Sensibility Defined: Set Projection in Stefan Wolpe's FORM for piano

Author(s): Martin Brody

Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Spring - Summer, 1977), pp. 3-22
Published by: Perspectives of New Music
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/832809
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 SENSIBILITY DEFINED:
SET PROJECTION IN STEFAN WOLPE'S
FORM for piano

MARTIN BRODY

With none of the terms and none of the seasons of time

A disorientation of dreams
An experience of suspension.

This stanza won't be encountered in a journal of poetry. It is ex-

tracted from a lecture on compositional technique delivered in 1959,
at UCLA, by Stefan Wolpe. The lecture was reprinted under the title
"Thinking Twice".' Despite the copiousness of recent music-theoreti-
cal literature-the bravura polemical manifestoes, the decorous, knotty
dissertations-"Thinking Twice" remains vital. Wolpe's prose (and
poetry), poised between rhetorical crudeness and refinement, meta-
phorical wit and impenetrability, is always challenging. At times he
assumes the voice of an extreme mannerist acquainted with the intona-
tion of surrealist polemicists:
The form must be ripped endlessly open and self-renewed by inter-
acting extremes of opposites. There is nothing to develop because
everything is already there in reach of one's ears. If one has enough
milk in the house, one doesn't go to the grocery store. One doesn't
need to sit on the moon if one can write a poem about it with the
twitch of one's senses. One is there where one directs oneself to be.
On the back of a bird, inside of an apple, dancing on the sun's ray,
speaking to Machaut, and holding the skeleton's hand of the in-
1 All quotations are extracted from "Thinking Twice" by Stefan Wolpe (in
E. Schwartz & B. Childs, Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music (New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967). Quotations occur, for the most part,
without quotation marks, but indented.
4 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

credible Cezanne-There is what there was and what there isn't is

also.... One should know about all the structures of fantasy and all
the fantasies of structure and mix surprise and enigma, magic and
shock, intelligence and abandon, form and anti-form.

The structures of fantasy. The fantasies of structure. The facile com-

mutability of these phrases reveals a paradox which runs through
Wolpe's essay. "Thinking Twice" exemplifies in prose the method of
extreme juxtaposition which Wolpe proposes to composers. The essay
itself is fragmented into sober paragraphs concerned with composi-
tional technique and rhapsodic utterances on the radical contiguity of
anything and everything. Near the end of the essay, Wolpe addresses
himself to the implausible symbiosis which he implies exists between an
aesthetic of syntactical coherence and an aesthetic of undifferentiated
adjacent opposites:

Entangled in a dilemma of infinite replaceabilities of happenings and

confined to the unalterable changingness of ambiguous decisions, one
either gives up and uses decisions (however ambiguous) for the evi-
dence and celebration of nonsense, or each of the happenings will be
hence assigned to, and incarnated in the structural and expressive
phenomena of particular pitch sets. [Italics are mine.]

An artful dodge. I am left with as many questions after this apparent

resolution as before: What are these decisions to which the author
refers? What distinguishes the process of assigning a pitch set to a hap-
pening from the process of using decisions? Do both alternatives cele-
brate nonsense?
Aided by the semantical fuzziness of this passage, Wolpe manages to
leave behind the more anarchic implications of an aesthetic of extreme
juxtaposition. His surpriscs, shocks, happenings, zigzags, ruptures, dis-
continua, liberations, and fusions are all modes of clarifying relation-
ships among and within pitch sets. The juxtapositions to which he
refers, then, are juxtapositions, in the musical foreground, of ges-
ture, texture, register, contour, and pitch-class ordering. They clarify
interval-class and pitch-class relationships which unfold over longer
durations.
This investigation is devoted to the ideas of order in Wolpe's essay
and their relation to the composition Form, for piano, written by
Wolpe in the same year as the essay, "Thinking Twice".
 STEFAN WOLPE'S FORM FOR PIANO 5

Since the twelve-tone chromatic set has become the master set and
the principle source of generating musical material, one acquiesces
to the state of balance for which its closed circuit provides.

But one does not have to acquiesce, Wolpe repeatedly tells us, to the
"hypertrophic abundance" of continual pitch-class saturation:
... every possible modification of speed of chromatic circulation shall
be built into the structuralchart of pitch operations.

A fragment of the 12 pitch-class circuit may function autonomously, in

an unordered situation.

