This book is the first to be devoted to the music of Stravinsky´s last compositional period. It focuses on five historical, analytical, and interpretive issues: Stravinsky´s relationship to his serial predecessors and contemporaries; his compositional process; the problem of creating formal continuity in a repertoire so obviously discontinuous in many ways; the problem of writing serial harmony; and the problem of expression and meaning. Challenging conventional interpretations, the book shows that Stravinsky´s serial music is not only of great historical significance, but also of astonishing structural originality and emotional power.