The Firebird the Russian composer Anatoly Lyadov (1855–1914) to write the music. There is no evidence, however, despite the much-repeated story that Lyadov was slow to start composing the work, that he ever accepted the commission to begin with. There is evidence to suggest that Nikolai Tcherepnin had previously started composing music for the ballet—music which became "The Enchanted Kingdom"—but that Tcherepnin, for reasons unexplained, withdrew from the project after completing only one scene. Diaghilev eventually transferred the commission to the 28-year-old Stravinsky. The ballet was premiered by the Ballets Russes at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 25 June 1910, conducted
The Rite of Spring the disturbances, while deplorable, were merely "a rowdy debate" between two ill-mannered factions. Emile Raudin, of "Les Marges", who had barely heard the music, wrote: "Couldn't we ask M. Astruc ... to set aside one performance for well-intentioned spectators? ... We could at least propose to evict the female element". The composer Alfredo Casella thought that the demonstrations were aimed at Nijinsky's choreography rather than at the music, a view shared by the critic Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, who wrote: "The idea was excellent, but was not successfully carried out". Calvocoressi failed to observe any direct hostility to the composer—unlike, he said,