The 'Rite' stuff: NMPhil celebrates groundbreaking Russian works with music by Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff

Apr. 15—Russian dance music will soar across the stage of Popejoy Hall on Saturday, April 20.

The New Mexico Philharmonic will celebrate the ballets of Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, with a detour into the romance of Sergei Rachmaninoff.

The concert will open with highlights from Prokofiev's "Scythian Suite," written for and rejected by Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes. Prokofiev rewrote the piece as a suite for a concert performance.

After Stravinsky debuted his revolutionary "The Rite of Spring," the competitive Prokofiev was determined to write something equally groundbreaking and striking.

"It's really fantastic and just as wild," said Roberto Minczuk, conductor and artistic director.

In 1913, Stravinsky premiered "The Rite of Spring" as a ballet for Diaghilev with more than 100 musicians. Its avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation.

"He created music that had never been heard before," Minczuk said. "He turned the entire orchestra into a percussion section.

"It was too dissonant. It was too loud. It was so primitive. The subject was a ritual in which a virgin was sacrificed every spring."

Pablo Picasso designed the sets; the great ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky served as choreographer.

The music's percussive rhythms and violent score enraged its first listeners. Used for a ballet performance in Paris, "The Rite of Spring" caused a riot and became one of the most famous scandals in music history.

The piece opens with the sound of a single bassoon playing a high line.

"It's almost painful," Minczuk said. "It sounds like pain; like someone's about to give birth."

Today, "The Rite of Spring" is widely considered one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.

Rachmaninoff bridges these two modernists with his "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini," written for piano and orchestra. Anna Dmytrenko, 2016 Olga Kern International Piano Competition second-prize winner, will join the orchestra.

"Rachmaninoff is the youngest of the three composers, but his music is more traditional," Minczuk said. "He loved romantic music. He created this Hollywood sound. That's why his music is used in so many movies. 'Variation 18' is one of the most recognizable melodies in all music literature."

The "Rhapsody" was used in "Somewhere in Time" (1980), "Dead Again" (1991) and in "Groundhog Day" (1993).