''Elegy for J.F.K.'' is a piece of vocal music composed by the Russian-born composer

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

in 1964, commemorating the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Composition background

After the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and his emigration to Los Angeles, California, in 1939, Stravinsky continued to work within the neo-classical framework he had adopted since about 1920 (following his Russian period of 1907–1919), but beginning in the early 1950s turned to various serial techniques, which he used until his death in 1971.

Music overview and analysis

''Elegy for J. F. K.'' is scored for

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the ...

mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; ; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middl ...

accompanied by three

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitch ...

s (two B clarinets and an

alto clarinet The alto clarinet is a woodwind instrument of the clarinet family. It is a transposing instrument pitched in the key of E, though instruments in F have been made. In size it lies between the soprano clarinet and the bass clarinet. It bears a gr ...

in E), and is a twelve-tone serial composition. The text, in four ''

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a '' kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a '' kigo'', or ...

'' stanzas each of 17 syllables, was written at Stravinsky's request by W. H. Auden in memory of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, and Stravinsky chose to repeat the opening stanza at the end. ''Elegy'' makes use of various textural changes to accommodate the changes in vocal register. The piece is in ternary form, just like the poem, meaning that material is repeated in the first and last nine measures. Various compositional elements suggest the severity of the topic such as the frequent use of ''

da capo Da capo (, also , ) is an Italian musical term that means "from the beginning" (literally, "from the head"). It is often abbreviated as D.C. The term is a directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space, and thus is a ...

'', the

perfect fifth In music theory, a perfect fifth is the musical interval corresponding to a pair of pitches with a frequency ratio of 3:2, or very nearly so. In classical music from Western culture, a fifth is the interval from the first to the last of five ...

D–A in the clarinets from mm. 7–8, and the repeated

tritone In music theory, the tritone is defined as a musical interval composed of three adjacent whole tones (six semitones). For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it (in short, F–B) is a tritone as it can be decomposed into the three adj ...

G–D throughout. Stravinsky composed the vocal line first, only adding the accompaniment afterward—a working method he likened to

Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

's in the Phantasie for violin and piano. The row Stravinsky uses for the ''Elegy'', is remarkable for the three

s that occur in the first half. This row is related to the two rows Stravinsky previously used in the Bransles movement of ''

Agon Agon ( Greek ) is a Greek term for a conflict, struggle or contest. This could be a contest in athletics, in chariot or horse racing, or in music or literature at a public festival in ancient Greece. Agon is the word-forming element in 'agony', ...

'' and at the words "Te Deum" in '' The Flood'', by reordering the six

pitch-class In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave posit ...

dyads in each row. A twelve-tone analysis of this piece shows some patterns of the style. As in all twelve-tone music, there is a mathematical relationship between the prime, inverted, and retrograde series. For example, the melody pitches in mm. 1–8 are P₀, and the harmonic pitches that the clarinets play are RI₀ (D, C, A, A, G, F, B, C, F, E, D, and G), with some repeated pitches and the perfect fifth of D and A played in mm. 7 and 8. Stravinsky uses the P₀ form in all of the measure rows except mm. 9–13 which uses RI₀. The words for these measures have the lyrics "Why then? Why there? / Why thus, we cry, did he die?"

References

Sources * * *

External links

* ,

Cathy Berberian Catherine Anahid Berberian (July 4, 1925 – March 6, 1983) was an American mezzo-soprano and composer based in Italy. She worked closely with many contemporary avant-garde music composers, including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Henr ...

(mezzo-soprano), members of the Orchestra Filarmonica Romana,

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mo ...

conducting * Zambrotta, Luisa,
J.F.K.''"">"''Elegy to J.F.K.''"
Words and Music and Stories, November 25, 2017
Work details

Boosey & Hawkes Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and woodwind musical instruments. Formed in 1930 thro ...

{{Authority control Compositions by Igor Stravinsky 1964 compositions Works about the assassination of John F. Kennedy Funerary and memorial compositions Compositions for clarinet

Composition background

Music overview and analysis

See also

References

Further reading

External links