Music Compare the Rite of Spring by

Music Compare "The Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky, "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" by Debussy and "Mondestruken" by Schoenberg as to compositional techniques. Why do they sound so different from each other and still from the same time period? Nostalgia for an idealized version of a mythic past was an obsession with many 20th century composers, including Stravinsky, Debussy, and Schoenberg.

All three of these artist's most works deal in some way with humanity's wrestling with myth and how to render this into modern music, whether a violent religious ritual such as "The Rite of Spring" or a more ideal version such as "Afternoon of a Faun." "The Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky is an example of early 20th century music for the modern Russian ballet with violent and atonal music, depicting a pagan sacrifice of a young virgin for the good of the community.

It is deliberately primitive in its use of musical theme and melodies, and makes use of assaulting rhythms, as well as folk tunes. But the "Afternoon of a Faun" by Debussy derives not from Lithuanian myth, as does Stravinsky's work, but from a poem. Debussy's poem set to music, rather than a violent ritual, depicts an ideal of a long-lost and mythical Greek world.

(Music with Ease, 2005) Stravinsky thus engages in nostalgia for a world where there was no morality, Debussy is nostalgic for a simpler paradise where love was all that mattered. "The principal theme is given out in the solo flute and colors the entire prelude. It is a very dreamy melody and is heard repeatedly in the woodwind tones and distant sound of horns.

After the theme has had its way, the oboe and clarinet enter in a dialogue of a passionate nature." The romance between the faun and his beloved is reflected in the romance between the flute and oboe.

(Music with Ease, 2005) Lastly, "Mondestruken" by Schoenberg is also a poem set to music, like Debussy's but while it evokes one poem by Giraud about an ancient German past, this poem in music is more internally nostalgic, for a private lost past of the narrator, rather than for a collective world of pre-Christian morality like Stravinsky or the.