The Rite of Spring: Marian Catholic High School (1995) and the London Symphony Orchestra (2017)

Me and a young musician agreed that "The Rite of Spring" is the pinnacle of music composition. There are two live recordings we love most: The London Symphony and Marian Catholic High School Marching Band:
Marian Catholic High School of Chicago Heights | Recorded live in Indianapolis at the RCA Dome during the Grand National Championships on Saturday November 11, 1995

London Symphony Orchestra | Recorded live in London at the Barbican Centre during “This is Rattle” launching Sir Simon Rattle’s directorial debut on Sunday September 24, 2017
Meaningful background:
"Of all the scandals of the history of art, none is so scandalous as the one that took place on the evening of 29 May 1913 in Paris at the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring." The audience broke into riots and outrage. The "very notion of primitive society being shown on stage" upset people. When Stravinsky released "The Rite of Spring" it was very poorly received and negatively reviewed because it was not deemed fitting for a classical ballet ambiance. It was daring, different, and to some, it was hard on the ears. To "Parisian sophisticates...the uproar at the premiere was a sign of disquiet, a feeling that the world had lost its moorings, and that barbarism was about to be let loose in the streets." "Stravinsky’s score for The Rite of Spring contradicted every rule about what music should be", yet has since become considered one of the best works all classical music. Sources: BBC and the British Library

There are also some key differences in these recordings, worth mentioning because I have found these don't occur to most people:

1. The London Symphony includes strings, the Marian band is wind and percussion only, all string music (e.g. Cello, Viola, Violin) was transposed and re-written by hand for other wind instruments (e.g. Tuba, Bass Clarinet, Clarinet, Trumpet).

2. The London Symphony is sitting down; the Marian Band is on their feet, marching at an fast tempo the entire performance. Marching stamina is akin to jogging, it's very laborious for the lungs, especially while simultaneously playing wind instruments.

3. The London Symphony was recorded digitally in 2017; The Marian performance was recorded on VHS in 1995, prior to DVDs being the primary medium, and long before high quality digital mp3s. This particular recording in this video from 1995 has been dubbed and extracted a few times, each time the sound quality degrades a bit more. Unfortunately, it is the best version I have, but I am hopeful one day to have a remastered mp3 of this performance (and an HD video).

4. The London Symphony theater is acoustically engineered to purifying sound; the Marian Band is playing in a football stadium built for sport. The RCA dome had many sound air pockets that obscure and muddle sound making it harder to hear the pure music as it is.

5. The London Symphony is reading sheet music on their music stands; the Marian band is playing the entire piece by memory. We memorized "The Rite of Spring" because we can't read music while we march.

6. The Marian Band has also memorized where to march, with each person memorizing over 100 specific, yet invisible, coordinates on the football field to march to every set. We can't put a dot on the field to march to, we have to memorize the coordinates relative to each yard line, and estimate where it is.

7. The London Symphony auditions to accept the only top players; the Marian Marching Band accepts ALL players and teaches them the music, regardless of how long they've been playing or their level of ability. In the Marian Marching Band everyone plays; there are no auditions.

8. The Rite of Spring in its entirety is about 35 minutes long. We played an 11 minute show which is the maximum we had allotted.

9. The London Symphony looks only at the conductor to stay in time together. The Marian Band musicians had to look at each other, to maintain a consistent distance from each other and to make the correct shape for the formations.. We also look at the conductors to stay in sync as roughly 200 people moving, marching, and playing in unison.

10. The Lyndon Symphony is very closely seated and compact, so they can hear each other to play in tune and hear all related parts cohesively. The Marian Band is at times spread out over nearly the entire 100 yard football field, without being able to hear the sound from other instruments or fellow players closely in their ears.

11. Other differences are more straightforward, such as age. The London Symphony is composed of adults who play music as a profession, devoting their full-time work week to it. The Marian Band musicians range from 13 years-old to to 18 years-old. I was 14 years-old in this video. Our "profession" was school; we spent the majority of our day in school and doing homework outside of school. We had student-run small group rehearsals and entire band rehearsals for a couple hours after school during the school week.