Watch VoirFilms. Feel the raw energy of the score and the anguish of moral conflict, brought to an end through violent sacrifice. Stravinsky wrote The Rite of Spring for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company. It caused sensation when first performed in 1913 as it was unlike anything ballet audiences had heard before. It is now considered to be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.