By now we are used to the tonal polarisation of Stravinsky's serial writing, but the resourcefulness with which he continues to throw fresh light on the method is amazing. In The Flood we have possibly the most overt example of his tonal twelve-note style so far, with what can be construed as an elaborate series of cadences on and around a final of C sharp. The five forms of the basic series shown in Ex. 1 illustrate what I mean, for they are used almost exclusively throughout the work. Taking the first and last notes in each case, we find a quasi tonal hierarchy outlined, with C sharp, its subdominant, dominant and supertonic. Significantly the form, O-F sharp and its retrograde which on these terms would have hinted at a flatter region are not so much in evidence. Even when cellular correspondences such as that which is obtained between notes 1–3 of O and I can be cited in justifying simultaneous presentation or continuation, we feel that considerations of cadence have really been uppermost in the composer's mind. Restriction to the five forms set out in Ex. 1 would of course have imposed too severe a discipline for a work lasting half an hour, and the way in which Stravinsky avails himself of variations is thoroughly typical. He does not utilise ‘enharmonic modulation’ by means of common cells : instead we find a standard permutation procedure in which notes 1 and 7 of a row become 6 and 12, or vice versa (Ex. 2). It is instructive that the particular forms chosen for permutation are frequently those which will yield the same cadential results as the forms shown in Ex. 1. Thus I-E as permutated in Ex. 2 is in its new form bounded by G sharp and C sharp, revealing affinities with O-G sharp as well as the more obvious I-G sharp (the shared final and almost identical shape). Ex. 3 shows one of the simpler uses of the permutation process for melodic variation and expansion. Here notes 6–12 of O-G sharp are followed by notes 6–12 of the substitute O-G sharp (permutated from O-C, with 6 and 12 becoming 1 and 7). He will also on occasion re-order to no particular plan beyond that of obtaining aural results which accord with the tonality of the stricter forms of this row.

Prokofieff finished the Eighth Sonata in 1944. It is unusual among his mature ‘abstract’ works in its stylistic kinship with his theatre music of the period. In earlier years, before his return to Soviet Russia, Prokofieff had composed two symphonies (Nos. 3 and 4) which derived much of their musical substance from stage works written shortly before them, but later the styles of his ‘absolute’ and ‘theatre’ music diverged considerably. Guided by the notion that the theatre in all its guises reached the mass public more directly than any other means of artistic communication, he addressed his Soviet theatre audience in a tremendously effective idiom exemplified in such works as Alexander Nevsky, Peter and the Wolf, and Romeo and Juliet. In his ‘abstract’ works of the same period he did not feel the need to carry the pursuit of ‘accessibility’ of idiom so far, and the exceptional character of the Eighth Piano Sonata among his work in this form is in some part attributable to the untypical presence of these ‘theatrical’ elements in it.

• Benjamin Britten: Curlew River, Cello Symphony

• Maxwell Davies: Veni Sancte Spiritus

• Alan Rawsthorne: Third Symphony

• Malcolm Williamson: English Eccentrics

• Wilfrid Mellers on Mozart the Dramatist

• Robert Henderson on Moses and Aaron