Emily Davison and the Rite of Spring: Don’t judge a cause by the protests
Nigel Williams, 30 May 2013
Two centenaries fall this week. In 1913 the first performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was greeted with a riot in Paris. Emily Davison died staging a protest at the Epsom Derby. History has sided with one protest but against the other.
The Rite of Spring was a big departure. The bassoonist began with notes higher than any he would hitherto have been comfortable playing. Dissonance was nothing new, but Stravinsky wrote long phrases without returning to the standard chords that his listeners knew. His use of rhythm was startling. This was ballet. Dance above all used regular metres and the musical language of several previous centuries followed suit. The Rite of Spring seemed at times to use the whole symphony orchestra as a percussion instrument and abandoned any sense of strict metre. Faced with so much unexpected, some of the audience protested and the riot ensued.
There are differing theories about what happened to Emily Davison. Whether she was trying to cross the track, put a flag or banner on the King’s horse or even pull it to the ground, she was knocked over and died a few days later. The jockey never got over the distress and eventually took his own life.
Today, Votes for Women is a principle almost universally accepted. Acceptance is so strong, we may question whether Britain really had democracy before the Representation of the People Act in 1928. Some places followed slowly. Switzerland granted votes for women in 1971, the year Stravinsky died, and one canton held out twenty more years. It seems absurdly recent.
The Rite of Spring is a fixture in orchestra’s concert schedules. Other successful composers have incorporated elements of Stravinsky’s style in their own music. It is possible to listen to Bernstein and hear Stravinsky. Others again have adopted non-classical musical language and gained a wide following. Olivier Messiaen is a prime example.
The danger is to conclude that women got the vote because of the daring of the protest or that the music succeeded because it caused a riot. What really mattered was that the cause and the music were good in themselves. Plenty of pieces still performed after a hundred years delighted their audiences and caused no riots at early performances. Think of Holst’s Planets, Parry’s I Was Glad, Elgar’s First Symphony, Rachmaninov’s Vespers. Plenty that appealed less to listeners sank without trace.
The boycott of South African sporting sides is credited with shortening apartheid but a protest cannot turn any cause into a good one. Fathers for Justice stunts have seldom won opinion over. A riot at the premiere doesn’t make a piece of music great. A sporting disruption doesn’t make a good cause. A few people can cause an instant disturbance but it takes time to establish lasting value. Just as a few people choosing to visit a web-page cannot speak for the whole of society. We commemorate these two centenaries because more people than the protestors appreciated what they signified.