In
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
,
serialism is a method or technique of
compositionMusical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
(Griffiths 2001, 116) that uses a series of values to manipulate different
musical elementsAn aspect of music is any characteristic, dimension, or element taken as a part or component of music.-European music:The traditional musicological or European-influenced aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influenced classical music, so 7 basic elements of...
. Serialism began primarily with
Arnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's
twelve-tone techniqueTwelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of
post-tonalAtonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
thinking (Whittall 2008, 1). Twelve-tone technique orders the 12 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...
, forming a
rowIn 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...
or series and providing a unifying basis for a composition's
melodyA melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
,
harmonyIn music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
, structural progressions, and
variationsIn music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
. Other types of serialism also work with
setsA set in music theory, as in mathematics and general parlance, is a collection of objects...
, collections of objects, but not necessarily with fixed-order series, and extend the technique to other musical dimensions (often called "parameters"), such as duration,
dynamicsIn music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
, and
timbreIn music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
. The idea of serialism is also applied in various ways in the
visual artsThe visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
,
designDesign as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
, and
architectureArchitecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
(Bandur 2001, 5, 12, 74; Gerstner 1964,
passim). The musical use of the word "series" should not be confused with the mathematical term
"series."A series is the sum of the terms of a sequence. Finite sequences and series have defined first and last terms, whereas infinite sequences and series continue indefinitely....
Integral serialism or
total serialism is the use of series for aspects such as duration, dynamics, and register as well as pitch (Whittall 2008, 273). Other terms, used especially in Europe to distinguish post–World War II serial music from twelve-tone music and its American extensions, are
general serialism and
multiple serialism (Grant 2001, 5–6).
Composers such as Arnold Schoenberg,
Anton WebernAnton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
,
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...
,
Karlheinz StockhausenKarlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
,
Pierre BoulezPierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
,
Luigi NonoLuigi Nono was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music and remains one of the most prominent composers of the 20th century.- Early years :Born in Venice, he was a member of a wealthy artistic family, and his grandfather was a notable painter...
,
Milton BabbittMilton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
and
Jean BarraquéJean-Henri-Alphonse Barraqué was a French composer and writer on music who developed an individual form of serialism which is displayed in a small output of highly complex but passionate works.-Life:...
, used serial techniques of one sort or another in most of their music. Other composers such as
Béla BartókBéla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
,
Luciano BerioLuciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
,
Benjamin BrittenEdward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
,
Aaron CoplandAaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
,
Olivier MessiaenOlivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
,
Arvo PärtArvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
,
Walter PistonWalter Hamor Piston Jr., , was an American composer of classical music, music theorist and professor of music at Harvard University whose students included Leroy Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, and Elliott Carter....
,
Alfred SchnittkeAlfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...
,
Dmitri ShostakovichDmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
,
Igor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, and even some
jazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
composers such as
Yusef LateefDr. Yusef Lateef is an American Grammy Award-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950.Although Lateef's main instruments are the tenor saxophone and flute, he is known for...
and
Bill EvansWilliam John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, used serialism only for some of their compositions or only for some sections of pieces.
Richard YardumianRichard Yardumian was an Armenian-American classical music composer.-Life:Yardumian was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest of ten children to Armenian immigrant parents, and began studying the piano at a very early age. His mother, Lucia, was a teacher and organist, and his father,...
used a unique variation of the 12-tone scale "different from Schoenberg's" in which "series were derived by alternating major and minor thirds" (Schwartz 2001).
Basic definitions
Serialism is a method (Griffiths 2001, 116), "highly specialized technique" (Wörner 1973, 196), or "way" (Whittall 2008, 1) of composition. It may also be considered, "a philosophy of life (
Weltanschauung), a way of relating the human mind to the world and creating a completeness when dealing with a subject" (Bandur 2001, 5).
However, serialism is not by itself a system of composition, nor is it a style. Neither is pitch serialism necessarily incompatible with tonality, though it is most often used as a means of composing atonal music (Griffiths 2001, 116).
"Serial music" is a problematic term because it is used differently in different languages and especially because, shortly after its coinage in French, it underwent essential alterations during its transmission to German (Frisius 1998, 1327). The use of the word "serial" in connection with music was first introduced in French by
René LeibowitzRené Leibowitz was a French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher born in Warsaw, Poland.-Career:...
