The relationship between Marcus’ views of natural philosophy and his ethical commitments has long been a vexed issue. This chapter aims first to clarify what Marcus’ own views on physics were, relying only on the contents of the Meditations, and only then to ask how these views relate to those of earlier Stoics and to consider whether Marcus’ position was a good one for him to hold. It becomes clear that Marcus regards nature, which is for him identical with god, as directly setting some important norms for human beings, most importantly because of the thorough integration of humans into the providential and teleological order of the cosmos. Marcus’ understanding of the natural world includes his conception of human nature as naturally social, which entails other important norms for human behaviour. Humans are, for Marcus, integrated ‘vertically’ with the cosmic order and ‘horizontally’ with other human beings; these integrations structure a great deal of Marcus’ ethical theory. But natural philosophy is far from being the only source of norms for Marcus; reflection on his relationships with other people and on the workings of his own mind also have impact and, as I suggest, may even lead him to views which conflict with the materialist determinism of most earlier Stoics.

Offers a succinct account of the genesis of the music composed by Igor Stravinsky for The Rite of Spring, introducing – and challenging – standard scholarly narratives about authorship, the nature of genius and the ‘work’ concept. Provides a timeline to help readers appreciate the development of the score as a collaborative project involving not only Stravinsky, but also visual artist and amateur archaeologist Nicholas Roerich, choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky, impresario Sergei Diaghilev and Ballets-Russes soloist Maria Piltz (who danced the role of the Chosen One at the premiere). Considers the nature and significance of Stravinsky’s published sketches, revealing their role in the creation of the ballet and the standard critical responses to it that have dominated throughout the past century.

Marcus Aurelius addresses himself as sociable by nature, as someone made to belong to a political community, and as a citizen of the cosmos. The good life for him consists in obeying the gods and cooperating with his fellow citizens in service of the common interest. His fellow citizens are all beings endowed with reason, and as a human he cares for all other people, whoever they may be. The Meditations demonstrate detailed knowledge and agreement with the conceptual foundations of Stoic cosmopolitanism, but specific approaches can be identified. Marcus underscores the organismic and egalitarian nature of the cosmic community and often gives a functional account of his status as a part of the cosmos, while at the same time also suggesting a hierarchical account of degrees of sociability. His rule as emperor he conceives as a personal challenge to live up to the model of his predecessor, Antoninus Pius, also sharing the latter’s conservativism and traditionalism. Marcus’ Stoicism is more apparent in his quest for sincere and truly loving sociability, a striving that finds its limits in the aversion and disappointment Marcus often seems to experience with regard to those around him.

Marcus Aurelius acknowledges his debt to the Stoic tradition of emotions and endorses both the analysis of emotions as value judgements, the ideal of apatheia, i.e. the eradication of ‘passions’, and the promotion of ‘good feelings’. By emotions, he means all kinds of emotional reactions to everything that reaches us from the outside, i.e. pleasure and pain as well as anger, love, fear, etc. Every impression being twofold (what the object is and of what value it is to us), Marcus develops a strategy to eradicate the second judgement. But there is a positive side to the reshaping of desire and aversion, a joy resulting from the gifts of nature and the fulfilment of our human relations. Such emotions are reserved for the Sage in ancient Stoicism, but they become more accessible to Marcus, who does not reject any emotion from human life but values the appropriate ones.

Summarizes the contents of the volume, focusing on cross-cutting themes: the reality of the premiere; the synthesis of the arts; avant-garde currents of the early twentieth century; Russian folklore and national identity; and the legacy and afterlife of Stravinsky’s score.

This chapter explores the 1965 Bolshoi production of The Rite of Spring, choreographed by husband-and-wife team Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasilyov and set to Stravinsky’s score. The principal aim is to explain how the production fits into the characteristic aesthetics of the Thaw, the period in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the government of the USSR reformed in the wake of Stalin’s death – and when a surprising Stravinsky revival took place at the Bolshoi Theatre. During this revival, The Rite of Spring appeared not as a strictly socialist realist work, though it did preserve some markers of socialist realist ballet. Rather, it was a production characterized by an avant-garde experimentalism itself in line with an emerging twentieth-century tradition of Rite re-imaginings.

Adopting a wide-angled view of the wealth of music-theoretical literature on Stravinsky’s score for The Rite of Spring that has emerged across the past century, this chapter surveys what has been a noisy corner of music scholarship. Much of the scholarly ink devoted to the work – specifically, to its status as a self-contained, purely musical structure – explores the business of pitch: principally, whether or not Stravinsky’s music can be heard as tonal or atonal, incoherent in its pitch organization or the result of some kind of secret musical code or unifying system, there to be deduced by the all-knowing and expert music analyst. Considering Stravinsky’s own statements on the matter, alongside a succession of highly nuanced music-analytical studies (Allen Forte, Richard Taruskin, Pieter van den Toorn), this chapter provides a detailed synopsis of how and why The Rite’s music has been approached by scholars, and what the resulting literature about the work’s internal genetics can reveal about trending academic perspectives over time.

This chapter examines the reception of the Meditations in early modern Europe, focusing primary on the period from the first publication of the Meditations in 1559 to the end of the eighteenth century. In particular it discusses the way in which the text was read as either a generic source of ancient moral maxims or a serious work of Stoic philosophy. Key figures in the early modern debate include Isaac Casaubon, his son Meric, Thomas Gataker, the Cambridge Platonists Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, and on the Continent Joannes Franciscus Buddeus and Johann Jakob Brucker.

Begins by considering the visual discrepancy between the earliest photographs of the dancers from the original production of The Rite of Spring (taken by Charles Gerschel) and the sketches made by art student Valentine Gross during rehearsals and first performances: a discrepancy between a dissonant, harsh geometry and an art-nouveau-inspired, impressionistic beauty. Explores how this disjunction reflects a broader cultural anxiety of the period – as apparent in some of the first press reviews of the ballet – about dancing bodies, an aesthetics of ugliness and the grotesque. Describes how Nijinsky’s choreography and its obvious bodily deformity evoked parallels with the avant-garde practices of Futurism, Cubism and primitivism, as well as with a lineage of established ballet traditions (character dance and grotesque ballet). A final section explains how Nijinsky managed to re-frame his dancers on stage so that they could invert the power dynamics of the standard Orientalist gaze.

This chapter addresses an alternative history of The Rite of Spring: principally, as a meme of modernity within popular culture and cinema. Stravinsky’s score, we learn, has inspired countless jazz practitioners and film directors: who, how, when and why are important questions raised, giving the reader a clear sense of the contemporary currency of Stravinsky’s music with an audience of listeners and musicians for whom the original ballet has taken on new life and meaning.

With a focus on Stravinsky’s score and thus the ballet’s musical aspect, this chapter explores several waystations on The Rite of Spring’s journey from ballet to instrumental work – in concert, on record and, most recently, online. Rather than offering a complete history, this account explores a few of the key transformations that took place over the twentieth century as The Rite was re-imagined as a composition for symphony orchestra, allied not with choreography, costumes and décor but with the creative vision of a conductor, the practical skills of a sound editor and the promotional machine of a record label.