ABSTRACT
The First Symphonic Suite for large orchestra, in six movements is Skalkottass first surviving entirely dodecaphonic large-scale orchestral work. Skalkottas wrote sketchy programme notes, in both Greek and German, which remain unedited and unpublished, but give an insight into his compositional strategy. The First Symphonic Suite exhibits more advanced twelve-note techniques than those tried out in these smaller pieces, and it establishes a compositional approach that Skalkottas would develop further in large orchestral works, such as the Second Symphonic Suite and The Return of Ulysses. Skalkottas was aware of the two opposite ways of constructing variations, either on a structural plan or on a free plan. In the 15 Little Variations for piano he had already used the structural plan within an atonal context. Overall, contrary to his hitherto established linear twelve-note technique, here Skalkottas does not compose with independent linear sets, but with the sum total of the twelve-note pitch-class material as presented in the opening seventeen bars.
