Revivals of the Rite of Spring passed without fuss — "received with scarcely a sign of opposition", noted The Times in London. The Paris melée was a one-off, a curiosity, an event of mere nostalgic merit to be marked this year by centennial recordings, radio discussions and academic reconstructions: an historical anomaly. 

Or was it? Might the riot have meaning beyond its moment in time? Rereading first-night reports, we find familiar stereotypes at play. The audience was, then as now, showy, rich and easily distracted. Freed from formality by the ferocity of the music and the bizarre, stuttering steps that Nijinsky had devised for his maidens, the bourgeoisie erupted at what it perceived as an affront to its expectations. This was not what it had paid to see and hear.

And then the rioters went home and forgot about it, for there is nothing that so terrifies the middle classes as instability, especially of its own making. This was the riot literally to end all theatre riots, because it threatened the very foundations of public entertainment. 

Stravinsky himself was, on first response (he later changed his tune), "not very much upset". Backstage, he told a journalist that he could "quite understand" people's inability to grasp his music. "What is unjustifiable, however, is the lack of goodwill on the audience's part," he complained. "An unexpected novelty disconcerts Paris, but Paris will know how to regain its composure." How well he knew his public.

Next morning Claude Debussy wired him a dinner invitation, not mentioning the premiere. As far as composers were concerned, this was business as usual. Two hostile critics had their fingers on the button. Henri Quittard in Le Figaro accused Stravinsky of "laborious and puerile barbarism", while Adolphe Boschot in L'Echo de Paris said the composer had "worked at bringing his music close to noise". These snap verdicts ring truer than a century of reverent commentaries, acclaiming the Rite as a milestone in musical modernism. It was, I would argue, the very opposite.