By: Judd Danby
Abstract of Video:
Igor Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles (1966) begins with an energetic prelude for strings, featuring an additive "textural crescendo" of solo layers above the accompaniment. At first listen, the striking melodic, rhythmic, and metrical independence of the layers might suggest that they are "talking over one another" in increasing cacophony. But in fact, Stravinsky forges rich and meaningful cross-connections between the layers through careful attention to his musical materials.
This video examines the nature of Stravinsky's distinctive hexachordal rotational arrays and his specific choices in shaping materials for the prelude, paying close attention to the rotational arrays' relationship to the twelve-tone series from which they're generated. Through several selected moments in the piece, it demonstrates how Stravinsky chooses array materials in order to create musical coherence and meaning in multiple dimensions: (1) the individual solo parts; (2) the interaction of solo parts with the accompaniment; and (3) the interaction of multiple solo parts with each other.
Bibliography:
Babbitt, Milton (1986). Order, Symmetry, and Centricity in Late Stravinsky. In Jann Pasler (Ed.), Confronting Stravinsky (pp. 247–261). University of California Press.
Babbitt, Milton (1987). Stravinsky's Verticals and Schoenberg's Diagonals: A Twist of Fate. In Ethan Ham & Paul Johnson (Eds.), Stravinsky Retrospectives (pp. 15–35). University of Nebraska Press. (Reprinted in The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt (pp. 404–427), Stephen Peles with Stephen Dembski, Andrew Mead, and Joseph N. Straus (Eds.), 2003, Princeton University Press.)
Grylls, Karen Lesley (1993). The Aggregate Re-ordered: A Paradigm for Stravinsky's "Requiem Canticles" (Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington). (UMI No. 9401430)
Spies, Claudio (1972), Some Notes on Stravinsky's Requiem Settings. In Benjamin Boretz & Edward T. Cone (Eds.), Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky (pp. 223–249). Norton. (Reprinted from (1967) Perspectives of New Music, 5(2), 98–123.)
Straus, Joseph N. (2001). Stravinsky's Late Music. Cambridge University Press.
About the Author:
Judd Danby is a composer, jazz pianist, and music educator. He has taught music theory and composition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (as Visiting Lecturer), Wabash College (as Assistant Professor), Butler University Jordan College of the Arts (as Adjunct Instructor), and as Composer-in-residence and music teacher at Jefferson High School in Lafayette, IN, where he also taught jazz improvisation and directed the Jazz Combo.
Danby served as a member of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) writing subcommittee to revise the national standards for music theory and composition in grades 9–12, and created and served as chair of the Indiana Music Education Association (IMEA) annual Composition Competition for students grade 6–college.
Danby regularly presents pre-show talks on jazz artists and classical works at Purdue Convocations and other venues.
Danby's compositions have been performed throughout the U.S. Recent commissions include jazz works for the Hickey-Shanafelt 9ollective and for the Logansport High School, IN, jazz band.
Danby has performed and recorded as a leader and sideman with jazz and Latin-jazz ensembles across Indiana. As a member of the University of Illinois New Music Ensemble he recorded Anthony Braxton's Composition No. 165 for 18 instruments (New Albion NA 050 CD).