Page 253 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

MODERN 1900–1950 251

Diaghilev and the
Ballets Russes

Sergei Diaghilev founded his
ballet company in Paris in
1909. For two decades until
his death, the Ballets Russes
performed regularly in Paris,
throughout Europe, and in the
Americas. While the company
prominently featured highly
skilled Russian dancers, and
often showcased Russian
composers and works, they
never performed in Russia.
In stark contrast to the
conservative Russian artistic
culture from which he hailed,
the progressive Diaghilev was
The last page of Stravinsky’s minimalism of the 1960s–1980s responsible for commissioning
handwritten score for Le Sacre shows as much as they permeated film groundbreaking new work
the chaotic nature of the piece, with scores and influenced popular from the leading composers of
some huge intervals between notes. the day. Chief among them
styles. Stravinsky’s particular was Igor Stravinsky, whose
style of modernism influenced commissions are among his
Lydia Sokolova, for example, later later composers in the trends of most significant pieces. He
reflected: “As soon as it was known primitivism, exoticism, and also commissioned works from
that the conductor was there, the experimental composition. Sergei Prokofiev, Erik Satie,
uproar began.” Some accounts Perhaps because Stravinsky’s and three members of the
suggest that blows were even musical style soon evolved in Parisian group of composers
exchanged and that as many as a neoclassical direction, the known as Les Six. Well-known
40 audience members were “Stravinskian aesthetic” was not artists often designed sets or
arrested for violence and disorder. only to influence future neoclassical costumes for his productions,
A year later, however, Le Sacre composers but also to reenergize such as Pablo Picasso, Henri
was performed in Paris without the performing styles of Baroque Matisse, and Coco Chanel.
dancers, and it was the greatest and Classical music in a way that
success of Stravinsky’s career. This can still be heard today. ■
fact may have contributed to the
composer’s later tendency to prefer
Le Sacre as a concert piece. For
Diaghilev, however, any publicity
was good publicity; he later
claimed that Le Sacre’s premiere
was “exactly what [he] wanted.” I heard, and I wrote
what I heard. I was the
Stravinskian legacy vessel through which
The influence of Le Sacre on Le Sacre passed.
subsequent music is hard to Igor Stravinsky
overstate. This is most strikingly Sergei Diaghilev (right) greets
seen in Stravinsky’s revolutionary Igor Stravinsky at Croydon Airport,
use of rhythm, which surpassed London, UK, in 1926. The pair
collaborated on four ballets,
anything seen before. Stravinskian including Le Sacre du printemps.
“motor rhythms” would drive the

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