K100 Elegy for J. F. K.

K100 Elegy for J. F. K.

Elegie für J[ohn]. F[itzgerald]. K[ennedy]. – Élegie pour J. F. K. – Elegia per J[ohn]. F[itzgerald]. K[ennedy].

Scored for: a) First edition: Mezzo Soprano (Bariton), Clarinetto I in Si b, Clarinetto II in Si b, Clarinetto alto in Mib [Mezzo soprano (Baritone), Clarinet I in B flat, Clarinet II in B flat, Alto Clarinet in E flat]; b) Performance requirements: = a).

Vocal range: c - e ¹(baritone); c ¹- e ²(mezzo soprano); the highest tone is sung twice, the lowest only once. The vocal line stays mainly in the middle register.

Source: Some months after the assassination of President J. F. Kennedy, whom Strawinsky had met during an reception at the White House, the composer turned to W. H. Auden, the librettist of his opera The Rake’s Progress, requesting a very small quiet piece of verse from him (‘ very quiet little lyric’). Auden sketched four three-line haikus, varying their interior structure of 5 + 7 + 5 syllables into a four-stanza haiku suite where each verse has 17 syllables, but the three lines in themselves display an unsymmetrical syllabic pattern with changing allocation of syllables from verse to verse, surely a poetic means of illustrating the irregularity = illegality of murder. Auden’s verses of 68 syllables contain a moral message. In the first stanza lament, praise, sorrow and joy combine to express the sensations experienced at the death of an upright person, in the second, a three-fold ‘why’ hurls out the question left unanswered by the silent skies. The two stanzas following lead to the central statement: What the murdered person was, what he will become, depends on the living, depends on us (3 ^rdstanza) and with our life decision we also decide on its meaning (4 ^thstanza), Strawinsky added a fifth stanza by repeating the first. An (anonymous) German translation in the booklet of an official compact disc documentation with its 19 : 18 : 19 : 20 syllables reflects neither the laws of Far-Eastern haiku syllabics nor the interior structuring of the syllables of the original, nor does it adhere to the closed stanza form Auden used. Thus the first two lines of the second Auden stanza are extended to three, line three becomes line one of the third stanza and the three lines of the third stanza are thus necessarily shortened to two. Auden’s poetic art, and his carefully disposed contained verse structure are thus destroyed.

Construction: The short piece for solo voice with clarinet accompaniment and bar lines counted in fives but otherwise not numbered consisting of 68 + 17 spoken syllables and 38 bars in 5 stanzas separated in the score by 5 double lines, antiphonal in structure A-B-A1 with thorough measure (quaver = 104) is worked serially [first stanza: 8 bars 1 - 8 , inversion of solo voice with reversion in accompaniment; second stanza: 9 bars 9 -17, with instrumental postlude (3 bars) 15 - 17, reversion of solo voice with serial breaks in the accompaniment and 12 tone postlude; third stanza: 6 bars 18 - 23 with 2 bar postlude 22 - 23, inversion of solo voice with original series moved to accompaniment and 12-tone postlude; fourth stanza: (5 bars) 24 - 28, inversion of solo voice and reversion in accompaniment; fifth stanza: (10 bars) 29 - 38, and 2 bar instrumental postlude as in 1st stanza, additionally with three bar independent reversive instrumental coda without signature]. Strawinsky permits individual tone anticipations between the stanzas if they fit in the series with repeats serving to interpret the words and specifically ordered intervals.

Structure

Quaver = 104 (38 bars)

[1. stanza: 8 bars 1 up to 8

2. stanza: 9 bars 9 up to 17

Sung text: 6 bars 9 up to 15

Instrumental postlude: 3 bars 15 up to 17

3. stanza: 6 bars 18 up to 23

Sung text: 4 bars 18 up to 21

Instrumental postlude: 2 bars 22 up to 23

4. stanza: 5 bars 24 up to 28

5. stanza: 10 bars 29 up to 38

Sung text: 9 bars 29 up to 37

Instrumental postlude: 1 bar 37

General pause: 1 bar 38]

Row: g#1-d1-e1-f#1-c2-b1-f1-g1-a1-a#1-c#2-d#2.

