The Rite of Spring of the evening Stravinsky had asserted that "Monteux, almost alone among conductors, never cheapened "Rite" or looked for his own glory in it, and he continued to play it all his life with the greatest fidelity". Commentators have often described "The Rite"s music in vivid terms; Paul Rosenfeld, in 1920, wrote of it "pound[ing] with the rhythm of engines, whirls and spirals like screws and fly-wheels, grinds and shrieks like laboring metal". In a more recent analysis, "The New York Times" critic Donal Henahan refers to "great crunching, snarling chords from the brass and thundering thumps from the timpani". The
The Rite of Spring murder and gangster film images. In February 1984 Martha Graham, in her 90th year, resumed her association with "The Rite" by choreographing a new production at New York's State Theater. "The New York Times" critic declared the performance "a triumph ... totally elemental, as primal in expression of basic emotion as any tribal ceremony, as hauntingly staged in its deliberate bleakness as it is rich in implication". On 30 September 1987, the Joffrey Ballet in Los Angeles performed "The Rite" based on a reconstruction of Nijinsky's 1913 choreography, until then thought lost beyond recall. The performance resulted from years of