“The Rite of Spring”: Musical Absurdism

"The Rite of Spring" & The Stranger

Filled with white hot outrage, the audience broke out into riots at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on the night of “The Rite of Spring’s” premier. Igor Stravinsky’s composition––using dissonance, syncopation, unsettling harmonies and jarring rhythms––shook listeners to their cores. What they witnessed was a daring, provocative creation that would leave a mark on the musical world in the decades to follow.

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Not thirty years later, the Western world witnessed Albert Camus’s The Stranger. Influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche’s nihilist ideas, Camus explored philosophical questions about life in his works. While the two artists worked in different fields and had separate ideas, their works bear striking similarities. Both The Stranger and “The Rite of Spring” explore ideas that are rudimentary and primitive, incorporate traditional folk music or mythology, and were modern and revolutionary in their time.

Primitivism

Stravinsky and Camus reject classical or Christian assumptions and instead explore ideas that can be seen to be primitive. Stravinsky threw Classical era harmonies, structures and progressions out the window in “The Rite of Spring.” Doing so widened the possibilities for him to express musical ideas––in this case, primitive ideas. Stravinsky used raw and crude tone colors from the woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion to allow the audience to experience this primitivity. He also used clashing notes and chords (dissonance) to create a distinctly crude and unnerving sound. In fact, according to the Guardian, the piece illustrates a 

Accompanying Ballet to "The Rite of Spring"
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“horrifying vision of the pitilessness of nature” (Service). 
Check out this excerpt. Completely rejecting standards of beauty in Classical music, Stravinsky was able to work with primitive sounds. 
Camus likewise rejected Christian and European assumptions that life is meaningful. In contrast to Christian themes of judgement day and salvation, Camus takes on the absurdist view that life does not have intrinsic meaning. Such a stance was seen to be backtracking into an uncivilized, primitive view. He explores absurdism through the main character of The Stranger, Meursault, who narrates, “Nothing, nothing mattered” (Camus 218) and that his whole life was “absurd” (Camus 218). By exploring a more unrefined view of the human condition, Camus raised crucial philosophical questions about the meaning of life. Both he and Stravinsky explored primitive ideas in their works of art.

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Traditional Elements 
Stravinsky and Camus both incorporate traditional aspects––folk music or mythology––into the ideas explored in “The Rite of Spring” and The Stranger respectively. Stravinsky was inspired by Russian folk music and incorporated many motifs (short, three or four measure melodies) from folk songs (Taruskin 501). His use of jarring rhythms is also derived from folk music (Service). Moreover, the tune of famously-high-pitched opening bassoon solo comes from a Lithuanian wedding song (Service).

Click to Read the Original Myth
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Camus similarly incorporated ideas from his absurdist take on the Greek “Myth of Sisyphus” in The Stranger. The original myth describes Sisyphus being trapped in an endless cycle in which he rolls a rock up a mountain, watches as it rolls back down, then begins rolling the rock back up again. Camus’s solution is to picture Sisyphus happy, or more broadly, to revolt against life’s absurdity. People can revolt by living with authenticity, liberation, and connectedness. Meursault in The Stranger does precisely this. In particular, he narrates about his authenticity and distinctiveness: “But I was sure about me, about everything, surer than he [the priest] could ever be, sure of my life and sure of the death I had waiting for me. Yes, that was all I had. But at least I had as much of a hold on it as it had on me” (Camus 217). Like Sisyphus, Meursault’s ability to revolt against the absurdity of life allows him to live freely. The connection between The Stranger and the Greek “Myth of Sisyphus” adds meaning to the absurdist ideas that Camus explores, as does the Russian folk music in “The Rite of Spring.”
Modernity

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The themes explored in “The Rite of Spring” and The Stranger were both distinctly modern in their times. “The Rite of Spring” encompassed numerous new ideas at the time. Clashing notes created strong dissonance, contrasting with the perfect harmonies of Baroque and Classical music. Syncopation emphasized offbeats, stressing sudden beats and driving the rhythm forward. Raw and crude tone colors brought distinctly unnerving feelings to life. Stravinsky’s revolutionary composition techniques were initially met with outrage because they were so upsetting. It was not until later on that audiences appreciated these game-changing techniques and composers began to explore them. 

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Camus’s exploration of absurdism was likewise new at the time. In the midst of World War II, his published works explored themes that sharply contrasted with Christian doctrine and even many Enlightenment ideas. Not limiting himself to absurdism, Camus also raised existentialist questions through Meursault’s narrations: “What would it matter if he [the priest] were accused of murder and then executed because he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral?” (Camus 219), and continues, “What did it matter that Raymond was as much my friend as Céleste, who was worth a lot more than him? What did it matter that Marie now offered her lips to a new Meursault” (Camus 219)? As Meursault accepts that nothing matters, Camus raised questions and explored an unconventional and exciting new school of thought that influenced philosophy for decades to follow, just as Stravinsky’s techniques shook the musical world.

So what?
Stravinsky’s use of dissonance, tone color, textures and rhythms in “The Rite of Spring” created music that was distinctly unnerving, almost like a musical version of absurdism. His techniques opened up possibilities for future composers to work with, including Romantic era composer William Schuman and American composer Aaron Copland (Tommasini). Dissonance in particular evolved throughout time and was used heavily in jazz, as seen in George Gershwin’s works (Tommasini). Not only did Stravinsky create new compositional techniques, he also redefined the way in which people define music. Perfect harmonies and progressions are no longer necessary in musical compositions; instead, composers can experiment with clashing chords and unexpected rhythms.
Likewise, Camus’s ideas in The Stranger are equally powerful. His ideas surrounding absurdism influenced many other thinkers of the time, including existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Franz Kafta, not to mention his influence on the absurdist school of thought (Aronson). Camus’s philosophical ideas reshaped the way in which people see the world, having lasting implications to this day. 
If a the radio ever plays a dissonance-filled song or someone comments on life’s absurdity, remember to think of Stravinsky and Camus and their influences on the musical and philosophical worlds today.

Works Cited:

Aronson, Ronald. "Albert Camus." Stanford University. Stanford University, 27 Oct. 2011. Web. 16 May 2016.

Service, Tom. "The Rite of Spring: 'The Work of a Madman'" The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 16 May 2016.

Taruskin, Richard. “Russian Folk Melodies in "the Rite of Spring"”. Journal of the American Musicological Society 33.3 (1980): 501–543. Web…

Tommasini, Anthony. "The Art of Setting the Senses on Edge." The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 May 2014. Web. 16 May 2016.