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Paris, 1913: Igor Stravinsky premiers his ballet ‘The Rite of Spring’ which sparks a riot from the outraged Parisian audience due to its unprecedented dissonance and the primitive pagan themes of the choreography.
Moscow, 1936: Dmitri Shostakovich presides over a performance of his opera ‘Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District’, attended by Stalin. Two days later, an anonymous article appears in the state-run newspaper denouncing him and his music. He’s pressured to withdraw his 4th symphony and loses nearly all of his income from music.
Baton Rouge, 1949: Ornette Coleman plays a gig as the saxophonist in a rhythm & blues band and is followed off-stage afterwards by some of the audience members, incensed by his playing style, who assault him and break his instrument beyond repair.
What was Stravinsky's crime?
Shostakovich's sin?
Ornette's vice?
What was it about their art that drove the people of their time to outrage?
To distress?
To violence?
How deeply does this bellicose phobia of disorder,
this fanatical animus for the grotesque,
this prudish repugnance to the abnormal,
dwell inside of us?
What harrowing antagonist does humanity purport to resist in its frenzied and exclusionary defense of beauty?
Moscow, 1936: Dmitri Shostakovich presides over a performance of his opera ‘Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District’, attended by Stalin. Two days later, an anonymous article appears in the state-run newspaper denouncing him and his music. He’s pressured to withdraw his 4th symphony and loses nearly all of his income from music.
Baton Rouge, 1949: Ornette Coleman plays a gig as the saxophonist in a rhythm & blues band and is followed off-stage afterwards by some of the audience members, incensed by his playing style, who assault him and break his instrument beyond repair.
What was Stravinsky's crime?
Shostakovich's sin?
Ornette's vice?
What was it about their art that drove the people of their time to outrage?
To distress?
To violence?
How deeply does this bellicose phobia of disorder,
this fanatical animus for the grotesque,
this prudish repugnance to the abnormal,
dwell inside of us?
What harrowing antagonist does humanity purport to resist in its frenzied and exclusionary defense of beauty?
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