(1947), and immediately afterward by
Humphrey SearleHumphrey Searle was a British composer.-Biography:He was born in Oxford where he was a classics scholar before studying — somewhat hesitantly — with John Ireland at the Royal College of Music in London, after which he went to Vienna on a six month scholarship to become a private pupil of Anton...
in English, as an alternative translation of the German
Zwölftontechnik Twelve-tone techniqueTwelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
or
Reihenmusik (row music); it was independently introduced by
Herbert EimertHerbert Eimert was a German music theorist, musicologist, journalist, music critic, editor, radio producer, and composer.-Life:...
and Karlheinz Stockhausen into German in 1954 as
serielle Musik, with a different meaning, translated into English also as "serial music".
Twelve-tone serialism
Serialism of the first type is most specifically defined as the structural principle according to which a recurring series of ordered elements (normally a
setA set in music theory, as in mathematics and general parlance, is a collection of objects...
—or
rowIn 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...
—of pitches or pitch classes), which are used in order or manipulated in particular ways to give a piece unity. Serialism is often broadly applied to all music written in what Arnold Schoenberg called "The Method of Composing with Twelve Notes related only to one another" (Schoenberg 1975, 218; Anon. [n.d.]), or dodecaphony, and methods that evolved from his methods. It is sometimes used more specifically to apply only to music where at least one other element other than pitch is subjected to being treated as a row or series. In such usages
post-Webernian serialism will be used to denote works that extend serial techniques to other elements of music. Other terms used to make the distinction are
12-note serialism for the former, and
integral serialism for the latter.
A row may be assembled pre-compositionally (perhaps to embody particular intervallic or symmetrical properties), or it may be derived from a spontaneously invented thematic or motivic idea.
The basic set may have additional restrictions, such as the requirement that it use each
intervalIn music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...
only once.
Non-twelve-tone serialism
Rules of analysis derived from twelve-tone theory do not apply to serialism of the second type: "in particular the ideas, one, that the series is an intervallic sequence, and two, that the rules are consistent" (Maconie 2005, 119). Stockhausen, for example, in early serial compositions such as
Kreuzspiel and
Formel, "advances in unit sections within which a preordained set of pitches is repeatedly reconfigured. . . . The composer’s model for the distributive serial process corresponds to a development of the Zwölftonspiel of Josef Matthias Hauer" (Maconie 2005, 56), and Goeyvaerts, in such a work as
Nummer 4,
provides a classic illustration of the distributive function of seriality: 4 times an equal number of elements of equal duration within an equal global time is distributed in the most equable way, unequally with regard to one another, over the temporal space: from the greatest possible coïncidence to the greatest possible dispersion. This provides an exemplary demonstration of that logical principle of seriality: every situation must occur once and only once. (Sabbe 1977, 114)
For
Henri PousseurHenri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...
, after an initial period working with twelve-tone technique in works like
Sept Versets (1950) and
Trois Chants sacrés (1951), serialism
evolved away from this bond in Symphonies pour quinze Solistes [1954–55] and in the Quintette [à la mémoire d’Anton Webern, 1955], and from around the time of Impromptu [1955] encounters whole new dimensions of application and new functions.
The twelve-tone series loses its imperative function as a prohibiting, regulating, and patterning authority; its working-out is abandoned through its own constant-frequent presence: all 66 intervallic relations among the 12 pitches being virtually present. Prohibited intervals, like the octave, and prohibited successional relations, such as premature note repetitions, frequently occur, although obscured in the dense contexture. The number twelve no longer plays any governing, defining rôle; the pitch constellations no longer hold to the limitation determined by their formation. The dodecaphonic series loses its significance as a concrete model of shape (or a well-defined collection of concrete shapes) is played out. And the chromatic total remains active only, and provisionally, as a general reference. (Sabbe 1977, 264)
History of serial music
Serialism first appeared in the 1920s, with antecedents predating that year. Schoenberg was the composer most decisively involved in devising and demonstrating the fundamentals of twelve-tone serialism, though it is clear it is not the work of just one musician (Whittall 2008, 1).
The serialization of
rhythmRhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
,
dynamicsIn music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
, and other elements of music was partly fostered by the work of
Olivier MessiaenOlivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
and his analysis students, including
Karel GoeyvaertsKarel Goeyvaerts was a Belgian composer.-Life:After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, Goeyvaerts studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen...
and Boulez, in post-war
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
Twelve-tone music
In the early 20th century composers began to struggle against the ordered system of chords and intervals known as "functional
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...
