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This is a document discussing the rotational arrays as present in Stravinsky's pieces.
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On Stravinsky, his Style, and Rotational Arrays Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) had quite a long career as a composer. The works that really launched his career were the three ballets (Firebird, Petroushka, Rite of Spring) in the early part of the second decade of the 1900s, and he was still an active composer well into the 1960s. One of the things about Stravinsky that speaks to his greatness as a composer is the fact that he was able to compose interesting music over such a long time, changing his compositional style while always maintaining something essentially ‘Stravinskian.” Whether one listens to his early ballets, the neo-‐classical pieces, or the serial works he did in the 1950s and 1960s, it still sounds quite like Stravinsky and no one else. Our brief discussion on Stravinsky’s rotational arrays touched (only lightly) upon how Stravinsky was able to keep certain distinguishing characteristics of his style when he adopted serial procedures. First, a brief explanation of rotational arrays. An important part of Stravinsky’s pre-‐compositional process occurred after he had constructed his 12-‐tone row. Following the construction of the row, Stravinsky would choose only a small handful of row forms, and divide those row forms into hexachords. He subjected the hexachords into rotational arrays. Straus’s discussion (p. 231) of rotational arrays is quite thorough, but his Figure 6–16 could perhaps be clearer. Straus is quite concise, however, when he says “The second line of the array takes that hexachord (Eb–D–Gb–E–F–Ab), rotates it to start on its second note (D–Gb–E–F–Ab–E), then transposes it a semitone to start on Eb.” That’s pretty much the way it works. I’d like to clarify the idea by breaking it down. There are really two steps in this process; the first involves rotating the hexachord so that each pitch class gets to be the first. See the example below, reading each row across from left to right. From one row to the next, each pitch class moves one space over to the left. The left-‐most pitch class of one row goes to the end of the rotation at the next row and becomes the right-‐most.
Eb D Gb E F Ab
D Gb E F Ab Eb (rotation 1)
Gb E F Ab Eb D (rotation 2)
E F Ab Eb D Gb (etc.)
F Ab Eb D Gb E
Ab Eb D Gb E F
The second thing that Stravinsky does is transpose each row in the array to begin on the initial pitch class of the hexachord (in this case, it’s Eb). That’s how we get Straus’ Figure 6–16. The first row already starts on Eb, of course, so no transposition is necessary. Since the first rotation begins on D, it must be transposed up a semitone. The second rotation begins on Gb, and so the easier thing to do would be to transpose it down a minor third (easier than transposing up a major 6th, anyway). Here’s the complete array, after all the rotations have been transposed.
Eb D Gb E F Ab
Eb G F Gb A E
Eb Db D F C B
Eb E G D Db F
Eb Gb Db C E D
Eb Bb A Db B C Notice that by transposing each rotation to begin on the pitch class that initiates the original hexachord, Stravinsky has managed to integrate Eb centricity into his pre-‐compositional procedure. This is one of the reasons that Stravinsky’s later, or newer music still sounds like old Stravinsky: it still has that centric accessibility that listeners, players, and conductors find so compelling. Now, if you examine Example 6–8 on p. 233 of your text, you’ll see how Stravinsky sets one of his arrays. Below the excerpt is the rotational array, with the columns numbered. Stravinsky takes the first column—the one with the centric A# and places it in a low register, letting it sound for a long time. This gives the note registral and durational emphasis, ensuring a centric effect. The other columns sound in reverse (6, 5, 4, 3, 2), more or less above the centric A#. First of all, it seems strange to produce the rotational array so carefully by adhering to the intervallic integrity of the rows (that is, the horizontal dimension) only to go ahead and parse the array into columns. Further, note that the ordering within these columns is not preserved. One way of describing Stravinsky’s approach here is to say that he’s taking a cut and paste, or ‘mosaic’ approach to composition. It is interesting that other scholars have used the term ‘mosaic’ and ‘block style’ to describe Stravinsky’s earlier works.1
1 See, for example, White, Eric Walter. 1966. Stravinsky: the Composer and His Works University of California Press 1966, or Siepmann, Jeremy. 2003. Classics Explained: The
In addition to explaining how rotational arrays are produced, this document has noted how two characteristics of Stravinsky’s style are preserved in his serial period. The first is the built-‐in centricity that is the result of transposing the rotations so they all begin on the same pitch class. The second is the ‘mosaic’ or ‘block style’ of composing. He certainly seems to take that approach with his grouping and selection of pre-‐compositional resources, and in a general way, it’s characteristic of his earlier style, too.
Rite of Spring, Naxos, compact disc., or even Igor Stravinsky: The Final Chorale. 1990. Ideale Audience.