"After returning from a conducting course with Herman Scherchen, Wolpe had a vision of how to compose with twelve tones and within a few months completed the Four Studies on Basic Rows (1935-1936) for piano. His approach was closer to Josef Matthias Hauer than to Schoenberg and Webern, for Hauer based his theory of twelve-tone tropes on the idea of oriental modes. The first of the Four Pieces is based on the interval of the third, the second is on a set of expanding and contracting intervals, and the third is on the tritone. The fourth, the Passacaglia, is a full-fledged concert piece that transcends the other studies in every respect. Recognizing its importance and wishing to have a piece considered by the newly founded Palestine Symphony, Wolpe scored the Passacaglia for orchestra. William Steinberg, who was preparing the orchestra for the arrival of Toscanini, wanted to conduct the Passacaglia, but the orchestra turned it down. The work was not heard until 1983, eleven years after the composer’s death, when Charles Wuorinen led the American Composers Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. The main subject is a wedge of 22 notes that expands from the minor second to the major seventh in steady quarter notes and then contracts in reverse. A secondary subject of dotted rhythms adds 14 notes for a total of 36 notes, that is, three collections of 12 chromatic pitches. In addition Wolpe devised 11 so-called “counter-sets,” each one based on an interval from the minor second to the major seventh. His vision was that the counter-sets would rotate like planets around the main subject: “One set of intervals rotating around another set of intervals. Multiple intervallic layers in action.” (Austin Clarkson, "Stefan Wolpe in Jerusalem" liner notes Mode Records MO156).
"After returning from a conducting course with Herman Scherchen, Wolpe had a vision of how to compose with twelve tones and within a few months completed the Four Studies on Basic Rows (1935-1936) for piano. His approach was closer to Josef Matthias Hauer than to Schoenberg and Webern, for Hauer based his theory of twelve-tone tropes on the idea of oriental modes. The first of the Four Pieces is based on the interval of the third, the second is on a set of expanding and contracting intervals, and the third is on the tritone. The fourth, the Passacaglia, is a full-fledged concert piece that transcends the other studies in every respect. Recognizing its importance and wishing to have a piece considered by the newly founded Palestine Symphony, Wolpe scored the Passacaglia for orchestra. William Steinberg, who was preparing the orchestra for the arrival of Toscanini, wanted to conduct the Passacaglia, but the orchestra turned it down. The work was not heard until 1983, eleven years after the composer’s death, when Charles Wuorinen led the American Composers Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. The main subject is a wedge of 22 notes that expands from the minor second to the major seventh in steady quarter notes and then contracts in reverse. A secondary subject of dotted rhythms adds 14 notes for a total of 36 notes, that is, three collections of 12 chromatic pitches. In addition Wolpe devised 11 so-called “counter-sets,” each one based on an interval from the minor second to the major seventh. His vision was that the counter-sets would rotate like planets around the main subject: “One set of intervals rotating around another set of intervals. Multiple intervallic layers in action.” (Austin Clarkson, "Stefan Wolpe in Jerusalem" liner notes Mode Records MO156).