Both Pizzetti and Stravinsky were drawn to the subject of Oedipus Rex, but in very different contexts. The 24-year-old Pizzetti was commissioned to write Three Orchestral Preludes for use in a theatrical production. He wrote with an austere sense of orchestral colour, devoid of impressionism that favours the vaguely archaic, with modal inflections. Stravinsky's opera-oratorio was written in his neo-Classical style, with a central role for narrator. In a stark, stylised and formal setting, the use of Latin, and Stravinsky's instruction for the leading characters to wear masks, add timeless, impersonal elements to a work that culminates in catharsis.