", in an effort to find new forms of expression and underlying structural organizing principles (
Delahoyd [n.d.]).
Serialism and high modernism
Serialism, along with
John CageJohn Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
's indeterminate music (music composed with the use of chance operations), and
Werner Meyer-EpplerWerner Meyer-Eppler , was a German physicist, experimental acoustician, phoneticist, and information theorist....
's
aleatoricismAleatoric music is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer...
, was enormously influential in post-war music. Theorists such as
George PerleGeorge Perle was a composer and music theorist. He was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. Perle was an alumnus of DePaul University...
codified serial systems, and his 1962 text
Serial Composition and Atonality became a standard work on the origins of serial composition in the work of Schoenberg,
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...
and Webern.
Several of the composers associated with Darmstadt, notably Karlheinz Stockhausen,
Karel GoeyvaertsKarel Goeyvaerts was a Belgian composer.-Life:After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, Goeyvaerts studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen...
, and
Henri PousseurHenri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...
developed a form of serialism that initially rejected the recurring rows characteristic of twelve-tone technique, in order to eradicate any lingering traces of
thematicismIn music, a theme is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based.-Characteristics:A theme may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work in which it is found . In contrast to an idea or motif, a theme is...
(Felder 1977, 92). Instead of a recurring, referential row, "each musical component is subjected to control by a series of numerical proportions" (Morgan 1975, 3). In Europe, the style of some serial as well as non-serial music of the early 1950s emphasized the determination of all parameters for each note independently, often resulting in widely spaced, isolated "points" of sound, an effect called first in German "
punktuellePunctualism is a style of musical composition prevalent in Europe between 1949 and 1955 "whose structures are predominantly effected from tone to tone, without superordinate formal conceptions coming to bear"...
Musik" ("pointist" or "punctual music"), then in French "musique ponctuelle", but quickly confused with "
pointillisticPointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
" (German "pointillistische", French "pointilliste") the familiar term associated with the densely packed dots in paintings of Seurat, despite the fact that the conception was at the opposite extreme (Stockhausen and Frisius 1998, 451).
Pieces were structured by closed sets of proportions, a method closely related to certain works from the
de StijlDe Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
and
Bauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
movements in design and architecture called "
serial artSerial art is an art movement in which uniform elements or objects were assembled in accordance with strict modular principles. The composition of serial art is a systematic process....
" by some writers (Bochner 1967, Gerstner 1964, Guderian 1985, Sykora 1983), specifically the paintings of
Piet MondrianPieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
,
Theo van DoesburgTheo van Doesburg was a Dutch artist, practicing in painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl.-Biography:-Early life:...
, Bart van Leck, Georg van Tongerloo, Richard Paul Lohse, and
Burgoyne DillerBurgoyne A. Diller was an American abstract painter. Many of his best-known works are characterized by orthogonal geometric forms that reflect his strong interest in the De Stijl movement and the work of Piet Mondrian in particular...
, who had been seeking to “avoid repetition and symmetry on all structural levels and working with a limited number of elements” (Bandur 2001, 54).
Stockhausen described the final synthesis in this manner:
So serial thinking is something that's come into our consciousness and will be there forever: it's relativity and nothing else. It just says: Use all the components of any given number of elements, don't leave out individual elements, use them all with equal importance and try to find an equidistant scale so that certain steps are no larger than others. It's a spiritual and democratic attitude toward the world. The stars are organized in a serial way. Whenever you look at a certain star sign you find a limited number of elements with different intervals. If we more thoroughly studied the distances and proportions of the stars we'd probably find certain relationships of multiples based on some logarithmic scale or whatever the scale may be. (Cott 1973, 101)
Igor Stravinsky's adoption of twelve-tone serial techniques offers an example of the level of influence that serialism had after the Second World War. Previously Stravinsky had used series of notes without rhythmic or harmonic implications (Shatzkin 1977). Because many of the basic techniques of serial composition have analogs in traditional counterpoint, uses of inversion, retrograde and retrograde inversion from before the war are not necessarily indicative of Stravinsky adopting Schoenbergian techniques. However with his meeting
Robert CraftRobert Lawson Craft is an American conductor and writer. He is best known for his intimate working friendship with Igor Stravinsky, a relationship which resulted in a number of recordings and books.-Life:...
and acquaintance with younger composers, Stravinsky began to consciously study Schoenberg's music, as well as the music of Webern and later composers, and began to use the techniques in his own work, using, for example, serial techniques applied to fewer than 12 notes. Over the course of the 1950s he used procedures related to Messiaen, Webern and Berg. While it is difficult to label each and every work as "serial" in the strict definition, every major work of the period has clear uses and references to its ideas.
