Steve Schwartz wrote:

>That's because creatio ex nihilo doesn't exist.  Everything comes from
>somewhere.  Taruskin makes Maes's point in even more detail, showing that
>the Russian tradition Stravinsky came out of owes just about everything to
>Liszt.

Obviously you are right.  I don't know too much about the link between
-say- Liszt and Rimsky-Korsakov or Skriabin, so I'm not entitled to an
opinion, but I take your word (and Taruskin's, who I believe is very
thorough on the subject).  The point I tried to make is that I get a bit
tired of having to read all over again how "significant" the Rite is, and
then have to conclude that the term "significant" is used so loosely that
it becomes quite meaningless.  In my humble opinion other works/composers
might aguably be considered at least to be as significant.

>Furthermore, if we're talking about influence, then the folk elements of Le
>Sacre probably didn't have much influence at all, particularly since the
>Taruskin and the Maes critiques came along as something on the order of
>revelations.  Composers tended to extract other compositional principles:
>octatonic scales (divorced from folk implications), chord constructions,
>rhythms, new methods of development.

Again, you're right, but not quite accurate.  Octatonic scales were
extensively used long before the Rite.  As to "development" in the Rite,
I'd like very much to be explained how it works, because I fail to see it.
One more word:  a few years ago, I heard Valeri Gergiev perform the Rite in
Amsterdam on which occasion he really seemed to stress melodic aspects.  It
was like listening to a new piece.  In a recent documentary broadcasted in
Holland Gergiev explained how he was brought to this approach by studying
the folk tune roots.  Anyhow, after his dazzling recording of the Firebird
with the Kirov, the Sacre seems to be in the pipeline as well from
Petersburg.  A release I'm really looking forward to.

regards, Jos