Stravinsky Rite of Spring VERY FIRST EDITION full score

[sbeckmesser]

The now impossible to track down a copy of the very first published edition of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which contains many differences from other published editions, especially in scoring (I saw a copy in the Harvard College collection). The easiest to find, and to hear, is a scrape of the guero right before the final chord (Bernstein's recordings of the piece have it). This had already been removed by the time my copy of the 1921 Edition Russe de Musique score was printed. If it can be tracked down, the even earlier score would be PD in the USA and it would be nice to have it permanently and widely available here.
--Sixtus

[Yagan Kiely]

I'm afraid that IMSLP is hosted in Canada, and while we are (currently) applying US laws to the collection, US specific PD entries still cannot be hosted on a Canadian website, wonderful as they may be.

[ThaSchwab]

Read the sticky at the top of this section. Though the edition in that thread is most likely the 1947 revised edition (which is the most widely played version today), I can't see much differences from the 1921 edition.

[sbeckmesser]

Although my copy of the 1921 Edition is already lacking the final guereo scrape, as mentioned, it still retains the slashing pizzicato string chords in the Sacrificial Dance that were changed to arco in subsequent editions. This is a MAJOR change in sonority that is quite obvious when heard, as in several recordings of the piece that retain them. The rapid alternation of tone color this produces contributes to the disjointed rhythmic effect of the finale. It's amazing that the pizz chords are still audible in live performance even with all the other noise being produced by the orchestra.

Sixtux