Editing The Rite of Spring (section)

=== Composition ===
[[File:The Rite of Spring manuscript.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|First page from the handwritten score of ''Le Sacre du printemps'']]
Stravinsky's sketchbooks show that after returning to his home at [[Ustyluh|Ustilug]] in Ukraine in September 1911, he worked on two movements, the "Augurs of Spring" and the "Spring Rounds".<ref name=VdT24>Van den Toorn, p. 24</ref> In October he left Ustilug for [[Clarens, Switzerland|Clarens]] in Switzerland, where in a tiny and sparsely-furnished room—an {{convert|8|by|8|ft|m|adj=on}} closet, with only a muted upright piano, a table and two chairs<ref name="Stravinsky and Craft 1981, p. 143">Stravinsky and Craft 1981, p. 143</ref>—he worked throughout the 1911–12 winter on the score.<ref name=H13>Hill, p. 13</ref> By March 1912, according to the sketchbook chronology, Stravinsky had completed Part I and had drafted much of Part II.<ref name=VdT24 /> He also prepared a two-hand piano version, subsequently lost,<ref name=H13 /> which he may have used to demonstrate the work to Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes conductor [[Pierre Monteux]] in April 1912.<ref>Van den Toorn, p. 35</ref> He also made a four-hand piano arrangement which became the first published version of ''Le Sacre''; he and the composer [[Claude Debussy]] played the first half of this together, in June 1912.<ref name=H13 />

Following Diaghilev's decision to delay the premiere until 1913, Stravinsky put ''The Rite'' aside during the summer of 1912.<ref>Van den Toorn, p. 34</ref> He enjoyed the Paris season, and accompanied Diaghilev to the [[Bayreuth Festival]] to attend a performance of ''[[Parsifal]]''.<ref>Stravinsky 1962, pp. 37–39</ref> Stravinsky resumed work on ''The Rite'' in the autumn; the sketchbooks indicate that he had finished the outline of the final sacrificial dance on 17 November 1912.<ref name=VdT24 /> During the remaining months of winter he worked on the full orchestral score, which he signed and dated as "completed in Clarens, March 8, 1913".<ref name=VDT36 /> He showed the manuscript to [[Maurice Ravel]], who was enthusiastic and predicted, in a letter to a friend, that the first performance of ''Le Sacre'' would be as important as the 1902 premiere of Debussy's ''[[Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)|Pelléas et Mélisande]]''.<ref>Orenstein, p. 66</ref> After the orchestral rehearsals began in late March, Monteux drew the composer's attention to several passages which were causing problems: inaudible horns, a flute solo drowned out by brass and strings, and multiple problems with the balance among instruments in the brass section during [[fortissimo]] episodes.<ref name=VDT36>Van den Toorn, pp. 36–38</ref> Stravinsky amended these passages, and as late as April was still revising and rewriting the final bars of the "Sacrificial Dance". Revision of the score did not end with the version prepared for the 1913 premiere; rather, Stravinsky continued to make changes for the next 30 years or more. According to Van den Toorn, "[n]o other work of Stravinsky's underwent such a series of post-premiere revisions".<ref name=VdT39>Van den Toorn, pp. 39–42</ref>

Stravinsky acknowledged that the work's opening bassoon melody was derived from an anthology of Lithuanian folk songs,<ref>Taruskin 1980, p. 502</ref> but maintained that this was his only borrowing from such sources;<ref name=VdT10>Van den Toorn, p. 10</ref> if other elements sounded like aboriginal folk music, he said, it was due to "some unconscious 'folk' memory".<ref name=VdT12>Van den Toorn, p. 12</ref> However, Morton has identified several more melodies in Part I as having their origins in the Lithuanian collection.<ref>Taruskin 1980, p. 510</ref><ref name=Hvii>Hill, pp. vii–viii</ref> More recently [[Richard Taruskin]] discovered in the score an adapted tune from one of Rimsky-Korsakov's "One Hundred Russian National Songs".<ref name=VdT12 /><ref>Taruskin 1980, p. 513</ref> Taruskin notes the paradox whereby ''The Rite'', generally acknowledged as the most revolutionary of the composer's early works, is in fact rooted in the traditions of Russian music.<ref>Taruskin 1980, p. 543</ref>