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
Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf "Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf" is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in "Narodnye russkie skazki". It is Aarne-Thompson type 550, the quest for the golden bird/firebird. Others of this type include "The Golden Bird", "The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener", "The Bird 'Grip, "How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon", and "The Nunda, Eater of People". A king's apple tree bore golden apples, but every night, one was stolen. Guards reported that the Firebird stole them. The king told his two oldest sons that the