During this period, the concept of
serialism influenced not only new compositions but also the scholarly analysis of the classical masters. Adding to their professional tools of
sonata formSonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
and
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...
, scholars began to analyze previous works in the light of serial techniques; for example they found the use of row technique in previous composers going back to Mozart and Beethoven (Jalowetz 1944, 387; Keller 1955,
passim). In particular, the orchestral outburst that introduces the development section half-way through the last movement of
Mozart's next-to-last symphonyWolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his Symphony No. 40 in G minor, KV. 550, in 1788. It is sometimes referred to as the "Great G minor symphony," to distinguish it from the "Little G minor symphony," No. 25. The two are the only minor key symphonies Mozart wrote....
is a tone row that Mozart punctuates in a very modern and violent episode that
Michael SteinbergMichael Steinberg was an American music critic, musicologist, and writer. Born in Breslau, Germany , Steinberg left Germany as one of the Kindertransport child refugees...
called "rude octaves and frozen silences" (Steinberg 1998, 400).
Furthermore, the organizing principles of serialism inspired mathematical analogues, such as uses of set theory,
group theoryIn mathematics and abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as groups.The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as rings, fields, and vector spaces can all be seen as groups endowed with additional operations and...
, operators, and
parametrizationParameter from Ancient Greek παρά also “para” meaning “beside, subsidiary” and μέτρον also “metron” meaning “measure”, can be interpreted in mathematics, logic, linguistics, environmental science and other disciplines....
, for example in the post-war works of
Elliott CarterElliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
,
Iannis XenakisIannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
, and Witold Lutosławski. Likewise, the mathematical analogues in
integral serialism were influential in the development of
electronic musicElectronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
and synthesized music. The first European piece using
total serialism may have been
Nummer 2Nummer 2 for thirteen instruments is a composition written in 1951 by the Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts....
(1951) for 13 instruments by
Karel GoeyvaertsKarel Goeyvaerts was a Belgian composer.-Life:After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, Goeyvaerts studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen...
, although in America
Milton BabbittMilton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
's
Three Compositions for Piano (1947) is also credited with being the earliest total serial piece. On the other hand,
Ruth Crawford SeegerRuth Crawford Seeger , born Ruth Porter Crawford, was a modernist composer and an American folk music specialist.-Life:...
is credited with extending serial controls to parameters other than pitch and to formal planning as early as 1930–33 (Tick 2001).
Reactions to and against serialism
Some music theorists have criticized serialism on the basis that the compositional strategies employed are often incompatible with the way information is extracted by the human mind from a piece of music.
Nicolas RuwetNicolas Ruwet was a linguist, literary critic and musical analyst. He was involved with the development of generative grammar.Ruwet was born in Saive in Belgium and studied philology in Liège...
(1959) was one of the first to criticise serialism through a comparison with linguistic structures.
Henri PousseurHenri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...
(1959) questioned the equivalence made by Ruwet between phoneme and the single note, and suggested that analyses of serial compositions that Ruwet names as exceptions to his criticisms might "register the realities of perception more accurately." Later writers have continued Ruwet's line of reasoning. Fred Lerdahl, for example, outlines this subject further in his essay "
Cognitive Constraints on Compositional SystemsFred Lerdahl's "Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems" cites Pierre Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maître as an example of "a huge gap between compositional system and cognized result," though he "could have illustrated just as well with works by Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Luigi Nono,...
" (Lerdahl 1988). Lehrdahl has in turn been criticized for excluding "the possibility of other, non-hierarchical methods of achieving musical coherence," and for concentrating on the audibility of tone rows (Grant 2001, 219), and the portion of his essay focussing on Boulez's "multiplication" technique (exemplified in three movements of
Le Marteau sans maître) has been challenged on perceptual grounds by Stephen Heinemann (1998) and Ulrich Mosch (2004).
Within the community of modern music, exactly what constituted serialism was also a matter of debate. The conventional English usage is that the word "serial" applies to all 12-tone music, which is a subset of serial music, and it is this usage that is generally intended in reference works. Nevertheless, a large body of music exists that is called "serial" but does not employ note-rows at all, let alone twelve-tone technique (e.g., Stockhausen's
StimmungStimmung, for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale Köln. Its average length is seventy-four minutes, and it bears the work number 24 in the composer's catalog...
