The Stravinsky Code

Teaching a class on twentieth-century music three years ago, Matthew McDonald asked his students to analyze the melody and rhythm of the best-known passage in Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

As he reviewed the passage himself, McDonald suddenly saw an organization in the groundbreaking piece, often thought to lack a discernible structure.

It was something no one else had ever noticed.

McDonald realized that Stravinsky had counted intervals between notes in the chords, then used those numbers to generate rhythm — or what some might call the lack thereof.

The Rite shocked audiences when it premiered in Paris in 1913, largely because its rhythm seemed so random. “There was no organization people could grasp onto,” says McDonald, an assistant professor of music [at Northeastern University].

But, as he’s examined the piece more closely, McDonald sees Stravinsky really did have a plan.

“It wasn’t so unusual that Stravinsky measured intervals between notes,” says McDonald. “The strange thing was to take that series of numbers derived from the chord and use it to create a rhythm. It ends up being completely unpredictable.”

Over the years, McDonald says, “people have come up with all different sorts of explanations” for what Stravinsky was up to. “But no one’s ever seen this before. It’s almost like a hidden game. Once I started looking for it, I found it again and again.”

“Stravinsky said, ‘The more restrictions I place upon myself, the freer I am,’” McDonald explains. “So he probably thought, ‘I’m going to come up with my rhythms by this very restrictive process, in which the chords dictate the rhythms.’”

Because of the nature themes in The Rite of Spring, McDonald speculates Stravinsky may have believed numerical relationships got at nature’s essence.

Among music circles, McDonald’s Rite of Spring revelation has generated excited buzz. The reaction, he reports, has been “really positive and enthusiastic.”