Paris in the Belle Époque of Richard Wagner, he went on to experiment with impressionism in music, atonal music and chromaticism. His most famous works include "Clair de Lune" for piano (written ca. 1890, published 1905), "La Mer" for orchestra (1905) and the opera "Pelléas et Mélisande" (1903-1905). The most revolutionary composer to work in Paris during the "Belle Époque" was the Russian-born Igor Stravinsky. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: "The Firebird" (1910), "Petrushka" (1911) and "The Rite of Spring" (1913). The last of these transformed the
The Rite of Spring a series of flute trills that usher in the "Spring Rounds", in which a slow and laborious theme gradually rises to a dissonant fortissimo, a "ghastly caricature" of the episode's main tune. Brass and percussion predominate as the "Ritual of the Rival Tribes" begins. A tune emerges on tenor and bass tubas, leading after much repetition to the entry of the Sage's procession. The music then comes to a virtual halt, "bleached free of colour" (Hill), as the Sage blesses the earth. The "Dance of the Earth" then begins, bringing Part I to a close in a series of phrases