Stravinksy and inspiration

Yesterday evening, I went to do something I love and have not done in a long time. I went to the orchestra. The performance was of one of my favorite pieces of music: Stravinsky's the Rite of Spring. It was a piece so controversial in its day it managed to start both a riot (at its first performance in conjunction with Diaghilev's ballet), and a standing ovation (when performed as a standalone piece a few years later). Even now, after nearly one hundred years, there are few repertoire pieces like it. It is a stew of ideas that would influence all the major currents of classical music in the 20th century (minimalist composition, dissonance, even elements of serialism). And it inspired one of the greatest, strangest meetings of high art, popular culture, and science: the magnificent Rite of Spring sequence from (of all people) Walt Disney's bizarre flawed masterpiece Fantasia:

That sequence is, for obvious reasons, close to my heart. And in its daring combination of science, imagination, and revolutionary music, let it be my inspiration for the coming months.