, Pousseur's
Scambi).
Theory of twelve-tone serial music
The vocabulary of serialism eventually became rooted in set theory, and uses a seemingly quasi-mathematical vocabulary to describe how the basic sets are manipulated to produce the final result. Musical
set theoryMusical set theory provides concepts for categorizing musical objects and describing their relationships. Many of the notions were first elaborated by Howard Hanson in connection with tonal music, and then mostly developed in connection with atonal music by theorists such as Allen Forte , drawing...
is often used to analyze and compose serial music, but may also be used to study
tonal musicTonality 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...
and nonserial
atonalAtonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
music.
The basis for serial composition is Schoenberg's
twelve-tone techniqueTwelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
, where the 12 notes of the basic chromatic scale are organized into a row. This "basic" row is then used to create permutations, that is, rows derived from the basic set by reordering its elements. The row may be used to produce a set of intervals, or a composer may have wanted to use a particular succession of intervals, from which the original row was created. A row that uses all of the intervals in their ascending form once is an all-interval row. In addition to permutations, the basic row may have some set of notes derived from it, which is used to create a new row, these are
derived sets.
Because there are tonal chord progressions that use all 12 notes, it is possible to create pitch rows with very strong tonal implications, and even to write tonal music using 12-tone technique. Most tone rows contain subsets that can imply a
pitch centerIn 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...
; a composer can create music centered on one or more of the row's constituent pitches by emphasizing or avoiding these subsets, respectively, as well as through other, more complex compositional devices (Newlin 1974; Perle 1977).
To serialize other elements of music, a system quantifying an identifiable element must be created or defined (this is called "
parametrizationParametrization is the process of deciding and defining the parameters necessary for a complete or relevant specification of a model or geometric object....
", after the term in mathematics). For example, if duration is to be serialized, then a set of durations must be specified. If tone colour is to be serialized, then a set of separate tone colours must be identified, and so on.
The selected set or sets, their permutations and derived sets form the basic material with which the composer works.
Composition using 12-tone serial methods focuses on each appearance of the collection of twelve chromatic notes, called an aggregate. (Sets of more or fewer pitches, or of elements other than pitch may be treated analogously.) The principle is that in a row, no element of the aggregate should be reused until all of the other members have been used, and each member must appear only in its place in the series. This rule is violated in numerous works still termed "serial".
An aggregate may be divided into subsets, and all the members of the aggregate not part of any one subset are said to be its
complement. A subset is
self-complementing if it contains half of the set and its complement is also a permutation of the original subset. This is most commonly seen with
hexachords or 6 notes of a basic tone row. A hexachord that is self-complementing for a particular permutation is referred to as
prime combinatorial. A hexachord that is self-complementing for all of the canonic operations—Inversion, Retrograde and Retrograde Inversion—is referred to as
all-combinatorial.
The composer then presents the aggregate. If there are multiple serial sets, or if several parameters are associated with the same set, then a presentation will have these values calculated. Large-scale design may be achieved through the use of combinatorial devices, for example, subjecting a subset of the basic set to a series of combinatorial devices.
Notable composers
- Hans Abrahamsen
Hans Abrahamsen is a Danish composer.Born in Copenhagen, Abrahamsen first got to know music through playing the French horn at school. He went on to study music theory at the Royal Danish Academy of Music...
- Gilbert Amy
Gilbert Amy is a French composer and conductor. In 1954 he entered the Conservatoire de Paris where he was taught and influenced by Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud and studied piano with Yvonne Loriod and fugue with Simone Plé-Caussade. His first compositions date from 1955...
- Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...
- Denis ApIvor
Denis ApIvor was a British composer. He belonged to the generation of modernists that included Humphrey Searle and Elisabeth Lutyens....
- Hans Erich Apostel
Hans Erich Apostel was a German-born Austrian composer of classical music....
- Kees van Baaren
Kees van Baaren was a Dutch composer and teacher.Van Baaren was born in Enschede. His early studies were in Berlin with Rudolph Breithaupt and Friedrich Koch at the Stern conservatory. After returning to the Netherlands in 1929, he studied with Willem Pijper...
- Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
- Osvaldas Balakauskas
Osvaldas Balakauskas is a Lithuanian composer of classical music.- Career :Balakauskas graduated from Vilnius Pedagogical University in 1961. After his mandatory service in the Soviet Army between 1961 and 1964, he studied composition with Boris Lyatoshinsky and M. M. Skorik at Kiev Conservatory...
- Don Banks
Donald Oscar Banks was an Australian composer of concert, jazz, and commercial music.He initially studied at the University of Melbourne, then moved to London where he studied with Mátyás Seiber...
- Jean Barraqué
Jean-Henri-Alphonse Barraqué was a French composer and writer on music who developed an individual form of serialism which is displayed in a small output of highly complex but passionate works.-Life:...
- Jürg Baur
Jürg Baur was a German composer of classical music.-Education:Baur was born in Düsseldorf, where he achieved early recognition as a composer at the age of 18, when his First String Quartet was premiered at the Düsseldorf Hindenburg Secondary School by the then-famous Prisca Quartet...
- Alban Berg
Alban 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...
- Arthur Berger
Arthur Victor Berger was an American composer who has been described as a New Mannerist.-Biography:Born in New York City, of Jewish descent, Berger studied as an undergraduate at New York University, during which time he joined the Young Composer's Group, as a graduate student under Walter Piston...
- Erik Bergman
Erik Valdemar Bergman was an influential composer of classical music from Finland.Bergman's style ranged widely, from Romanticism in his early works to modernism and primitivism, among other genres...
- Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
- Konrad Boehmer
Konrad Boehmer is a Dutch composer and writer of German birth.Boehmer was born in Berlin. His music reflects his Marxist political agenda, which is made explicit in many of his writings from the late 1960s and 1970s...
- André Boucourechliev
André Boucourechliev was a French composer of Bulgarian origin.Born in Sofia, Boucourechliev studied piano at the Conservatory there. Subsequently he studied in Paris at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, where he later taught piano...
- Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
- Martin Boykan
Martin Boykan was born on April 12, 1931 in New York City. He is an American composer known for his chamber music as well as music for larger ensembles. He married the silverpoint artist Susan Schwalb in 1983.-Biography:...
- Ole Buck
Ole Buck is a Danish composer.Buck studied the piano from the age of twelve. He also made many early attempts at orchestral composition, eventually achieving a breakthrough at the age of 20 with Calligraphy for soprano and chamber orchestra...
- Jacques Calonne
Jacques Calonne is a Belgian artist, composer, singer, actor, logogramist, and writer.-Life:Calonne studied music from 1944–46 at the conservatories of Mons and Brussels, with amongst others the composer André Souris, who introduced him to the surrealist movement...
- Niccolò Castiglioni
Niccolò Castiglioni was an Italian composer, pianist, and writer on music.Castiglioni was born and raised in Milan, where he began studying piano at the age of 7. He received his performer's diploma from the Milan Conservatory in 1952, and graduated there in composition in 1953...
- Aldo Clementi
-Life:Aldo Clementi was born in Catania, Italy. He studied the piano, graduating in 1946. His studies in composition began in 1941, and his teachers included Alfredo Sangiorgi and Goffredo Petrassi. After receiving his diploma in 1954, he attended the Darmstadt summer courses from 1955 to 1962...
- Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
- Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions.-Biography:Dallapiccola was born at Pisino d'Istria , to Italian parents....
- Franco Donatoni
Franco Donatoni was an Italian composer.Born in Verona, he started studying violin at the age of seven, and frequented the local Music Academy...
- Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...
- Karlheinz Essl
Karlheinz Essl is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser and composition teacher.- Biography :Essl was born in Vienna. His studies at the University of Music in Vienna included: composition , electro-acoustic music and double bass...
- Franco Evangelisti
Franco Evangelisti , was an Italian composer specifically interested in the scientific theories behind sound.-Biography:...
- Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation which features in all his works...
- Irving Fine
Irving Gifford Fine was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neo-classical, romantic and, later, serial elements...
- Wolfgang Fortner
Wolfgang Fortner was a German composer, composition teacher and conductor.-Life:Fortner was born in Leipzig. From his parents - both singers - Fortner very early on had intense contact with music...
- Roberto Gerhard
Robert Gerhard i Ottenwaelder was a Catalan Spanish composer and musical scholar and writer, generally known outside Catalonia as Robert Gerhard.-Life:...
- Frans Geysen
-Biography:Frans Geysen was born in Oostham, and studied music at the Lemmens Institute in Mechelen, and at the conservatories of Antwerp and Ghent. In 1962 he became professor of harmony and analysis at the Lemmens Institute, and since 1975 has taught at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels...
