K092 Doppelkanon
K92 Double Canon
for String Quartet – Doppelkanon für Streichquartett –Double Canon pour quatuor à cordes – Doppio Canone alla memoria del pittore Raoul Dufy, per quartetto d’archi
Scored for: 1. Violine, 2. Violine, Viola, Violoncello.
Construction: The Double Canon is a short work for four-part string quartet rigorously constructed on four Grundgestalten of the twelve-tone technique; it is 20 bars in length and at a metronome marking of crotchet = 60. In this way Stravinsky allocated to each of the four string instruments a statement of the row for four or five bars, of which the two violins play the first and the viola and cello the second canon, and the second canon is inserted in the middle of the first one. The first violin begins with the prime row (bars 1-5) and repeats it verbatim (bars 6-9). In the next five bars (bars 10-14), the retrograde inversion is added and then repeated (bars 15-20); the last two bars of this repetition, bars 19 and 20, consist only of the final note of the row, d2, held for an entire bar. The second violin enters with the primary form of the row, but at the interval of a major second lower, and continues with a repetition of the prime row, now entering on F sharp (bars 7-10) only to pause in bar 11, which is the only whole-bar pause in the Double Canon. The second violin takes on the retrograde inversion in bar 12, now at the interval of a major second higher (bars 12-15) and then repeats it (bars 16-20) at its original pitch. The viola part begins in bar 5 with two retrogrades of the prime row starting on its original note (bar 5-8), thus setting the double canon in motion. The cello answers in bar five with two retrogrades, firstly at the interval of a minor seventh (6-9) and then at an interval of an octave (bars 10-14). The second canon ends here, while the first continues until bar 20.
Structure
Crotchet = 60 [20 bars].
Row: f#1-f1-a1-g#1-g1-d2-c2-d#2-e2-c#2-h1-a#1.
Dedication: > Raoul Dufy in Memoriam<.
Duration: 1' 19".
Date of origin: Venice September 1959.
First performance: 10th January 1960, New York, Town Hall, as part of the Strawinsky Music Festival.
Remarks: The Double Canon was originally conceived as a work to be included in an album and was written in September 1959 in Venice, when Strawinsky was being privately asked for an autograph score. Strawinsky initially planned the work as a duet for flute and clarinet and this instrumentation was the same as that which he had chosen for the Epitaphium. Expressly to avoid repeating himself, he did not use this same instrumentation. Somewhat later, he expanded the work into a double canon and rearranged it for string quartet. The work has nothing to do compositionally with either the legacy or methods of Raoul Dufy, who was born at Le Havre on 3rd June 1872 and took influence from Cezanne and Matisse; he painted racecourses, sailing ships, streets full of flags, but also landscapes, still-lifes and large wall-paintings and died on 23rd March 1953 in Forcalquier in the Department Alpes-des-Hautes in Provence. Strawinsky never once met the painter during his lifetime: whether his bright style which overflowed with light spoke to Strawinsky in particular can only be conjectured. Stravinsky dedicated the Double Canon in memoriam Dufy later on for no obvious reason that can be found in the literature. The Double Canon cannot therefore be counted as a memorial work in its own right.
Versions: In 1960 Boosey & Hawkes ( Hawkes & Son) published the Double Canon as the unpaginated page C of a four-page edition for string quartet in quarto format The publishing contract with Boosey & Hawkes was settled on 4th January 1960 .
Historical record: Hollywood 25th January 1961, Israel Baker and Otis Igleman (Violin), Sanford Schonbach (Viola) and George Neikrug (Violoncello).
CD edition: XII/4.
Autograph: Neat copy and sketches are in the Paul Sacher Stiftung Basel.
Copyright: 1960 by Hawkes & Son, London.
Editions
a) Overview
92-1 1960 Edition string quartet; Hawkes & Son London; 4 p.; B. & H. 18706.
92-1 [ 65] [1965] ibd.
b) Characteristic features
92-1 IGOR STRAWINSKY / DOUBLE CANON / Raoul Dufy/ in memoriam* / BOOSEY & HAWKES // (Score 23.3 x 31 (4° [4°]); 4 [1] pages without pagination [cover page, empty page, page of score, empty page]; title head >DOUBLE CANON / Raoul Dufy / in / Memoriam* / IGOR STRAWINSKY / 1959<; author specified page of th score below title head flush right centred >IGOR STRAWINSKY / 1959<; legal reservation page of the score below type area flush left >All rights reserved / © 1960 by Hawkes & Son (London), Ltd.<; production indication page of score below type area flush right >Printed in England<; plate number page of the score flush right as end mark >B. & H. 18706<) // (1960)
* Different capitalisation original.
92-1[65] IGOR STRAVINSKY / DOUBLE CANON / Raoul Dufy/ in memoriam° / BOOSEY & HAWKES // (Score 22.6 x 30.7 (4° [4°]); 4 [1] pages without pagination [cover page, empty page, page of score, page with publisher’s advertisements >Igor Stravinsky<* production date >No. 40< [#] >7.65<]; title head >DOUBLE CANON / Raoul Dufy / in / Memoriam° / IGOR STRAVINSKY / 1959<; author specified page of score below title head flush right centred >IGOR STRAVINSKY / 1959<; legal reservation next to title head flush left with a text box containing >IMPORTANT NOTICE / The unauthorized copying / of the whole or any part of / this publication is illegal< below type area flush left >All rights reserved / © 1960 by Hawkes & Son (London), Ltd.<; production indication page of the score below type area flush right >Printed in England<; plate number [plate number page of score flush right as end mark] >B. & H. 18706<) // [1965]
° Different capitalisation original.
* 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].
K Catalog: Annotated Catalog of Works and Work Editions of Igor Strawinsky till 1971, revised version 2014 and ongoing, by Helmut Kirchmeyer.
© Helmut Kirchmeyer. All rights reserved.
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