The Rite of Spring branch of the Aeolian Company. He also created a much more comprehensive arrangement for the Pleyela, manufactured by the French piano company Pleyel, with whom he signed two contracts in April and May 1921, under which many of his early works were reproduced on this medium. The Pleyela version of "The Rite of Spring" was issued in 1921; the British pianolist Rex Lawson first recorded the work in this form in 1990. In 1929 Stravinsky and Monteux vied with each other to conduct the first orchestral gramophone recording of "The Rite". While Stravinsky led L'Orchestre des Concerts Straram in a
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