La Sacre du printemps ( The Rite of Spring ) by Igor Stravinsky: Opening night performance on May 29, 1913 at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees . DIAGHILEV AND THE BALLETS RUSSES "The search for the Gesamtkunstwerk - for the holy grail that is the 'total art form' - was actually a universal one by the end of the nineteenth century." [pg. 25] "By the end of the first decade of the new century, with the help of the impressionists, the manner of composition was changing radically. From Mozart until the late nineteenth century, music was put together with relatively large building blocks: scales, arpeggios, long cadences. However, by the end of the century these units were being discarded. Music had been reduced to individual notes or, at most, short motifs. As in architecture, the arts and crafts movement, and painting, there was a new emphasis on basic materials, primary colors, and elemental substance." [pg. 29] "Like Nietzsche, Diaghilev believed that...