Stravinsky's Newest Works

Extract

During 1959 Stravinsky completed three new works. The largest of these, Movements, for piano and orchestra (duration about ten minutes), was begun in 1958. It was commissioned by and dedicated to Margrit Weber, and was first performed by her, with the composer conducting, at a Stravinsky festival in New York in January this year. The other two works, both miniatures (their playing-time is about one minute each), were written in memory of two of Stravinsky's friends. The Double Canon (Raoul Dufy in memoriam), for string quartet, had its first performance at the same New York festival. The Epitaphium für das Grabmal des Prinzen Max Egon zu Fürstenberg (the patron of the Donaueschingen Festival), for flute, clarinet and harp, was first performed at Donaueschingen on 17 October, 1959.