VV(18): As Le Figaro's critic put it ...

[Dave Monroe]

"... the furthest possible reaches of dissonance, tonal color and (as Le 
Figaro's critic put it next morning) 'orchestral barbarity' ..." (V., Ch. 
14. Sec. ii, p. 413)

>From Nicolas Slonimsky, Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on 
Composers Since Beethoven's Time (2nd ed.  Seattle: U of Washington P, 1965 
[1953]), "Stravinsky," pp. 196-204 ...

"Does Mr. Stravinsky imagine that a melody will gain intensity and decisive 
eloquence because it is doubled during fifty measures with a second above, a 
second below, or both?  One must think so because the innovations embodied 
in the score of Le Sacre du Printemps are mostly in this category.  (H. 
Quittard, Figaro, Paris, May 31, 1913)" (p. 196)

The original French is reprinted as well, as it is in the following cases, 
where appropriate ...

"The most essential characteristic of Le Sacre du Printemps is that it is 
the most dissonant and the most discordant composition yet written.  Never 
was the system and the cult of the wrong note practiced with so much 
industry, zeal and fury.  From the first measure to the last, whatever note 
one expects, it is never the one that comes, but one on the side, which 
should not come; whatever is suggested by a preceding chord, it is another 
chord that is heard; and this chord and this note are used deliberately to 
produce the impression of acute and almost cruel discord.  When two themes 
are superposed, far be it from the composer's mind to use themes that fit 
together; quite to the contrary, he chooses such themes that their 
superposition should produce the most irritating friction and gnashing that 
can be imagined. (Pierre Lalo, Le Temps, Paris, June 3, 1913)" (p. 196)

"The music of Le Sacre du Printemps baffles verbal description.  To say that 
much of it is hideous as sound is a mild description.  There is certainly no 
impelling rhythm traceable.  Practically it has no relation to music at all 
as most of us understand the word. (Musical Times, London, August 1, 1913)" 
(p. 196)

"One recalls the scandalous spectacle of this Sacre du Printemps, or rather 
a Massacre du Printemps.  Never before had such a challenge been made to 
human ears....  But all is changed beginning in the second act, and we enter 
the new manner of Mr. Stravinsky.  It is then that we hear intolerable 
cacophony, an accumulation of strange harmonies that succeed each other 
without rhythm or sense; this music sounds like a wager that one could make 
the simple-minded public and the snobs of our concert halls swallow anything 
at all. (H. Moreno, Le Menestrel, Paris, June 6, 1914)" (p. 197)

And eventually hits America, where you can imagine ... anyway, Slonimsky's 
book is an invaluable resource, excellent and entertaining browsing, and 
might well have even been browsed by one Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr.  Norton 
put out a new ed. last year with an introduction by that "P.D.Q. Bach" guy 
...

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