Style: In the Kennedy Elegy form stands for content. The technically difficult twelve-tone piece is thinly orchestrated, exudes calm and restraint and displays hardly any harmonic density. Despite a four-part structure two-part harmonics dominate, and even those are stretched to the utmost by rhythmical de-construction, giving the impression of punctual solo play (anticipating The Owl and the Pussy-Cat ) . Real four-part harmony emerges only at the end of the two frame stanzas accompanied quasi unisono and in bars 24 and 25. Instrumental three-part harmony is rarely used, only in bars 22 - 23 of the postlude and the short accordic interim passages in bars 9 and 15. A correspondence of music and text outside of the serial construction does not merely emerge from the formality of the rows themselves , but from the areas where they overlap and above all from tone repetitions where the latter fall out of the scheme of the row.

In the two stanzas framing the work this happens in bar 4 (32) with the only word intoned there: la -men -ta -tion. Strawinsky repeats the serial tones 3 and 4 of the singing voice (here: mezzo soprano) c2-a#1 twice on la - men -ta- tion and through the monotony thus created achieves the desired plaintive sound (row tones 1 - 2 - 3- 4 - 3 -4 3 -4 -5 et seq.). The subsequent ‘and praise’ mentally opposing the complaint and rejoicing is led upward in the form of row tones 5 and 6 (e1-f1) whereby f1 is lengthened to the only crotchet value in a group of quavers, understandably an attempt to express the underlying strong emotion. The following utterance (bars 6 and 34) mourning and joy were one is expressed by the compositional method of a four-tone downward moving line h1 to f sharp 1 followed by an interval framing it d sharp 1-c# 2 adumbrating ‘sorrow and joy’ on the words ‘are one’. The same interval used earlier to characterise the ‘just man’ is now used to express mourning and joy. The last tone of the inverted row is c#2 , but Strawinsky does not let the stanza end here, instead he lets the voice (c#2) and the second clarinet (g#) ring out together for an interim bar tenuto in piano and only in bar 8 they end, in a quaver run. In the interim bar then, independently of the row, the first clarinet and alto clarinet intone 8 semiquavers (d#2 and a#1) respectively, marcato (with cresc. on last semiquaver). These are higher by a whole tone than are the final notes from voice and second clarinet. They sound like shots disrupting the smaller interval of the diminished seventh, which a short time before still stood for the ‘just man’. To Strawinsky this effect was so important, that he adapted it to both baritone and mezzo-soprano on the same note (in their respective register). –

Both clarinet notes anticipate the row structures of the stanza to come, creating as it were a turning movement across the stanzas. It follows then that the sung row of the second stanza consists only of 10, not 12 tones. It contains the tritone d1-g#1-g#1 in answer to the question ‘did he die?’ and it may be presumed that Strawinsky here chose the original shape of the reversible canon structure, because it is the only one of the four rows ending in an upward climbing questioning tritone. The answer which is no answer follows subsequently, but outside of the row. For the stanza continues for another four bars, of which one is reserved for the ending of the sung stanza ‘The heavens are silent’, the other three for the instrumental postlude. In bar 12 Strawinsky characterises the outcry of ‘we cry’ by means of a diminished seventh (f#1-e 2) – one of the two highest tones of the vocal range for this piece – and the duration of the cry by a crotchet value; ‘the silent sky’ is pictured by a monotonous phrase with an alternating second interval d1-e1-d1-e1-d1-e1 - joined to the last note of the row, consisting of the reversion of the reversion, row tones 11-10. The hard questions are captured in tenuto crotchets, after which, quasi in response, first 3 then 2 clarinets answer in punctual confirmation. Wide tone jumps and a great range are part of the plaintive stanza. –

The twelve tone instrumental postlude which may also be read as prelude for the following stanza, bestows on the third stanza (the core of Elegy) a special place. The wide sevenths are never as conspicuous as in this part and the accompanying clarinet with its reserved double chords without any ornamentation or self-contained melodic elements from the visual impact of the score alone seems like a doubly underscored utterance later to be proclaimed by the singing voice, an effect yet enhanced by the fact that here the original shape of the row is sounded once and once only in the entire work, the course of which – as is not unusual with Strawinsky – is counted partly from descant to bass and partly from bass to descant: 1st chord upwards g#-d; 2nd chord downwards e-f#; 3rd chord upwards, c-b; 4th chord upwards f-g; 5th chord downwards a-a#; 6th chord upwards c#-d#. –

What follows in the 4th stanza is the pressing warning not ever to forget, because only by forgetting would the murdered man truly die: To amplify the message the singing voice conveys urgency in a quasi-recitative. Again it is the inversion, again notes sounded at the end of the postlude of the previous stanza (g# and d) are left out, the row then beginning with c, enharmonic b#, that is the third tone of the row. The final stanza receives special weight by the condensed second reversion in the two-bar instrumental postlude. It ends abruptly with two pairs of semiquavers in contrary motion and a general pause. The latter has a similar effect to the ones inserted staccato underneath the held seventh of the singing voice; they remind the hearers of the gunshots that ended the murderous drama that cost the life of John F. Kennedy, and the general pause – not unlike a rhetoric figure – leaves the future open.

