The Rite of Spring composer Julius Harrison acknowledged the uniqueness of the work negatively: it demonstrated Stravinsky's "abhorrence of everything for which music has stood these many centuries ... all human endeavour and progress are being swept aside to make room for hideous sounds ..." In "The Firebird", Stravinsky had begun to experiment with bitonality (the use of two different keys simultaneously). He took this technique further in "Petrushka", but reserved its full effect for "The Rite" where, as the analyst E.W. White explains, he "pushed [it] to its logical conclusion". White also observes the music's complex metrical character, with combinations of duple and
The Rite of Spring the public would receive the work, and suggested that they might react badly if they thought they were being mocked. On the evening of 29 May, Gustav Linor reported, "Never ... has the hall been so full, or so resplendent; the stairways and the corridors were crowded with spectators eager to see and to hear". The evening began with "Les Sylphides", in which Nijinsky and Karsavina danced the main roles. "The Rite" followed. Some eyewitnesses and commentators said that the disturbances in the audience began during the Introduction, and grew in a crescendo when the curtain rose on the stamping