11 - Stravinsky’s Path to Serialism

Summary

It was inevitable that Igor Stravinsky would experiment with serialism, given his penchant for interval-based composition, even making a comment to Milton Babbitt that he had always composed with intervals. Stravinsky’s intrigue with intervallic patterns is significant in some of his earlier works – particularly the motivic networks supporting the narratives of Firebird (1910) and Perséphone (1934). In fact, examining the interval ordering in the motives from these works, Stravinsky, perhaps unwittingly, retains the exact order of intervals while producing twelve different pitch classes. In retrospect, this seems to have foreshadowed the development of his own brand of serialism in his later years, beginning with Cantata in 1952, and maturing over the fourteen years through works such as Septet, In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, Canticum Sacrum, Threni, Agon, Movements for Piano and Orchestra, A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer, Variations: Aldous Huxley in memoriam, Abraham and Isaac, Elegy for J.F.K., Introitus: T.S. Eliot in memoriam, and his last major work, Requiem Canticles, in 1966.