The most explosive piece of music of the 20th century was written in a tiny eight-by-eight-foot room in Clarens, Switzerland, on a heavily muted upright piano. This episode follows Igor Stravinsky from a musical household in St. Petersburg and a law degree begun in 1901 through his mentorship under Rimsky-Korsakov, his discovery by impresario Sergei Diaghilev after the 1909 performance of Fireworks, and the early Ballets Russes hits The Firebird and Petrushka. We then trace the pagan vision of a girl dancing herself to death that became The Rite of Spring, developed with folk-ritual expert Nicholas Roerich.

The conversation digs into the mechanics of polytonality and the choking high bassoon solo, the folk-song sources Stravinsky spent years denying, and the toxic rehearsals where conductor Pierre Monteux walked out and the orchestra laughed at the score. We relive the May 29, 1913 premiere at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, where Nijinsky screamed counts from a chair in the wings over a brawling audience, then follow the piece’s afterlife: the lost choreography, its rebirth as a concert work, its appearance in Disney’s Fantasia, and its inclusion on the Voyager Golden Record.

• How Diaghilev’s blank-check backing emboldened Stravinsky to take unprecedented risks
• Why constantly shifting time signatures left classically trained dancers without a steady pulse
• Stravinsky’s contradictory praise and later insults toward choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky
• Why earthbound, inward-turned choreography felt like an assault to Parisian ballet audiences
• The line from the Rite’s rhythms to heavy metal and modern film scoring