Okay first things first. This video has been removed from Youtube for quite some time now.
To be honest, when I first watched this video, I never thought of it to be intended for Ballet. I just thought of it as an absolute piece. A friend from the past recommended that I find a video or an audio of this and listen. Never did he tell me about the piece's dark history, nor of it's intentions and it's "supposed" mood. And it was only about three months after, when I learned of this piece's history as I read a bit of it in wikipedia. And that was how I came to appreciate the piece more, and have secured myself a copy of it.
Nevertheless, this is one of my most favored uploaded videos. It was such a shame that they had to remove it, and to all of the people who never got to watch it, missed half of their lives. A seminal piece like Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" conducted by one of the most sought after conductors like Salonen is really a rare feed even in Youtube where you tend to find all sorts of things. First, there's the rarity of the score. Well, nowadays since all sorts of things can be delivered and republished through various kinds of means doesn't really make the piece of music ultra-rare and hard to find. But there's still that bumbling question as to "who is crazy enough to be playing a gigantic piece?". This work by Stravinsky is definitely not to be taken lightly. For in the history of music, this piece has undergone major criticism by the afficionados and theorists alike, for it's profound and over-the-top character.
At that time, Russia was appreciating Ballet so much that it became sort of like yesterday's movie theatre. And so the impressario, music composer, and the choreographer were all valueable that time. And in line with that, names like Serge Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky, and Vaslav Nijitsky were names to be remembered.
History states that before the premier of The Rite of Spring in 1913, Stravinsky had already become an anticipated figure in the world of music. Stravinsky quickly rose to fame because of his well-received The Firebird in 1910. Though his 1911's Petrouchka wasn't well-received, still, people were actually looking forward to this man's music. Following that turn of event, Stravinsky actually prompted himself to give to his people something new and radical, never did he know that "that something new" would actually blow the minds of the listeners and throw almost all of them in a state of riot.
And that is what The Rite of Spring did in the history of music. Because of it's seemingly farfetched elements and radical characteristics, it earned it's seat in history's classical music riots sitting alongside Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major, an early favorite. Stravinsky's intensely rhythmic score combined with his extraordinary ability to perfectly fuse dissonance with consonance to create a marvelous concordance threw off people in a state of shock, who expected their Ballet music to be more demure and reserved. We could say that at this time, this type of music is rarely type-casted as that of the necessarily "Ballet", which meant to relax the watchers who payed a good amount of money so that they could actually have a place to let off steam.
And so, having explained a brief history of the piece, we now delve to one of it's greatest performances as of today: according to the interpretation of Esa-Pekka Salonen.
As a fellow musician, and lover of things adventurous, I can say that conducting a gigantic piece like this, much less analyzing and appreciating both it's theoretical and aethetical aspects forever remains a challenge, even to the musicians of the highest caliber. However, Salonen gave his fellow artists a powerful ray of hope in this video. Let us think of this 20th century score to be like a devouring beast confined at the bowels of the underground, and was freed and tamed by one of the master trainers. To all of the people who have a love for movies and action flicks, watching something like that would really captivate their hearts and bedazzle them in amusement. That is the pure equivalent to the artists. Watching - no, listening to something like that is pure amusement to us.
Salonen's interpretation of this radical score really never ceases to amaze me. The phraseology of the piece was well heard; proving to us that the conductor really took the time to study and "fillet" the piece in a vicious precision. What amazes me also was his manner of conducting. The manner by which he conducted and directed the piece was so precise, that it seemed so off-putting, yet correct for a mysterious reason. It also goes to show that he has vast knowledge in elements of multirhythms and polyrhythms, and can easily convert complex and compound rhythms into simpler ones, much to how a skilled baker can perfectly mix a pair of eggs in a batter.
Another amazing thing about our conductor is his patience and endurance. The piece is considerably long, approximately thirty three minutes. Heck, just conducting a fifteen to twenty minute piece would practically sap out most of your strength. And to think that this thirty-three minute piece is rich in both the theoretical and aesthetic sense, even just by conducting five or ten minutes of this piece is already enough to throw a conductor in an utter state of fatigue. And of course, there is still that fact that Salonen had a great deal of patience when he directed the orchestra, as well as his massive willingness to go through such an ordeal. To sum things up, the fact that the orchestra sounded that good ultimately means that he directed the piece magnificently.
Salonen also conducted this piece with fire and passion, as it is evident in his facial expressions, and conducting movements/gestures. Normally, when one studies this piece, he tends to get lost inside the composer's theoretical aspects, often overlooking the piece's delightful factor which "magically" makes the conductor or the listener's ears dancing to the music's rhythm and harmony. Which roughly means that because the conductor or interpretter loses himself inside the piece's theoretical aspect, he tends to substitute his "delighted" face with a serious face during recorded performances, which could have a not-so-positive output to both the video watchers and the orchestra members, whose morale could be affected even by the conductor's facial expressions.
To wrap things up, I would say that I really enjoyed watching. Even if it's radical or purely off-putting for a Ballet, it was perfect for an absolute performance that had me watching most of the footage at the edge of my seat.
