Octatonic scale and Whole-tone scale in Le Sacre du Printemps

[ztirual]

Hey classical people.
Im new to this forum, and to classical music in general. Im from Denmark, and for the moment im doing a paper on Le Sacre, where I, among other things, talk about the use of the octatonic (ore WHWH /HWHW scale), and the Whole-tone scale. My only problem is that i just cant find a good example on the use of these scales in Le Sacre. (probably because im not so good at scale-work and such..) Can anyone help me to find a specific place in Le Sacre where the scales are used?

[Dax]

I'm assuming that you know this article http://dmitri.mycpanel.princeton.edu/files/publications/stravinsky.pdf and various others which turn up when you google "Rite of Spring octatonic" and such phrases? Perhaps, like me, you harbour doubts about some of the material discussed . . .

[Cato]

Hey classical people.
Im new to this forum, and to classical music in general. Im from Denmark, and for the moment im doing a paper on Le Sacre, where I, among other things, talk about the use of the octatonic (ore WHWH /HWHW scale), and the Whole-tone scale. My only problem is that i just cant find a good example on the use of these scales in Le Sacre. (probably because im not so good at scale-work and such..) Can anyone help me to find a specific place in Le Sacre where the scales are used?

Lauritz: check out this article on the octatonic scale as used by Rimsky-Korsakov, who undoubtedly passed on its possibilities to Stravinsky and others.

http://www.academia.edu/1053583/Rimsky-Korsakov_-_a_decisive_influence_in_the_search_for_a_Russian_national_identity

An excerpt:

Rimsky-Korsakov has introduced into the art of music the utterly new, and before him unknown,
artistic treatment of the augmented triad, the chords of the second, ninth and eleventh, and the 'whole
- tone-semitone' scale.

The possibilities that differing scales opened up for the composer were outlined in the various exercises Rimsky=Korsakov's pupils had to master. There is, for instance, a section concerned with...covering both circles of minor and major thirds together with exercises which lead to a whole-tone-semitone scale. As a result it is not surprising to find the octatonic scale in the works of his students such as Glazunov, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. It was left to Scriabin to take the extra step and abandon the diatonic scale and extend Rimsky-Korsakov's octatonal technique in Prométhée, le poem du feu . "Rimsky-Korsakov's octatonicism was a gold mine for those bent on a modernist revolution."

[jochanaan]

Hmmm...I can't think of any octatonic examples from The Rite either.  But Shostakovich was also fond of the octatonic scale; his Fourth Symphony contains several great examples, including the Presto from the first movement.