Given that Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” has long been a staple of orchestra programs, it’s hard to convey how radical this 1913 shocker was still considered to be during the mid-1960s, when I was a high school student. The score was thought to be playable only by major orchestras equipped to grapple with its difficulties. In contrast, most conservatory ensembles today can perform it capably.

At the time I was becoming a big Stravinsky fan. I loved the recordings of “Firebird” and “Petrouchka” from the early 1960s, with the composer himself conducting the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. These were the scores he composed for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris, before the scandalous “Rite” premiere, which provoked a riot among a portion of the audience, incensed by its radicalism: the pulverizing rhythms, searing dissonances and in-your-face rawness. I also had the 1958 recording of the “Rite” that Leonard Bernstein made with the New York Philharmonic. But that piece, however amazing on the surface, seemed unfathomable, until I finally heard it performed live, twice, in 1966, both times with Bernstein conducting the Philharmonic — my summer of Stravinsky.

Like a one-two punch, those performances stunned me. I finally “got” the piece, or so I felt. Every time I meet someone who has just heard it for the first time, I wish I could relive my experiences that summer.

The first, on June 30, 1966, at Philharmonic Hall (as Avery Fisher Hall was then called), opened a substantial Stravinsky festival examining his heritage and legacy. I still have the programs from that series in an old scrapbook, including the final concert, which ended with Stravinsky conducting his “Symphony of Psalms,” an out-of-body experience for me.