• Stravinsky’s series (or “tone rows”) often stay in a single voice—they are a recognizable thematic idea. Schoenberg divides his series up among different instrumental voices, making it more difficult to follow a thematic idea. Stravinsky deliberately employed this simplification.
• Stravinsky often uses a series that does NOT consist of 12 notes!! Actually, more often than not he did this. Schoenberg did NOT vary from using the 12 notes of the chromatic scale. See example above right.
• RHYTHM!!! Stravinsky’s insistence on the primacy of rhythm always stayed with him. When we think of Schoenberg, we do not usually think of driving rhythms. As a great example of Stravinsky’s use of rhythm in his serial music, refer to STRAVINSKY’S THREE PERIODS and view the Requiem Canticles first movement. Fantastically rhythmic and extraordinary difficult to perform!

Five-tone row from In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954)