It may then generate complementary, transpositional units to ap-

proach, at various degrees of speed, the total or near-total chromatic
circuit.

But even this completion of the circuit does not imply an even distribu-
tion of pitch classes or a homogeneity of texture. Wolpe suggests segre-
gating the 12 PC set into zones, each with a characteristic mode of
behavior. The segregation by zones of the 12 PC set and the "un-
hinging" of a fragment of this "master set" effect a resistance to closure
and saturation:

The idea of a musical process has to be understood in these terms:

that it takes time, musically composed time, to break the resistance
that a not-yet-fully-revealedmusical idea offers.

Composition, then, may be understood as a kind of dramatic action

stimulated by the resistance to equilibrium and PC saturation of
segregated pitch sets.
How do these segregated pitch sets maintain autonomy? Through
differentiated modes of behavior:

Equilibrium is not a matter of quantities but of a specific condition

under which these pitch quantities act.

These conditions, differentiation of behavioral mode, extend to sub-

groupings, pitch classes or sets within an already segregated fragment
of the 12 PC circuit. The interval structure of, for example, a six-note
set can be exposed by affiliating different pitch groupings within the
set with variegated modes of behavior, and by continually regrouping
the pitches, and by attributing a distinct contoural and textural char-
6 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

acter to each new grouping. A particular pitch occurrence may have

multiple contextual functions, participating in a variety of gestures,
each with a distinct character, pace, and interval structure. A single
interval may unfold into a multiplicity of gesture types. A community
of interacting gesture types and pitch sets may constitute a broader ges-
ture, a midground level of continuity. The manner of relationship be-
tween these modes of behavior and the sets which they project may
be clarified by an examination of Wolpe's Form, for piano. I will con-
tinue to refer to "Thinking Twice" in order to fill in a few of its many
details and to emphasize the vitality of the interaction here between
theoretical ideals and compositional rhetoric.
Form begins with a seamless presentation of set class2 6-Z3 under
inversion (Ex. 1). The pitch structure of a set may influence the extent
] IRemote
Fern und unruhig J
and restless
=100

pp
Ex. 1

Copyright 1962 by Edition Tonos Darmstadt. Reprinted by permission of

Seesaw Music Corp., New York.

of its autonomy with respect to its complement. The Z relation, when

applicable to a hexachord, designates, among other things, the irre-
ducibility of the set into its complement by means of transposition,
inversion, and in this case, the M operation.3 Z-related hexachords,
then, provide appropriate structural materials in a composition em-
ploying a strategy of pitch-set segregation. The initial presentation of
SC 6-Z3 is simple, lucid, and compact with respect to register; its

2 A set class
(abbreviated SC-the term was suggested by Robert Morris in a
class at the Yale School of Music) includes all pitch collections with the same
number of elements whose unordered content is equivalent under transposition and/
or inversion. Thus, the "set names" given in appendix one of Allen Forte's The
Structure of Atonal Music (1973, New Haven, Yale University Press) provide
appropriate labels for these set classes.
3 M is defined, for any mod 12 integer, M(X) = 5(X) mod 12. For an explica-
tion of the Z relationship, see Forte, op. cit., pp. 21-22, 79. In the following dis-
cussion, the use of arabic numerals to designate pitch classes corresponds to the use
of letter names, so that C = 0, Db = 1, etc. An interval may be defined as X - Y
where X and Y are mod 12 integers naming pitch classes (and where the positive
value of the difference is given). An instance of an interval defined in this man-
ner and its inverse related partner (i.e., mod 12 complement) may be considered
to be members of an interval class (abbreviated IC).
 STEFAN WOLPE S FORM FOR PIANO 7