Analysis according to White: There are analyses of the work proceeding from a different basic row according to White. This leads to a different scheme and affects the interpretation of the text. White has based all comments on the rows on the first developed melody form, but there are many examples in music for works not beginning with the original form. In the case of the Elegy White pursued a different path again, by stating that the entry of the baritone voice was the beginning of the basic row, not the alto clarinet, whose entry is before that of the baritone. This understanding of the piece determines how the rows are analysed and this again has an influence on textual interpretation. If we follow White, then the stanzas (except the third) are shaped by the basic row. If, however, we follow the alternative view which moreover rests on a statement made by Strawinsky himself on the basic form of the row, then this latter would be reserved for the core section of the Elegy , the third stanza, which would most certainly be more in line with Strawinsky’s own ideas on interpretation. The Elegy would then begin in the alto clarinet with the reversible canon form and in the singing part with the reversion of the original form. Within the composition there are moreover shifts in the rows across all stanzas, there are repeats intended to interpret the words more fully, the rows are even mixed and not just added one to another.

Dedication: The dedication is part of the main title.

Duration: 1' 50".

Date of origin: March 1964.

First performance: Baritone version: on 6th. April 1964 in Los Angeles* in the series of monday evening concertsconducted by Robert Craft; Mezzo soprano version: on 6th December 1964 in New York with the Soprano Cathy Berberian and the Clarinetists Paul E. Howland, Jack Kreiselman and Charles Russo under the direction of Igor Strawinsky.

* The date of the first performance in Los Angeles is known with exactitude, although the programme sheet does not mention the piece because the printing was already done when the performance materials were still being completed. This fact makes it likely that Strawinsky was working on the material till shortly before the première, and that the latter was no longer expected to take place on 6th April.

Remarks: Strawinsky composed (probably in the course of March) the Elegy because he worried that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on 22nd November 1963 could be forgotten about all too quickly. Contrary to his habit he did not date the printed copy. The original composition was for baritone, two clarinets in b flat and a bass clarinet and was premièred by this ensemble. A short while later Strawinsky adapted the piece for mezzo soprano Cathy Berberian. As Luciano Berio’s wife, Mrs. Berberian was an important interpreter of contemporary music. The first performance of the version for mezzo soprano received the status of a première proper, despite the relatively few alterations compared to the original première. Why Strawinsky chose three clarinets as accompaniment is unknown. We need not necessarily presume particular artistic reasons for it, as a number of Strawinsky’s instrumentations arose from the situation given at the place where the première was to take place. It would have sufficed, for example, to première the Elegy in connection with the Berceuses du Chat ( Cats Cradle ) which also call for three clarinets. On the other hand, the sound of the clarinet corresponds in a particular degree to the elegic character of the composition.

Versions: The Elegy for J. F. K. appeared in 1964 in a three-part quarto edition and was published by Boosey & Hawkes in London: Once for baritone as reformed score with clarinet setting written like a full score for mezzo soprano, also with clarinet setting in c and finally as a combination of transposing clarinet setting written like a full score for mezzo soprano with sub-titled baritone version, where the instrumental alterations made necessary for a rendering by baritone voice are printed in minuscule. This is informative, considering that the ‘Elegy for J.F.K.’ was written for baritone voice and not for mezzo soprano, but the printed score does not show - as could have been expected - the alterations for mezzo soprano in small print, but instead a mezzo soprano edition with alterations for baritone. This is in line with the fact that the recording of the baritone edition received a number one digit higher than that of the later mezzo soprano recording . But to conclude from the number of a recording in which order editions appeared would contradict the facts of publication as they emerge from the correspondence. Strawinsky received the complimentary copies of both editions in January 1965. The contract with Boosey & Hawkes was concluded on 19th August 1964.

