This 6-pillar curriculum teaches the basic literacy we need to be personally and financially successful and to do so in a manner in which together we evolve a culture that supports the emergence of an advanced human civilization.
We are quite excited about the coming two weeks of music, as it is Bregenz Festival time again, that wonderful period in July and August that brings the most exquisite orchestral performances and stunning opera productions to the Austrian shores of Lake Constance.
One of the concerts that we will be hearing on the Sunday after our “Meet & Greet” with Catherine features Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, that “enfant terrible” of modern music that changed the nature and evolution of 20th-century music for good.
The piece is famous for provoking a brawl and wild shouts of disagreement during its opening night in 1913, apparently requiring the intervention of police to drag out the most violently reacting spectators.
Stravinsky conceived the work as a ballet and orchestral composition, depicting a scene in pre-Christian, pagan Russia where villagers enact an ancient fertility rite to welcome spring and the end of winter. The scene culminates in the selection of a young woman who dances herself to death as a sacrifice to Earth.
Both the dancing and its choreography as well as the score were equally scandalous and recalibrated what orchestral music and dance were allowed to do.
Stravinsky broke away from the smooth, melodic style that audiences expected. The score features irregular rhythms and complex changes of meter, and it includes dissonant harmonies that shocked the beau monde of the time.
The ballet, too, was revolutionizing. Its controversial choreography came from Vaslav Nijinsky, regarded as the greatest dancer of the early 20th century. He met Stravinsky through the circle of Sergei Diaghilev, the founder of the Ballets Russes. Instead of telling a romantic story, the ballet depicts a prehistoric pagan ritual choreographed with heavy stamping and angular movements in sharp contrast to classical ballet dancing. (See this version of the Mariinsky Ballet as an example.)
It is noteworthy that the original scene and costume design were furnished by none other than the famous Russian painter Nicholas Roerich.
Today the piece is no longer scandalous, though the music, many claim, is still ahead of our time!