deadpan characterization makes a witty contrast to the clarity of its

sub-structural implications:4 the hexachord divides into two equiva-
lent unordered trichords, members of SC 3-7 (labelled a and b). The
hexachord may also be segmented into three dyads, yielding a semitone
surrounded temporally by members of IC 3, the outer dyads related
by IC 1. IC 3 is also emphasized by a division of the set into 2+4
notes; the descent from Bb to Et can be described hierarchically as a
diminished triad with a passing tone, and the dyad preceding this four-
note group forms a third member of IC 3. The disposition of the com-
plete six PCs implies whole-tone and semitone dyadic relations be-
tween both consecutive and non-consecutive pitches (PC 8 to 10, PC 5
to 4, PC 9 to 7, etc. The dyadic possibilities of this set, its complement,
and the transforms of these sets employed in the piece are presented
in chart 1 of the appendix, to which we will turn shortly). The regis-
tral extremes of this initiating tune, Bb and Eb, form a member of
IC 6; the temporal extremes, Ab and E~ form a member of IC 4.
These, and other partitionings of the initial statement of the piece
indicate structural potential.
In m.2, the potentially emphatic structural relationships of m.1
begin to be projected kinetically (Ex. 2). A quarter rest separates the
initial kernel (the hexachord presented in m.1, henceforth referred to
as P) from its consequences. The dyad which formed the registral ex-
tremes in m.1 manifests that function again in the second measure.

J. 108
b .s~'T" . J..- -~~

J ^ ^j. Or
pp
f
to _1 -
.5:4 f

Ex. 2

Here, however, its pitches are temporally adjacent and it is registrally

expanded by three octaves. The dyad articulating the temporal ex-
tremes of m.1 is presented antinomially, as a simultaneity, in m.2.
The three pitch-class configuration, incorporating the registral and

4 The following remarks reiterate many of the observations already recorded by

Edward Levy in "Stefan Wolpe: For His Sixtieth Birthday" (Perspectives of
New Music, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 51-65). I hope that my comments provide some
further elaboration, as well as treating certain other aspects of the piece.
8 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

temporal extremes of m.1, SC 3-9, form an ornament to Ft, in its

original register, but now prolonged and dynamically accented. This
pitch proceeds to G , the next sustained note, and these two pitches
form an instance of IC 2. We will reconsider this dyad with reference
to continuity over longer durations of the piece. The ppp chord simul-
taneously attacked with the Gf just mentioned redistributes the pitches
of the previous simultaneity: the E~ resumes its function as a lower
registral boundary. Fb and Ab change register and exchange registral
position with respect to each other. This combination of registral dis-
placement and inversion of a dyad (preserving PC content, unlike PC
inversion) recurs throughout Form in a variety of textures. The re-
maining pitch of set P, Af, forms an instance of IC 2 with the promi-
nent G .
As in m.2, the first event of m.3 is a silence which functions rhetori-
cally to distinguish the course of action characteristic to this measure.
The three PCs which formed the inside of the directly previous simul-
taneity are joined with Bb-a reordering of the first four pitches of the
piece. In "Thinking Twice", Wolpe describes a behavioral (he would
say organic) mode which "acts under exclusive conditions on the
whole gamut of canonic interplays, canonic reflexes, contractions, in-
tersection." The pitches at the tempo change in m.3 begin to assume
a canonic disposition but abruptly change gestural character at the
beginning of m.4, where set P is saturated in the shortest temporal
span thus far in the piece: the linear motion from G~ to Eb contains
an ornamental instance of IC 4 (Ex. 3). The ff presentation of Bb,
combined with the G-,'E~ dyad, recalls the diminished triad implied
in m.1. The brief Ab which completes the hexachord seems to be a
gestural afterthought of the ff Bb which precedes it; the two notes
together form a sample of IC 2 as well as providing the missing PCs
from the would-be canon in the preceding measure. After the briefest
silence of the piece thus far, a subset of P (F ,Al,Ec, SC 3-4) ora-

Ex. 3
 STEFAN WOLPE S FORM FOR PIANO 9

ments the highest pitch of the measure and of the contour passing
through the prominent Gt and Et at the beginning of the measure, F#.
This pitch initiates the presentation of the complement of set P, which
we will call set Q, a member of SC 6-Z36. Set Q immediately mani-
fests independence from set P with respect to its behavior. Q does not
achieve closure in either m.4 or 5, and one of its members, C$, trans-
gresses the lower boundary which the Et of set P has established in
m.2. Measure 4, a temporal area in which the number of pitch classes
articulated in the piece dramatically increases, resides next to a fixa-
tion, in m.5, on two pitches. The suppression of gestural and registral
variety, combined with an insistent reiteration of two pitches, differen-
tiates this instance of IC 2 from the emphatic whole-tone dyad in m.2.
The difference in behavior betveen these two samples of the same IC
perpetuates the segregation of the disparate hexachords to which the
different examples of IC 2 belong.
The tying of C# from m.5 to m.6, parallel to the tying of the same
pitch over the previous barline, suggests that this running in place in
m.5 functions as a retarding of the pace of structural transformation,
a static prolongation, a parenthesis in the thrust of accelerating struc-
tural transformation (Ex. 4). (Only the C# grace note in this mea-

