Movements for Piano and Orchestra is a composition for piano and orchestra by Igor Stravinsky, consisting of five short movements altogether lasting around nine minutes. It was composed during his serial period. The piece is notable in that it shows Stravinsky's complete dedication to the serial idiom which was notably more tentative in previous serial based compositions and shows the distinct influence of Anton Webern on Stravinsky's own serial language.
Composition
Stravinsky composed the Movements on commission by a Swiss industrialist for his pianist wife Margrit Weber, for the sum of $15,000. Mrs. Weber premiered the work at a Stravinsky Festival in New York'sTown Hall on January 10, 1960 with the composer himself conducting. Herr Weber had asked for a work of between 15 and 20 minutes but instead Stravinsky fulfilled the commission with a more refined and compressed piece lasting around half the length of the commission.
Analysis
Stravinsky breaks the orchestra down into smaller chamber-like sections with the piano acting as a pivot between the smaller contrasting sections of the orchestra creating subtle and gestural textures favored by Webern in pieces such as his Concerto for Nine Instruments and the Variations for Orchestra the latter of which Stravinsky admired greatly. Due to the highly constructed nature of the twelve tone idiom employed, all thematic material is drawn from a single tone row which is given by the solo piano in a very nonlinear gesture at the very opening of the work: E F B A A D C B C F G and F. The row is really only presented in its complete form a couple of times; it is far more often broken up into smaller groups and manipulated into slightly varied orderings. The technique of Klangfarbenmelodie can thus clearly be heard particularly in the opening of the piece whose gestural phrase mimics that of Webern's Op. 24. Stravinsky himself described the harmonic structure of Movements as "anti-tonal". Traditional references to triadic harmonic structures are eliminated in favor of an almost total linear based idiom with conventional ostinati and harmonic considerations replaced with an atonal and highly contrapuntal texture characterized by gestures, inner unity and a strict adherence to serial forms far more pervasive than in previous serial compositions by Stravinsky. Orchestration: 2 flutes, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, harp, celesta, strings, and solo piano.
