The Three Elegiac Pieces form a distinct set, with a clear emotional progression. In the score, each is preceded by a quotation which is of assistance in appreciating the emotional context of the piece.

The first is in strict A - B - A - B form (or, more correctly, A - B - A' - B', as repeats are ornamented). The text is as follows:

C'era una volta
Un re e una regina
La regina morì
E la storia finì

(Once upon a time
There was a king and queen
The queen died
And the story ended)

With its rich figuration and legato melody, the opening section projects, in a way, the calm and simple beauty of the aforementioned queen. The alternate section is a regal and stately funeral march which, while doing its best to maintain control, cannot help but erupt in paroxysms of anguish.

The second is an elegy for a young person and is, in fact, preceded by a verse written by the composer's son, who died in his early twenties:

The clock turns
and casts up the minutes of life

I breathe and deny
for now
The fate that is no end
But circular.

- Paul Rochberg

Inevitable renewal, implied in the text, is exemplified in the use of whole-tone progressions (which divide the twelve chromatic pitches into equal sections) and circle-of-fifth progressions (which do the same, albeit in a different order): there is no overriding tonal center and, guided by abundant sequences, the focus constantly and elusively shifts—reborn in various keys, and ending elsewhere than whence it began.

Unlike the previous two, which had their beginnings in the 1940s, the third Elegiac Piece was completed at the very end of the century. In both spirit and actuality, it is the work of an older man: deliberate, brooding, and fearsome. Its vocabulary is irrespective of pre-established tonal relationships. Anguish is constant, in keeping with the text:

.but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.

- Shakespeare: King Lear

As with the second elegy, there is an inevitable circularity but, in this case, it is without hope.

Writer: Evan Hirsch