Stravinsky as Serialist: The Sketches for "Threni"

Abstract

Close readings of selected sketches for Stravinsky's first entirely dodecaphonic composition provide new perspectives on the composer's working methods. This essay focuses on sketches relating to the invention of the row upon which Threni is based, and upon Stravinsky's discovery of particular features and properties of this row which guided his selection of the transformations and transpositions he ultimately employed. Reconstruction of the process by which Stravinsky arrived at the definitive Prime suggests reasons for the pivotal role played by the note Eb, and for the privileged status which accrues to members of the family of row forms beginning and/or ending with the notes ES, Gb, A, and C. Sketch evidence and score analysis illustrate ways in which Stravinsky manipulated the method of composing with twelve tones to create effects analogous to traditional tonal centricities and hierarchies. 28Memories and Commentaries, 107. 29Joseph Straus is engaged in a monumental investigation of Stravinsky's late music. Some results are reported in the Music Theory Spectrum article cited in note 13, above; others are forthcoming in Journal of Musicology, Integral, and in a monograph on the subject. He has generously shared much of this work-in-progress with me. 415-417