Mezzo soprano version: The changes in the mezzo soprano version vis-à-vis that of the baritone are minimal and do not affect the structure of the composition; they concern bars 6, 7, 8, 19, 21, 24, 35, 36 and are restricted to octave changes in the clarinets and the transposition by an octave of the singing voice. The clarinets’ notation has been changed to either an octave higher or lower, or, as in bars 19, 21 tones are exchanged between them. The e of the b flat clarinet in bar 19 is moved down by an octave and played by the alto clarinet. The f sharp in the alto clarinet instead is moved upward an octave for the b flat clarinet.Even if these changes appear marginal seen from a constructive sound quality point of view, and even if their main purpose is to support the singing voice, Strawinsky took the instructions for mezzo soprano very seriously. In a letter to Rufina Ampenow dated 22nd April 1964 he requested a separate printed edition for mezzo soprano which was granted by the Publishers. And in his introduction to the CD booklet of the mezzo soprano version (which, incidentally, consisted of two sentences) he actually stated that the soprano version ‘ was composed especially’ for Cathy Berberian, not - as one would think - arranged. Given the concentrated way of Strawinsky’s compositional process, it therefore seems that every small sound-determined change to the instrumentation (e.g. octave shifts) and even the minutest change in notation or tone colour to him was not an arrangement but a real, serious act of composition.

Historical recording: New York 14th December 1964 with the Soprano Cathy Berberian and the Clarinetists Paul E. Howland, Jack Kreiselman and Charles Russo under the direction of Igor Strawinsky.

CD edition: VIII-2/36 (Mezzo soprano version).

Autographs: Library of Congress, Washington; Sketches Paul Sacher Stiftung Basel.

Copyright: 1964 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.

Editions

a) Overview

100-1 1964 Edition Baritone; E; Boosey & Hawkes London; 4 pp.; B. & H. 19267.

100-2 1964 Edition Mezzosoprao; e; Boosey & Hawkes London; 4 pp.; B. & H. 19266.

100-2^[65][1965] ibd.

100-3 1964 Set Parts and Score; Boosey & Hawkes London; e; [each] 4 pp.; B. & H. 19270.

100-3^[65][1965] ibd.

b) Characteristic features

100-1 IGOR STRAVINSKY / ELEGY FOR J . F . K . / Baritone Solo / BOOSEY & HAWKES // IGOR STRAVINSKY / ELEGY FOR J.F.K. / Baritone Solo / BOOSEY & HAWKES / MUSIC PUBLISHERS LIMITED // (Score stapled 23.6 x 31.1 (4° [4°]); sung text English; 4 [3] pages + cover black on green light grey [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 1 page front matter [title page] without back matter; title head >ELEGY FOR J. F. K.<; authors specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 2 below title head flush left >W. H. AUDEN< flush right >IGOR STRAVINSKY<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >© 1964 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / Lyrics copyright © 1964 by W. H. Auden< flush right >All rights reserved / Tonsättning förbjudes<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 19267<; without end marks) // (1964)

100-2 IGOR STRAVINSKY / ELEGY FOR J . F . K. / Mezzo Soprano Solo / BOOSEY & HAWKES // IGOR STRAVINSKY / ELEGY FOR J.F.K. / Mezzo Soprano Solo / BOOSEY & HAWKES / MUSIC PUBLISHERS LIMITED // (Score stapled 23.6 x 31.1 (4° [4°]); sung text English; 4 [3] pages + cover black on green light grey [front cover title, 3 empty pages] + 1 page front matter [title page] without back matter; title head >ELEGY FOR J. F. K.<; authors specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 2 below title head flush left >W. H. AUDEN< flush right >IGOR STRAVINSKY<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >© 1964 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / Lyrics copyright © 1964 by W. H. Auden< flush right >All rights reserved / Tonsättning förbjudes<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 19266<; without end marks) // (1964)

100-2^[65] IGOR STRAVINSKY / ELEGY FOR J . F . K. / Mezzo Soprano Solo / BOOSEY & HAWKES // IGOR STRAVINSKY / ELEGY FOR J.F.K. / Mezzo Soprano Solo / BOOSEY & HAWKES / MUSIC PUBLISHERS LIMITED // (Score stapled 23.6 x 31.1 (4° [4°]); sung text English; 4 [3] pages + cover black on green light grey [front cover title, 2 empty pages, page with publisher’s advertisement >Igor Stravinsky<* production date >No. 40< [#] >7.65<] + 1 page front matter [title page] without back matter; title head >ELEGY FOR J. F. K.<; authors specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 2 below title head flush left >W. H. AUDEN< flush right >IGOR STRAVINSKY<; legal reservations 1st page of the score next and above title head flush right in the text box contained >IMPORTANT NOTICE / The unauthorized copying / of the whole or any part of / this publication is illegal<below type area flush left >© 1964 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / Lyrics copyright © 1964 by W. H. Auden< flush right >All rights reserved / Tonsättning förbjudes<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 19266<; without end marks) // (1964)

