Castalia Hall, Ballytobin, Callan, 
Co. Kilkenny

Michael Joyce piano
Sabine Ducrot piano

This performance of the piano duet version of the Rite of Spring marks the 100th anniversary of Debussy & Stravinsky’s private performance of the work on 9th June 1912. 

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring ushered in the modern age in music causing a riot at its infamous first performance with orchestra, in Paris in May 1913. Yet a mere 26 years later the orchestral version had become such a standard that it was featured in a Disney movie. Debussy’s prescient remark “Primitive music with all the modern conveniences” sums this up. Its actual first performance in the version for piano duet had taken place privately nearly a year earlier on 9th June 1912 at Bellevue, the country house of Louis Laloy, with Stravinsky playing treble and Debussy taking the bass. Writing of it later Debussy said “It haunts me like a beautiful nightmare and I try in vain to recall the terrifying impression it made.” Laloy recalling the performance of the Stravinsky/Debussy duet said “We were dumbfounded, flattened as though by a hurricane from the roots of time”