A brief, late one today as I'm pretending to work. On this day in 1913, Igor Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring" premiered in Paris, with choreography by Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes.

The performance is legendary for the fact that audience unrest over the complex music, violent dance steps and pagan themes degenerated into a riot, and the police were called. What's less well-known is that fellow composer Camille Saint-Saëns stormed out, apparently because he was infuriated by the misuse of the bassoon in the ballet's opening bars.