ABSTRACT
Following a period of about four years during which he predominantly composed tonal music, Skalkottas returned in 1949, the last year of his life, to dodecaphonic composition, producing a number of chamber works including Bolero, Largo, Serenata, Sonatina and Tender Melody, all for cello and piano, and the Second Little Suite for violin and piano. The Serenata for cello and piano exemplifies Skalkottass new-found approach to twelve-note composition in that it combines the free treatment of his twelve-note technique, including the extensive use of twelve-note pitch-class aggregates and sets treated as tropes, with strict serial presentation. The large-scale rondo form is determined by the periodicity of the sets, with each set being associated with particular sections or phrases, and by the transpositional and inversional levels of the pitch-class material. Each tetrachordal segment of S2 is played twice, in its prime and retrograde forms, each aurally and spatially associated with a forward ascending melodic contour, followed by one that descends palindromically.