^j)^ r '1
,

x ,5 ff f f f
5:4

Ex. 4

sure has a dynamic function, returning PC 1 to the register of its

original presentation.) The acceleration of the pace of structural trans-
formation continues in m.6. The Dt of m.5 drops one octave, forming
a minor 7th with the stationary C.t. All six notes of set Q are pre-
sented in an ascent to F# at the same pitch level as the note which
initiated the presentation of set Q. The remaining two pitch classes to
be introduced in the piece are 3 and 11; they are exposed in conjunc-
tion with the two least novel pitch classes in this context, 0 and 2,
paired with them to form two distinct members of IC 3. The highest
note of the measure, F#, the note which temporally borders the first
10 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

complete presentation of set Q on both sides, is preceded here by a C#

at the same pitch level as the note which immediately followed the first
occurrence of F# in the piece. The lowest pitch of the chord in which
the F# of m.6 occurs, Bb, forms a member of IC 5 with F# as does
the C# which precedes the chord. The occurrence of the trichord
labelled a, a subset of set P, within the first complete statement of set
Q, achieves registral autonomy with respect to Q and interrupts the
presentation of the symmetrically-shaped embodiment of set Q in this
measure.
Temporally and dynamically, the last two notes of m.6 are grouped
with the Ak of m.7, which completes set P. The dispositions of five of
the six PCs of set P effect an emphasis on IC 1 in m.7. The Ab which
intervenes between the Fl-E~ dyad forms, with Fk, an instance of IC 3,
referring back to the last two pitches of the previous measure. The
highest note of the measure, Fl, creates a new upper boundary in the
piece. Linked to Bb, it forms a gestural and interval-class reference to
the beginning and end of the first presentation of set Q in m.4 and
m.6. The subsets of P and Q superimposed in m.6 recur simultane-
ously at the end of m.7, here with trichord a of set P returned to its
original registral position. The grace note attached to the highest note
of m.7 is the first, albeit brief, trespasser over the temporal and regis-
tral boundaries separating sets Q and P. This grace note prefigures
the dissolution of the boundaries between these two hexachords in
mm.8-10 (Ex. 5).

^ press finer on string

y |j'~^~~)+

Mit finger on string

dpremss
Mit dem Finger auf die Saite druicken

Ex. 5

The interweaving of the previously segregated six-note sets seems to

be at odds with one of the animating characteristics of the entire piece.
Ten of the twelve PCs are registrally frozen; only Eb and Eb remain
fluent. In "Thinking Twice", Wolpe refers to this kind of situation as
an "area of neutralization":
 STEFAN WOLPE S FORM FOR PIANO 11
The extension into the twelve-tone set of the minor sixth, the minor
seventh, and the major seventh, or of possibly any other interval
neutralizes for a moment the entire set.... it is important to have an
area of neutralization that uses pitch orders of a more common or
lower grade.

The generating interval of the twelve-note set is, in this instance, the
outer boundary interval of the final chord of m.7, IC 1. In mm.8-10,
the twelve PCs are divided into four groups, each containing an aug-
mented or diminished octave. (The four groups form instances of SCs
2-1, 3-2, 3-5, and 4-6.)
The instance of IC 2 in m. 10 effects a cadence to the portion of the
piece discussed thus far, as well as a reference to m.5 with respect to
interval and retarded pace of structural transformation.

The registral and temporal segregation of sets Q and P continues

throughout the piece. From the final eighth note of m.29 both sets
undergo an operation, T5 (Ex. 6). This transformation divides the

J=100 d
' J' -
-92

i f.% P ff
ff
Off

Ex. 6

piece into two parts, of durational proportions of approximately 3:4.

Since T5Q shares four PCs with P, the maximum intersection with P
which transposition of Q can yield, this transformation of Q bears a
significant pitch-class resemblance to P. T5P similarly shares four PCs
with Q. The static identification of the same six PCs with only one of
the two background hexachordal structures of the entire piece is thus
curtailed. The return of the original tune in m.59 at To provides a
brief sense of closure to the music. Wolpe does not allow this structural
habit to thrive (Ex. 7). The piece ends, after four measures of set P,
12 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

Ex. 7

untransposed, with a ten PC measure containing TsP and four PCs of

TsQ. The final measure is indifferent to the possible manifestations
of PC saturation, set closure, and recapitulation with which Form
might have ended.

A wonderful capacity to grasp, seize, and otherwise fondle the mo-

ment continually manifests itself in Form. We have also observed the
segregation and prolongation of a pair of complementary, Z-related
hexachords which extends through the entire piece, and promotes co-
herence on the largest durational scale of the piece. However, relations
which are neither local or global in durational scope do not present
themselves as lucidly. I have attempted to summarize some of these
midground relationships in charts 1 and 2 of the appendix (see pp.
21-22).
Chart 1 shows the dyadic contents of the complementary hexa-
chords, P and Q, and their T5 equivalents. By definition, the interval
contents of sets P and Q are identical and their PC contents are non-
intersecting. We observed already, however, that sets P and Q inter-
sect in four PCs with their T5 complements. These PCs may be ar-
ranged into dyads and categorized with respect to interval class. The
dyadic intersections between P and T5Q and between Q and T5P pro-
vide an opportunity to effect a midground continuity.
Sets P and T5Q share two PC-identical members of IC 1, PCs 4
and 5, and 7 and 8. The PC 7&8 pairing is not prominent in either P
or T5Q regions of the piece, though it appears in the same register in
mm.9-10 (a set P zone) and in m.31 (a TsQ zone). (See Ex. 8.)
 STEFAN WOLPE'S FORM FOR PIANO 13

c:#3K"Z \ ' 0`
y ~J f ' U.p- I

*)+ press finger on string

Mit dem Finger auf die Saite dricken

Ex. 8

The presentation of the PC 4&5 dyad is more dramatic. This pair-

ing asserts itself almost immediately in the piece: PC 5 is the first note
of the piece of a duration of more than a quarter note, PC 4 is the
lowest pitch sounded simultaneously with it (m.2, see Ex. 2). This
dyad is presented conspicuously again in m.4 as a major seventh. The
most prominent assertion of the 4&5 pairing within the first half (the
ToP portion) of the piece occurs in m.12, where these PCs are tem-
porally isolated. This texture resounds in a T5Q zone of the piece, at
m.32, where the PC 4&5 pairing occurs displaced, up one octave, and
transformed, from a major seventh to a minor ninth and then from a
minor ninth to a semitone, with respect to its occurrence in m.12
(Ex. 9). The 4&5 dyad also occurs prominently in other moments of

i - X -
f mP

Ex. 9

the first half of the piece: in mm.13 and 14, following the striking
occurrence in m.12, and in two instances in m.7 (Ex. 10). This dyad

Ex. 10
14 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

occurs most characteristically as a major seventh or minor ninth, some-

times followed by a semitone presentation, as in m.12 and mm.13 and
14. The 4&5 pairing is again conspicuous at the end of m.51 and the
beginning of 52, and in m.54. These two instances frame a complete
statement of T5Q (Ex. 11).

_m

Ex. 11

The three IC 1 dyads common to sets Q and TsP (PCs 0,1,2,3)

combine to form a member of SC 4-1. We will discuss this set with ref-
erence to the information presented in chart 2; but this four-note set
also contains two members of IC 2. The first isolated presentation of
IC 2 in the piece, at m.5, is a subset of this member of SC 4-1. The
propensity of SC 4-1 to divide into two IC 2 subsets is displayed in
mm.19-20, and again, more clearly, in mm.26 and 27 (Ex. 12).

A - k108 St
;y~~~~~ r r r- T
,lr 3'"--'
, --

mf> -:4
mf f

- loo

|mf f f ff (f P- f
u f J
-
mfy
^ -~f Wm ~trp
inrf

Ex. 12
 STEFAN WOLPE'S FORM FOR PIANO 15

The PC 0&2 dyad recurs prominently in TsP zones of the second

half of the piece: at m.35, a reminiscence of m.5, at m.37, and at
m.40 (Ex. 13). The prominence of the PC 0&2 pairing in m.5 and
m.35 (each of which occurs five measures from the start of the two
largest sections of the piece), and in m.13 and m.34, as a whole tone

*) take over key without sounding

Taste lautlos iibernehmen

Ex. 13

between middle C and D, establishes an axis from which the other

examples of this dyad seem to radiate. Like the PC 4&5 dyad, the PC
0&2 dyad has a characteristic disposition.
The PC 5&7 dyad in m.2 recurs without registral alteration, pre-
paring the instance of the 0&2 in m.13, previously discussed. The reg-
ister change effected in the presentation of the PC 5&7 dyad in m.30
prominently announces the incipience of the T5 transformation of the
piece at this point. The PC 5&7 dyad presented in m.34 restores this
dyad to its characteristic registral placement in the first large portion
of the piece.
The PC 7&9 dyad, assertively presented in m.10 (see Ex. 5), does
not resound prominently in the second half of the piece. It relates
16 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

clearly, however, to the instances of IC 2 in m.5: subsets of P and Q

are shown to be related by T5, forming a midground analogy to the
background transposition scheme of the entire piece.
At measures 38 and 39 (see Ex. 13), in a T.P zone, the PC 0&3
dyad is outlined by the progression of PCs 3-2-1-2-3. This delineation
has a precedent in the 0-2-3-progression starting in m.5 and com-
pleted in m.6 (see Ex. 4). A similar manner of presentation outlines
the PC 4&7 dyad in m.12 (see Ex. 9). The previously discussed simi-
larity between m.12 and m.32 (with respect to the PC 4&5 dyad)
appears to be incomplete since the PC 4&5 dyad is not paired here
with PC 7. Wolpe withholds the restatement of PC 7 until the next
measure. The 4&7 dyad, a result of the presentation of SC 3-2, is pre-
sented clearly on the third beat of m.33, embedded in a presentation
of the complete T5Q circuit.
Wolpe does not favor the PC 5&8, 4&8, 7&8, and 7&9 dyads by
presenting them prominently in the To half of the piece and restating
them prominently in the T5 portion-elucidating the relationship be-
tween the original utterance and the recurrence through register and
gesture. We will reconsider Wolpe's preference for the pairings involv-
ing PCs 0,1,2,3,4,5, and 7 with respect to the three, four, and five note
subsets of P,Q,T5P, and T5Q which are listed in chart 2. These sets
listed in chart 2 contain elements of P and Q which are segregated
registrally and/or temporally, forming autonomous fragments of the
hexachords P and Q. In "Thinking Twice", Wolpe mentions that
"Each pitch constellation smaller than the all-chromatic circuit is
either a delay in completing the whole, or is an autonomous fragment
which can exist outside of the total circuit." In Form, the 12 PC cir-
cuit is, indeed, saturated rarely and for brief durations (mm.6-7, 8-9,
22, 23, 49-51, and 55-56; notice that it comes in pairs and that only
the final instance manifests the saturation without pitch-class repetition
ideal of combinatoriality). (See Exx. 4, 5, and 14.)

+ press finger on string

Mit dem Finger auf die Saite driicken

Ex. 14
 STEFAN WOLPE S FORM FOR PIANO 17

The hexachords, P,Q,T5P, and T5Q, however, are commonly satu-

rated throughout the piece; the special attention which Wolpe gives to
subsets of the 12 PC set in his theoretical prose may be applied to the
subsets of hexachordal background sets of his piano piece. These sub-
sets achieve their prominence at least in part from their lack of equi-
librium, their evasion of circuit closure. The criterion for autonomy
with respect to these subsets is difficult to formalize. I have listed two
subsets separately, those segregated primarily visually, by a barline.
The listing of a subset in m.3, for instance, begs a question: should
the barline between m.3 and m.4 be performed as an audible articu-
lation, i.e., an extremely brief silence?
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of chart 2 is the absence of
hexachordal subsets in mm.47-62. We also found the single instance
of PC saturation without repetition within this section. The hexa-
chordal saturation in mm.47-62 effects a condition of equilibrium and
balance, just as the presence of autonomous hexachordal subsets
throughout the rest of the piece effects disequilibrium and resistance
to closure. But these three, four, and five note sets, considered as au-
tonomous fragments, also provide an important source of continuity
in the piece. Of the three trichordal subsets, two are PC identical in-
stances of SC 3-1. The third, a member of SC 3-2, bears an Rs rela-
tion to the other two.5 SC 3-1 manifests itself strikingly as a subset of
the four and five note fragments: of the fifteen #4 subsets listed,6
three are PC identical instances of SC 4-1, and nine others also con-
tain SC 3-1. Two of the three instances which do not have SC 3-1 as
a subset-in m.18 and in m.29-are contained within complete
presentations of their source hexachord's complement. They are segre-
gated with respect to the remaining notes of their source hexachord
but not with respect to the texture of the music in their immediate con-
text. The only texturally autonomous #4 hexachordal subset which
does not contain a member of SC 3-1 is the final tetrachordal member
of T5Q presented in the piece (m. 63). This tetrachord may be con-
sidered an agent of disequilibrium, preventing the stability with re-

5 Similarity relations (designated with a capital R and a subscript) are discussed

in Forte, op. cit., pp. 47 ff. With the designation of the Rs function, I diverge from
Forte's nomenclature. Rs here is equivalent to his R2. The "interchange feature"
which distinguishes R1 from R2 is not treated as a criterion for distinguishing be-
tween sets in this essay. R1, therefore, is subsumed by R2 and given the general
label, Rs.
6 The character # signifies
cardinality, i.e., the number of elements (here
pitches) in the set.
18 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

spect to hexachordal saturation in mm.47-62 from infiltrating the final

measure of the piece and effecting an unambiguous structural closure.
Of the twenty-six sets listed in chart 2, twenty-one are either members
of SC 3-1 or contain this set class. All of the four-note sets containing
PC identical instances of SC 3-1 manifest, of course, Rp (see note 5).
Rs exists between two pairs of the tetrachords, the members of SC 4-5
and SC 4-6, and the members of SC 4-4 and SC 4-5.
The #5 subsets also manifest identity and similarity relationships
among themselves, with the exception of one set. Three of the eight
five-note sets are PC identical members of SC 5-1. (In each cardinality
division of these hexachordal subsets, the type 1, i.e., consecutive semi-
tone, set has been most highly represented.) These members of SC 5-1
bear Rp and Rs with the single representative of SC 5-2. Rp also exists
between this example of SC 5-1 and the member of SC 5-4 as well as
between the members of SC 5-4 and SC 5-6. SC 5-4 and 5-5, and SC
5-5 and 5-6 are also Rs related.
The union of the normal order of SC 6-Z3 and 6-Z36 comprises
SC 8-1. All of the subsets listed in chart 2, when disposed into their
normal orders, must be expressible as subsets of this set. Thirteen of
the fourteen set classes listed in chart 2 are also contained in SC 7-2.
Set class 7-2 may be considered the union of a member of SC 4-1 and
a member of SC 3-2. These two set classes, in turn, are also manifested
clearly by the prominent dyadic continuities between the two large sec-
tions of the piece which we discussed previously. The union of all of
the PCs formed into dyads which are presented prominently in both
the To and T5 portions of the piece, PCs 0,2,3,4,5, and 7, comprises a
sample of SC 7-2.
The only set listed in chart 2 which resists the propensity toward
continuity is the example of SC 5-19 in m.16 (Ex. 15). This set con-
tains a tetrachordal configuration, PCs 11,0,5,6, a member of SC 4-9,
which cannot be expressed as a subset of SC 7-2. Not surprisingly, the
presentation of SC 5-19 in m. 16 is one of the two moments of the piece
marked with a dynamic of fff. (The other fff occasion, in m.25, seems
to me to effect a connection rather than an isolation, the connection
being between the Bb marked fff and the accented Bl in m.27, one
octave above it. Such means may implement a connection between two
pitches which belong to contextually distinct and segregated six-note
sets.)
In m.14, the set P is followed by the beginning of Set Q, which is
completed in the following measure. Gesturally, however, the music
 STEFAN WOLPE S FORM FOR PIANO 19

J=loo ' L
J.92
P,
| # 3- - pt.~

Mf f JSf (P) pp

#:S y
~~mf ^
-
^M
% #r

Ex. 15

from the last eighth note of m.13 through the triplet sixteenth notes
in m.15 divides into two statements of SC 5-2: PCs 2,4,5,6, and 7
form one; PCs 10,11,0,1, and 3 form the other. The disposition of
pitches in this passage effect a blurring of the boundaries between the
normally segregated sets, P and Q. The two presentations of SC 5-2,
however, contribute to the midground level of continuity which mani-
fests itself with respect to sets of two to five members (Ex. 16). There
are two more instances where the boundaries between the sets P and
Q blur: the registral spacing of the chords of m.28 and m.29 effect a
kind of no man's (i.e., set's) land (i.e., zone), in which none of the
four source hexachords of the piece displays itself autonomously. This
ambiguous passage makes a transition between the To and the T5 sec-
tions of the piece. The structural blur which occurs in m.42, in which
a complete statement of TsQ is interwoven with a partial statement of
T5P, has a textural counterpart, namely, the blurring of sound implied
by the indication to depress the damper pedal on the last sixteenth note
of the previous measure.
In the manner of the music, I will quit this discussion abruptly,
without a false gesture of closure. Form does not submit to summary
statements. I hope that my comments provide a tool in a continuing
discussion of this particularly rich, ruthlessly inventive, piece.
20 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

28I
(~ ~ -.~

* I
;b ~ .id.
rit ff *^2
I
3
6a
~q 11R?i? IR~ ~

Ex. 16
 STEFAN WOLPE S FORM FOR PIANO 21

APPENDIX
CHART 1: Dyadic subsets of the source hexachords, P and Q
P = 4,5,7,8,9,10 Q = 0,1,2,3,6,11
SC 6-Z3 SC 6-Z36
normal order = 0,1,2,3,5,6 normal order = 0,1,2,3,4,7
vector = 433221

Set ICI IC2 IC3 IC4 IC5 IC6

P 4,5 5,7 4,7 4,8 4,9 4,10
7,8 7,9 5,8 5,9 5,10
8,9 8,10 7,10
9,10
TsQ 4,5 4,6 4,7 4,8 6,11 5,11
5,6 5,7 5,8 7,11 11,4
6,7 7,9 6,9
7,8
Q 0,1 0,2 0,3 2,6 4,6 0,6
1,2 1,3 3,6 11,3 6,11
2,3 11,1 11,2
11,0
T5P 0,1 0,2 0,3 9,1 9,2 3,9
1,2 1,3 9,0 10,2 10,3
2,3 11,1 10,1
9,10
22 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

CHART2a: Subsets of P,Q, T5P, and T5Q segregated by bar line

measure set subset of set class normal order vector
3 5,8,9,10 P 4-4 0,1,2,5 211110
13 0,1,2,6 Q 4-5 0,1,2,6 210111

CHART2b: Temporally and/or registrallyautonomous subsets of P, T5P,

Q, and T5Q
measure set subset of set class normal order vector
4-5 0,1,2,6 Q 4-5 0,1,2,6 210111
7 0,1,6,11 Q 4-6 0,1,2,7 210021
12 4,5,7 P 3-2 0,1,3 111000
13 0,1,2 Q 3-1 0,1,2 210000
14,15 0,1,2,3,11 Q 5-1 0,1,2,3,4 432100
16 0,2,5,6,11 Q 5-19 0,1,3,6,7 212122
18 4,5,7,9 P 4-11 0,1,3,5 121110
18 0,1,2,3,11 Q 5-1 0,1,2,3,4 432100
19 0,1,6,11 Q 4-6 0,1,2,7 210001
24 0,1,2 Q 3-1 0,1,2 210000
25 5,8,9,10 P 4-4 0,1,2,5 211110
26 0,1,2,3 Q 4-1 0,1,2,3 321000
28 0,1,6,11 Q 4-6 0,1,2,7 210021
29 0,1,3,9,11 Q 4-21 0,2,4,6 030201
29 0,1,2,3,11 Q 5-1 0,1,2,3,4 432100
29 5,7,8,9,10 P 5-5 0,1,2,3,7 321121
30 4,5,6,7 TrQ 4-1 0,1,2,3 321000
34 0,1,2,3,9 T.P 5-4 0,1,2,3,6 322111
35 0,1,2,9,10 T5P 5-6 0,1,2,5,6 311221
37 0,1,2,3,10 T5P 5-2 0,1,2,3,5 332110
38 0,1,2,3 T5P 4-1 0,1,2,3 321000
40 6,7,8,11 T5Q 4-4 0,1,2,5 211110
46 0,1,2,3 T5P 4-1 0,1,2,3 321000
63 5,6,8,11 T5Q 4-13 0,1,3,6 112011