly undercited, especially the more scholarly analysis. Would require someone with good knowledge and available literature to cite the stuff. The paragraph on Disney's Fantasia is very close to trivia. History needs more citations also." Please assume good faith and improve the article as it is reviewed. -Malkinann 04:09, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Would you be able to elaborate on what you mean by the article being undercited? It seems to have a fair enough number of references for an article of it's size.  If you feel that there is content that is likely to be challenged that is not sourced can you point it out. - T-75| talk | contribs  16:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Please check in at WP:GA/R - I was helping the initial reviewer out (who I've quoted) by posting the notice. -Malkinann 00:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll do that. - T-75| talk | contribs 16:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * "Would require someone with good knowledge and available literature to cite the stuff." I'll have a go.  My PhD was on Stravinsky JonPowles 12:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Why is the title of the Disney section in blue? Was just listening to an NPR Morning Edition news bit on the Rite of Spring; according to it, part of what helped overcome the negative views & boost Stravinsky's work was its inclusion in Fantasia. Seems to me like it's more than Trivia.  Ileanadu (talk) 14:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

What political & social tensions?
"many political and social tensions surrounding the premiere contributed to the backlash as well"

Can't leave the reader hanging like this. Should either not mention it, provide a citation & or link for reader to get more info, or provide some idea in the text. Ileanadu (talk) 14:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Joffrey reconstruction
Couldn't something be said of how the Joffrey company/Millicent Hodson reconstructed Nijinsky's choreography? Plechazunga (talk) 07:04, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !
In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :) DumZiBoT (talk) 19:02, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "StravinskyIgor" :
 * The ISBN given in both citations belongs to the 1998 Norton reissue edition, "Originally published: Simon & Schuster, c1936./ First published as a Norton paperback 1962" (according to OCLC). The year 1956 in the first version is apparently a typo for 1936, but should not have been associated with this ISBN, except as a parenthetical note giving the provenance of the 1998 publication. I'll see what I can do to fix this in the article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:00, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Notable recordings
I think maybe there are too many recordings listed in this section. This is a list of the most notable recordings not a complete discography. Seems to me that other than the early Monteux and Stokowski and Fantasia recordings only a couple of others need be listed. Maybe Karajan 64 (I guess because Stravinsky is quoted as hating it), Stravinsky's own, Bernstein/NYP, Boulez/Cleveland and maybe Gergiev. Any comments? Thanks! Markhh (talk) 05:55, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * There's a brief entry earlier on this discussion page regarding this question. My own position remains as stated there, but there obviously wasn't much discussion to begin with. --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 17:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think your original point is correct: the section should be deleted. If someone wants to post a complete discography and link it to the article that's great. Otherwise any recordings that need be mentioned can be referred to in the main text. Markhh (talk) 04:20, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

"Rites of Spring" disambig
I don't see anything wrong with the disambiguation line for the band "Rites of Spring". I don't know why people keep deleting it and I see no reason why it shouldn't be left in place. The names are very similar, it will help readers, and does the article no harm. Markhh (talk) 22:47, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Uses in non-classical music
Would it be useful to put something in regarding uses of The Rite in other musical genres? Paul Desmond quoted the opening near the outset of his improvisation in El Condor Pasa (the first track on his Simon & Garfunkel album), and I believe Hubert Laws recorded a fully jazzified version around the same early-70s period. --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 17:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Ballet infobox
This Ballet box, with lists of Ballet styles and schools seems completely irrelevant here. There's no reference to Sacre or Nijinsky or Stravinsky. Anyone else agree that it ought to be deleted from this article? Markhh (talk) 07:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * No. The piece is a ballet and part of the ballet portal. It's just to provide quick access to other ballet realted topics. Besides, the only infobox that really matters is the top one. Justin Tokke (talk) 07:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

... requested ... audio files ...
All of Stravinsky's works are under copyright (I apologize for posting this above all the other comments, but it needs to be adjacent to the relevant tag.) Robert Greer (talk)

Actually, that's not completely true. Some of Stravinsky's early works are in the public domain in the USA. See this forum thread for more information. --Kongming819 (talk) 21:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The score IS still available online!
To be exact, at this (originally Russian) site: http://nlib.org.ua/index1.html (under 'orchestra' > 'The Rite Of Spring'). As a matter of fact, this scanned version was the source for the formerly available IMSLP-download.

Anyone who's interested, feel free to edit the 'External Links'-section of the article accordingly. I'm not going to figure out how to do it myself, but just wanted to let you know.