* Compositions are advertised in two columns without edition numbers, without price information and without specification of places of printing >Operas and Ballets° / Agon [#] Apollon musagète / Le baiser de la fée [#] Le rossignol / Mavra [#] Oedipus rex / Orpheus [#] Perséphone / Pétrouchka [#] Pulcinella / The flood [#] The rake’s progress / The rite of spring° / Symphonic Works° / Abraham and Isaac [#] Capriccio pour piano et orchestre / Concerto en ré (Bâle) [#] Concerto pour piano et orchestre / [#] d’harmonie / Divertimento [#] Greetings°° prelude / Le chant du rossignol [#] Monumentum / Movements for piano and orchestra [#] Quatre études pour orchestre / Suite from Pulcinella [#] Symphonies of wind instruments / Trois petites chansons [#] Two poems and three Japanese lyrics / Two poems of Verlaine [#] Variations in memoriam Aldous Huxley / Instrumental Music° / Double canon [#] Duo concertant / string quartet [#] violin and piano / Epitaphium [#] In memoriam Dylan Thomas / flute, clarinet and harp [#] tenor, string quartet and 4 trombones / Elegy for J.F.K. [#] Octet for wind instruments / mezzo-soprano or baritone [#] flute, clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets and / and 3 clarinets [#] 2 trombones / Septet [#] Sérénade en la / clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, violin, viola [#] piano / and violoncello [#] / Sonate pour piano [#] Three pieces for string quartet / piano [#] string quartet / Three songs from William Shakespeare° / mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet and viola° / Songs and Song Cycles° / Trois petites chansons [#] Two poems and three Japanese lyrics / Two poems of Verlaine° / Choral Works° / Anthem [#] A sermon, a narrative, and a prayer / Ave Maria [#] Cantata / Canticum Sacrum [#] Credo / J. S. Bach: Choral-Variationen [#] Introitus in memoriam T. S. Eliot / Mass [#] Pater noster / Symphony of psalms [#] Threni / Tres sacrae cantiones°< [° centre centred; °° original mistake in the title].

100-3 IGOR STRAVINSKY / ELEGY FOR J.F.K. / Clarinets / BOOSEY & HAWKES / MUSIC PUBLISHERS LIMITED // (Set of parts + score with chant >Mezzo Soprano / (Baritono)< and transposing clarinets 23.6 x 31.1 (4° [4°]); 3 x 4 [3] pages in identical text in cover enclosed anthracite on grey-beige [Title page, 3 empty pages] without front matter + 1 page back matter [empty page]; title head >ELEGY FOR J. F. K.<; legend next to title head flush left >2 Clarinetti in Si b / Clarinetto alto in Mi b<; authors specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below title head flush left >W. H. AUDEN< flush right >IGOR STRAVINSKY<; legal reservations 1st page of the score below type area flush left >© 1964 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / Lyrics copyright © 1964 by W. H. Auden< flush right >All rights reserved / Tonsättning förbjudes<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 19270<; without end mark) // (1964)

100-3^[65] IGOR STRAVINSKY / ELEGY FOR J.F.K. / Clarinets / BOOSEY & HAWKES / // (Set of parts + score with chant >Mezzo Soprano / (Baritono)< and transposing clarinets 23.6 x 31.1 (4°); 3 x 4 [3] pages in identical text in cover enclosed red on green-beige [title page, 2 empty pages, page mit verlagseigener Werbung >Igor Stravinsky<* production date >No. 40< [#] >7.65<] without front matter + 1 page back matter [empty page]; title head >ELEGY FOR J. F. K.<; legend next to title head flush left >2 Clarinetti in Si b / Clarinetto alto in Mi b<; authors specified 1st page of the score paginated p. 1 below title head flush left >W. H. AUDEN< flush right >IGOR STRAVINSKY<; legal reservations 1st page of the score neben title head flush right in the text box contained >IMPORTANT NOTICE / The unauthorized copying / of the whole or any part of / this publication is illegal< below type area flush left >© 1964 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. / Lyrics copyright © 1964 by W. H. Auden< flush right >All rights reserved / Tonsättning förbjudes<; production indication 1st page of the score below type area below legal reservation flush right >Printed in England<; plate number >B. & H. 19270<; ohne Endevermerk) // [1965]

K Catalog: Annotated Catalog of Works and Work Editions of Igor Strawinsky till 1971, revised version 2014 and ongoing, by Helmut Kirchmeyer.
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