When queried in 1964 by a New York Times reporter about the origins of the Elegy to J. F. K., Stravinsky described “a melodic-rhythmic stutter of my speech from Les Noces to the Concerto in D, and earlier as well—a lifelong affliction, in fact.” The comparison of his melodic writing to a stutter, perhaps offered as a slightly acerbic riposte to frequent critiques, in fact serves as a clever metaphor, for it links the fragmental, dislocated, and repetitive aspects of the composer's melodic style with underlying connective origins inherent in speech. from Gretchen G. Horlacher in Building Blocks: Repetition and Continuity in the Music of StravinskyGeorge Handy was an admirer of Stravinsky's music, and I hear a lot of these abstractions of melodic cells in the saxophone suites.