84.28.66.8 (talk) 11:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, As I have posted above, some of Stravinsky's works are still in the public domain in the USA, and they are available for download here: (from IMSLP!  Thank goodness they have returned!!!) Enjoy. --Kongming819 (talk) 21:29, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I Edited The Titles
I have changed the English renderings of the score titles to correspond with the Dover score, which states that Stravinsky preferred these English versions, perhaps because in some cases they render the original Russian better than does the French. Brancron (talk) 07:04, 4 April 2009 (UTC)brancron

disambig
"This article is about the Igor Stravinsky ballet" ... shouldn't that read: "This article is about the Vaslav Nijinsky ballet"? For example, Serenade is not a ballet by Tschaikovsky but one by George Balanchine. Ballets are to be credited to their choreographer, not to the composer of the score. Is that right? Please advise. 207.237.33.36 (talk) 04:26, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and if this article is primarily about the score (defining the term ballet as a musical form), shouldn't there be a different article for the incredibly influential Rite of Spring ballet (dance)? 207.237.33.36 (talk) 04:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * No. Without the music, there is no dance. Without the composer, there is no coreographer. The dance should be mentioned in this article. Justin Tokke (talk) 04:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * (I respectfully disagree to your comments here...they show a bias in favor of the musical composition and seem somewhat disparaging to the choreographic architecture...which stands on its own. I appreciate both the music and the dance as a conjoined pair and independently.)  207.237.33.36 (talk) 00:33, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It's also appropriate to credit this to Stravinsky, in the same way The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty are credited to Tchaikovsky. Your example of the Serenade is not comparable; Tchaikovsky didn't write the Serenade as a ballet. Balanchine interpreted that separately decades after Tchaikovsky died. Comparable examples should be ballets where the music and choreography were written and premiered together. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 11:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I see your POV completely, Justin and WS, but since the ballet was so incredibly influential to the medium of dance - yes, regardless of the score to which it was created and is danced - shouldn't there be a separate article on that? I mean, students study the dance not only in relationship to the score but also INDEPENDENTLY of it.  Would it help if I provided sources to that end?  207.237.33.36 (talk) 00:30, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Responding solely to your first comment about whose ballet it is, plenty of orchestras play the music to Rite of Spring without the dancers too. Does that mean the article should focus on just the music? Of course not. Both composer and choreographer should be mentioned, but for the general audience of Wikipedia Stravinsky is the more appropriate first citation. If this was an encyclopedia of dance, written for the specific audience of dancers, then it would be perfectly reasonable to focus on Nijinsky more than Stravinsky. For what it's worth, the Library of Congress catalog lists 201 items for "Rite of Spring" in its catalogs. A search for "rite of spring stravinsky" returns 160 items; "rite of spring Nijinsky" returns only four. It seems fairly clear to me that a general audience is more likely to be looking for information on Stravinsky than Nijinsky.


 * As for the idea of a separate article, you have a couple of options. One would be to expand the current section on Influence on Dance, using the sources you mentioned having. The other is to go ahead and start a new article yourself. Check out Your First Article for tips on how to do that successfully. You may also want to check with the folks at WikiProject Ballet for specific help in this area. While I have strong feelings about calling it a "Stravinsky ballet," I don't have enough knowledge in the area to know whether it actually warrants a separate article or not. I think the section in the current article could use some help at a minimum. If you've got sufficient sources and it's a big enough topic, then start the article yourself. You don't need to wait for our permission to start a new article; you have the same privileges we have. I'd recommend signing up for an account, but it's hardly required. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 03:05, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Minor point - IP editors can't actually start articles, due to some unfortunate incidences of vandalism in the past. See ACCOUNT for what they can and can't do.


 * If 207.237.33.36 wants to start an article on the ballet, he/she is more than welcome to message me and I'll create the page. A better solution in this case would be, as WeisheitSuchen suggested, to expand a subsection of this article. If it ends up big enough for its own article, it's easier to split out a section than to create an article from scratch. Orpheus (talk) 03:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * My apologies; I didn't realize IP editors couldn't start articles. Learn something new every day! Thanks for the clarification. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 11:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm in agreement with everything you're saying here. I am not suggesting splitting the article up.  I'm only questioning the DISAMBIGUATION, which reads This article is about the Igor Stravinsky ballet. For the band, see Rites of Spring.   I think it would be better POV to read This article is about the musical composition.  For the band, see Rites of Spring.     After all, the article IS about both the ballet by Nijinsky AND the score by Stravinsky.  (That's why I titled this section 'disambig' in the first place.)  207.237.33.36 (talk) 05:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I also must point out several factors: A- there are several "citation needed" comments peppered throughout; B- the article does indeed deal with a majority of the ballet, not just the musical composition (especially the 'Composition and critical reception' section); and C- it is deserving mention that in 1913 copyright laws did not apply to dances: Laban was not devised until the late 20's...so Rite of Spring receiving more search results in LOC or elsewhere as being attributed to Stravinsky is not surprising. 207.237.33.36 (talk) 05:22, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see. That sounds great - no need to ask, just go for it and make the change. Orpheus (talk) 11:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! 207.237.199.123 (talk) 23:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

