I would not want you to suppose that my rejection of Allen Forte's theory of pitch-class sets implies a rejection of the notion that there can be such a thing as a pitch-class set. It is only when one defines everything in terms of pitch-class sets that the concept becomes meaningless.
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This intersecting of inherently non-symmetrical diatonic elements with inherently non-diatonic symmetrical elements seems to me the defining principle of the musical language of Le Sacre and the source of the unparalleled tension and conflicted energy of the work.
Page 83
George Perle was a
composerA composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and
music theoristMusic theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
. He was born in
Bayonne, New JerseyBayonne is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is a peninsula that is situated between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east...
. Perle was an alumnus of
DePaul UniversityDePaul University is a private institution of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul...
. A student of
Ernst KrenekErnst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...
, Perle composed with a technique of his own devising called "twelve-tone tonality," which is different from, but related to,
twelve-tone techniqueTwelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
of the
Second Viennese SchoolThe Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...
of which he was an, "early admirer," and whose techniques he used aspects of but never fully adopted. Perle's former student
Paul LanskyPaul Lansky is an American electronic-music or computer-music composer who has been producing works from the 1970s up to the present day .-Biography:...
described 12-tone tonality thus: "Basically this creates a hierarchy among the notes of the
chromatic scaleThe chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...
so that they are all referentially related to one or two pitches which then function as a
tonicIn music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...
note or
chordA chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
in
tonalityTonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
. The system similarly creates a hierarchy among intervals and finally, among larger
collectionsA set in music theory, as in mathematics and general parlance, is a collection of objects...
of notes, 'chords.' The main debt of this system to the 12-tone system lies in its use of an ordered linear succession in the same way that a
12-tone setIn music, a tone row or note row , also series and set, refers to a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets are sometimes found.-History and usage:Tone rows are the basis of...
does".
In 1968 Perle cofounded the
Alban BergAlban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
Society with
Igor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and
Hans F. RedlichHans Ferdinand Redlich was an Austrian classical composer, conductor, musicologist and writer.-Redlich's Continental Years:...
, who had the idea (according to Perle in his letter to Glen Flax of 4/1/89). Perle's important work on Berg includes documenting that the third act of
LuluLulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
, rather than being an unfinished sketch as long thought, was actually three-fifths complete and that the
Lyric Suite contains a secret program dedicated to Berg's love-affair. After retiring from Queens College in 1985 he became a professor emeritus at the
Aaron Copland School of MusicThe Aaron Copland School of Music is one of the oldest and most distinguished departments at Queens College, founded when the College opened in 1937....
. In 1986 Perle was awarded a
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for his
Fourth Wind Quintet and also a MacArthur Fellowship. "Widely considered the poetic voice of atonal composition," he died aged 93 in his home in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in January 2009.
Partial bibliography
- Perle, George (1992). "Symmetry, the Twelve-Tone Scale, and Tonality", Contemporary Music Review 6 (2), pp. 81–96.
- Perle, George (1962, reprint 1991). Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. University of California Press.
- Perle, George (1978, reprint 1992). Twelve-Tone Tonality. University of California Press.
- Perle, George (1990). The Listening Composer. California: University of California Press.
- Perle, George (1984). "Scriabin's Self-Analysis", Musical Analysis III/2 (July).
- Perle, George (1980). The Operas of Alban Berg. Vol. 1: Wozzeck. California: University of California Press.
- Perle, George (1985). The Operas of Alban Berg. Vol. 2: Lulu. California: University of California Press.
External links