The practice of recomposition, in which compositions from earlier periods are absorbed and modified in new ones, is evident in many works of the twentieth century. In Stravinsky's Pulcinella, Schoenberg's Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, and Webern's orchestration of the Ricercare from Bach's The Musical Offering, a post-tonal musical structure is imposed upon a tonal model. In the Schoenberg the first movement is a recomposition of Handel's Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 7; the last three movements are fantasias on material drawn from Handel. Schoenberg's recomposition enhances the motivic structure of the model. "Motivic saturation" is also evident in Schoenberg's orchestration of the Bach Chorale Prelude, Schmücke dich (BMW 654). The Stravinsky is a recomposition of music by Pergolesi and others. Recomposition is also evident in Stravinsky's orchestration of Bach's Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel Hoch. He also recomposed two songs by Wolf and worked on setting selected preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier. In general, these twentieth-century recompositions force us to rehear each model as a network of motivic associations.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: David C. Birchler