Considered one of the earliest examples of modernism in music, this is music for ballet describing pagan ritual celebrating spring, after which a girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death.
Written just before World War I by Igor Stravinsky, its premiere was probably one of the most shocking and scandalous in music history, with the barbaric rhythms, the sense of cruelty and the dissonance of its music in direct contrast with the existing aesthetics of music. People from the audience were yelling and wildly shouting. The performance was a chaos. Despite the initial outcry, when the piece was performed again a year later as a concert piece, Stravinsky was glorified.
One could compare this work with cubism in painting, where there is no continuity but various music blocks are "juxtaposed next to and on top of one another like a mosaic" (The Guardian, 2013). Through this piece, Stravinsky revolutionised music in every sense by experimenting on many musical elements to create a new music concept, which influenced all future generations of composers. According to the Guardian, one could associate the violent primitivism of the "Rite of Spring" either with the barbaric pitilessness of nature or the cruel inhumanity of the machine age. The music is at the same time "savage and haunting, unearthly and violent, harsh and sensual" (Naxos, Classics Explained:Stravinsky -The Rite of Spring).