More dance content
To a reader who is interested in both the dance and the music, it is crystal clear that the dance element in this article is dwarfed by the musical content. The element of professional dance criticism in newspapers and books is almost completely lacking. The positioning of the dance within Nijinsky's career as dancer and choreographer is lacking. Obvious sources of information are ignored (eg Beaumont's The Diagilev Ballet in London (1940). Sad to say, this is typical of the articles on individual ballets in WP. For all that, there is much good content in the article. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't have access to any of the sources you mention or expertise in dance, so please go ahead and add it. I don't see any issue with expanding the current section on the dance, as noted in an earlier discussion. Don't complain, just fix it. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 21:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Timpani
The instrumentation as currently listed includes:

Timpani (2 players, one with 5 drums, the other with 4 including a Piccolo Timpani)

My Boosey and Hawkes score states: "The smallest combination comprises five timpani: one very small (for the high B), two small and two large timpani." There's certainly nothing in the score to suggest any need for the 9 drums indicated by the present listing.

Of course in practice the players may choose to use more drums than the minimum, whether for ease of execution or for improved sonority. But I'm pretty certain none of the (half-dozen or so) live performances I've attended have used as many as 9 drums. I will change the text to conform to the stipulation in the score. Vilĉjo (talk) 00:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

As Film Score
The article as it stands states:

''The Disney studios maintain they were completely surprised by his turn of opinion in latter years. In the most bizarre iteration of Stravinsky's story regarding his trip to the studio, he claimed he signed over the rights for The Firebird to the Disney studios only after Walt Disney personally threatened him and told him he was going to film The Firebird whether he liked it or not, so he might as well sign over the rights and be paid for it. and then says: Such a story strains credibility. . .''

What is being cited that the claim strains credibility?

L Hamm 05:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The Disney section is crazily too long. It looks sort of like it was written by someone from Disney studios, a member of the family or a rabid fan. SM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.48.16.193 (talk) 05:00, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Dark City Sound Track Quotation / Transliteration?
To my ear, there is a part of the sound track from the movie "Dark City" directed by Alex Proyas (1998) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/ that sounds like Stravinski.

There is a trailer (today at least) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOHn2uzriBg that at about the 90 second mark plays a theme that sounds like the rhythems and dissonances of Evocation of the Ancestors OR Ancestral Spirits (Evocation des Ancêtres). Throughout the movie, the theme is used several times in variation.

I checked for this on IMDB and in the credits at the end of the DVD version of the movie.

Perhaps this is too trivial for the article, and perhaps my musical pattern matching skills are not discriminating enough.

Does anyone else hear this too? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.208.232.168 (talk) 03:32, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

There's a resemblance, but this is nothing new. Film composers have been imitating and borrowing from Stravinsky for decades. This is just one example of hundreds. Keen ears, though! I haven't seen the film, but sometimes the music in the trailer is not from the actual film. Markhh (talk) 06:11, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? RadioLab as source?
Surely some of you folks have enough background in music history to know that the sound of Stravinsky's music did not incite the riots, let alone through some strange reaction in the audience's brains to the novel sonorities. Riots like this were happening in controversial concerts for decades, and this one had begun before a note was played. The real controversy was the choreography. Anyone with access to the latest (or next-to-latest) edition of the Grout/Burkholder music history textbook should be able to replace this spurious nonsense with primary source-supported accounts. Let's keep standards high, folks. Contributions/76.184.227.103 (talk) 14:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and added a paragraph about the problems with the traditional story of the premiere, including a quote from an article by Richard Taruskin summarizing his objections to the traditional focus on the music. I also put a tag after the RadioLab source as "dubious," since the RadioLab program has an interview with a psychologist rather than a music historian to tell the story.  The cited Taruskin article was published over a decade before the RadioLab show, and even at that time Taruskin already said in his article that "by now we all know it isn't true" that composers like Stravinsky were breaking completely new ground in works like the Rite of Spring, but they were rather further developing trends that had been going on in music for decades.


 * Thus, the argument of the RadioLab show (i.e., that the audience was somehow incapable of hearing the "novel" sounds as music) is patently false to anyone who has been paying attention to music scholarship in the past few decades. Given that, I don't think the RadioLab show should be sourced for any facts; some of that paragraph is accurate, but it needs supporting documentation. 65.96.161.79 (talk) 06:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Peter Schikele
I replaced "musicologist" with parodist. He has no training in the academic field of musicology, so the label was incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.174.102.198 (talk) 14:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)