Discusses the methodological change in making "music about music" which was introduced by Stravinsky around 1920. The concept of creating an updated and/or "improved" setting for familiar thematic material is exemplified here by Baroque practice and related to the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century vogue involving both salon pieces and serious variation sets and fantasies. The musical goal of all such works, that is, the exhibition of artistry through inventive development of recognizable material, finds its inversion in the trend, eventually termed Neo-Classicism, of the twentieth-century. Therein new thematic materials, and even new musical languages, could be introduced by placing them within recognizable, traditional structural frameworks.

Works: Bach: Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 579, Organ Pieces on Themes by Corelli, BWV 579, Organ Pieces on Themes by Legrenzi, BWV 574; Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Handel, Variations on a Theme by Haydn; Fortner: Elegies for Piano; Hindemith: Ludus Tonalis, Neues vom Tage; Reger: Prelude and Fugue in G Major for Violin Solo, Op. 117, No. 5, String Trio in A Minor, Op. 77b; Stravinsky: Piano Sonata (1924), Pulcinella.

Index Classifications: General, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller