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In the context of this thread I am saying that there are different types of analysis. I am making the case that a comprehensive analysis - of anything - is of value to us. Why did Bernstein bother himself with such efforts? Because he was good at it, and because he was a generous man who wanted to share his knowledge and passion with others. Did he talk in minutiae? Of course. When you deliver the capstone lecture of an eighteen hour series you necessarily have to first get in the weeds, right? Stravinsky had come a long way since the days of Le Sacre over the course of his life, and he had to deal with the same musical problems as other composers of his time. I'm just saying that this particular lecture transcends the minutiae. By analyzing Stravinsky's music through the mask analogy, he offers a salient vision for future composers who may be troubled that there's nothing new under the sun anymore except for serialism and the self inflicted death of deconstruction. Was this of value to Stravinsky? No. Why should it? It's beside the point. It is for us, and at this point the minutiae becomes rather interesting. So, to me, anything done well in the field of music is interesting.

Great writing, very interested to see how it is scored. It sounds like it would fit a soundtrack for a film. Kind of reminds me of a "at the library" type of scene. I think the ending could use a little bit more instrumentation if you are trying to go for a full finale.

I have a pretty jaundiced view of degree courses in music theory and composition. So I'd best stay out of this.... ....except to say I fail to understand why Bernstein and other scholars would want to dissect Stravinsky. If you dissect anything you make it dead. I recall Stravinsky's own words on Le Sacre: “I was guided by no system whatever in Le Sacre du Printemps,” wrote Igor Stravinsky in 1961. “I had only my ear to help me; I heard and I wrote what I heard. I am the vessel through which Le Sacre passed.” – So much for all the jargon. And yet he also said in his talk, he could play it but didn’t know how to write it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1elMpqharNQ Le Sacre was an outright success, partly because of the scandal which, some say, Stravinsky helped to engineer. So I’m unsure what benefit Bernstein brings to music "pointing out" this and that.

That's fine, but again, no need to stress about it. Sentence structure may involve repeated segments, but other development forms definitely don't. Like I told KJ, I'm far more interested to see what you can do with material; that is virtually infinite.

@Tónskáld @Monarcheon Agree. In fact, from my point of view it's a good point that what comes after the shared initial part be related to it. Transformation/development is a blurred frontier. Also, the material can be inspired in the style, for example, of the initial part, and in this case, smooth and natural transition should be in mind. Perhaps a graphic representation is the branches of a tree where the trunk is the shared material and the main branches are the parts, and the little branches internal development. In some way everything is related to the trunk. (Off topic: tree branches follow the fibonacci series pattern, often used in contermporary and even in previous periods of music. But that's another story.)

@KJthesleepdeprived Yes. As Monarcheon said, this is dealing with development and transformation. All the great works of the great composers have this mechanisms and tools inside. The spirit of this challenge it working with these processes in a strict or fixed way, with two goals: make it a challenge, and learn (all of us, because I'am, too) how to develop material. If we let our imagination fly there are many ways to work with material, according to the style you use. Baroque has it's tools based on counterpoint and motivic transformation. Late romanticism focus on harmony, many times the melody is fixed but the harmony changes from one part to another. In contermporary music development touches color, changes of modes, textures, mosaics.... Atonality relies also in transformation of series, etc.... Well that's how I see this challenge.

I am unsure how well I am contributing towards this discussion, as I have minimal experience/knowledge in 20th century analysis. However, I can offer some points on how such analysis can be applied to music produced by common practice composers of the 18th century. The vast majority of composers of this period are thought to have been trained in a manner closely aligned with the pedagogy of the Italian school, in particular the Neapolitan School. To provide some context, 'Conservatories', as they were called, were once established in Naples during the 16th century to address the high orphan rate, and was a joint initiative between the Spanish State and the Roman Catholic Church. These schools helped to 'converse' the young and vulnerable and, in conjunction with meeting their basic needs, provided some form of education . Over time, many such schools became specialized and renowned centers of learning (for instance music conservatories) and to a considerable extent during the 17th and 18th centuries, served to provide the church and aristocracy (the two principle employers of musicians at the time) with professional and highly skilled musicians & composers. Of course, many of the widely known composers of that era were neither orphans nor educated at such places; however, often wealthier students who could be afforded private instruction would be apprenticed under a master, well versed in the prevailing practice. There is much renewed interest in these music conservatoires, for the reason that it was their transmission of knowledge, spanning centuries, which underpinned the greatest works of that era. The study, however, such such institutions, is rather hampered by the fact that most knowledge was aurally transmitted. Whilst there are surviving documents which provide instruction to students (such as those by Fenaroli and Giovanni Martini) the vast majority of publications are merely exercises. Those exercises are what we call 'Partimenti'. The importance of Partimenti cannot be understated. They contained conventional patterns which were standard of common practice, and the success of the student largely depended on their means to recognize those patterns (for instance, ascending 5-6 suspensions) and recalling their associated realization between the other voices. At beginner to intermediate level, typically only either the bass or treble clef would be populated. The relationship between improvisation and partimenti, therefore cannot be understated. It is difficult to do this subject justice with only a couple of paragraph's, however I have hoped to illustrate why it is probably a bad approach to assess music from this period with modern theoretical principles. Students of the common practice period largely learned by rote, at least in the beginning, which of course was very practice orientated and less theoretical. When I analyze music from this period, I typically listen to patterns; And it is patterns you learn to hear and recognize. Have you ever wondered how Mozart managed to compose grand works within a matter of days? Well, he was a master at improvisation and his extensive mental library of ideas were without question deeply rooted in the preceding chapters of music history. And he was not alone in his means to compose quickly; This was a skill expected of the professional composer and I suppose further illustrates the importance of understanding how to apply and manipulate 'patterns, so to speak. Of course, as we move more towards the 19th century and beyond, those patterns are still applied however without the intensity of some of the earlier 'galant' composers. My post below talks about these patterns in a little more detail https://www.youngcomposers.com/t38646/largo-for-winds/

Composition completed on 10/28/2015 You also can watch this piece here -

Maarten- Thank you for nice words. I'll upload something new soon. Because maybe I know almost nothing about music theory or even notation... But I' m going to change that. That's why I am here. :)