- Alberto Ginastera
Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important Latin American classical composers.- Biography :...
- Lucien Goethals
-Life:Lucien Goethals was born in Ghent, but spent his formative years in Argentina, where he studied at the Dima Conservatory of Buenos Aires. When he returned to Belgium, he continued his studies at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent up to 1956, where he earned his first prize in organ, music...
- Karel Goeyvaerts
Karel Goeyvaerts was a Belgian composer.-Life:After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, Goeyvaerts studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen...
- Glenn Gould
Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach...
- Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen
-Biography:Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and is the son of the sculptor Jørgen Gudmundsen-Holmgreen. He studied at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen, with Høffding, Westergaard, and Hjelmborg, graduating in 1958 .He won the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1980...
- Cesar Guerra-Peixe
César Guerra-Peixe was a Brazilian violinist and composer.Guerra-Peixe was born in Petrópolis, son of Portuguese immigrants with gypsy origins. As a composer he wrote influenced by Hans-Joachim Koellreutter several works using straight twelve-tone technique, but switched in 1949 to adapt...
- Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison...
- Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey is a British composer. He has held teaching positions at universities and music conservatories in Europe and the USA and is frequently invited to teach in summer schools around the world.-Life:...
- Hermann Heiss
Hermann Heiss is a German composer. He studied with Josef Matthias Hauer and was also self-taught. Hauer dedicated his book Twelve-Tone Technique to Heiss. He later taught twelve-tone music at Darmstadt and composed electronic music at Cologne....
- Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
- York Höller
York Höller is a German composer and Professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln.-Biography:Between 1963 and 1970 Höller studied at the Cologne Musikhochschule: composition with Joachim Blume and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, piano with Else Schmitz-Gohrand Alfons Kontarsky, and orchestral...
- Heinz Holliger
Heinz Holliger Heinz Holliger Heinz Holliger (born 21 May 1939 is a Swiss oboist, composer and conductor.-Biography:He was born in Langenthal, Switzerland, and began his musical education at the conservatories of Bern and Basel. He studied composition with Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez...
- Bill Hopkins
G.W. Hopkins was a British composer, pianist and music critic.Hopkins was born in Prestbury, Cheshire and educated at Rossall School, Lancashire; his mother's learning difficulties meant she was unable to look after him, and he was raised by aunts...
- Klaus Huber
Klaus Huber is a Swiss composer.Huber was born in Bern, Switzerland. One of the leading figures of his generation in Europe, he has written extensively for chamber ensembles, choirs, soloists and the orchestra as well as the theater...
- Karel Husa
Karel Husa is a Czech-born classical composer and conductor, winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize and 1993 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition...
- Hanns Jelinek
Hanns Jelinek was an Austrian composer of Czech descent who is also known under the pseudonym Hanns Elin....
- Ben Johnston
- Nikolai Karetnikov
Nikolai Nikolayevich Karetnikov , was a Russian composer of the so-called Underground – alternative or nonconformist group in Soviet music.-Biography:...
- Rudolf Kelterborn
Rudolf Kelterborn is a Swiss musician and composer.-Life:Kelterborn studied in Basel, Detmold, Salzburg, and Zürich, among other places, with the composers Walther Geiser, Willy Burkhard, Boris Blacher, Günter Bialas, and Wolfgang Fortner...
- Gottfried Michael Koenig
Gottfried Michael Koenig is a contemporary German-Dutch composer.-Biography:Koenig studied church music in Braunschweig, composition, piano, analysis and acoustics in Detmold, music representation techniques in Cologne and computer technique in Bonn. He attended and later lectured at the...
- Józef Koffler
Józef Koffler was a Polish composer, music teacher, musicologist and musical columnist.He was the first Polish composer living before the Second World War to apply the twelve tone composition technique .- Biography :...
- Ernst Krenek
Ernst 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...
- René Leibowitz
René Leibowitz was a French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher born in Warsaw, Poland.-Career:...
- Ingvar Lidholm
Ingvar Natanael Lidholm is a Swedish composer.Ingvar Lidholm was born in Jönköping. He was a pupil of Hilding Rosenberg from 1943 to 1945, becoming a viola player with the Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra. Having been awarded the Jenny Lind Fellowship for 1946–7, he travelled to France, Switzerland...
- John McGuire
John McGuire is an American composer, pianist, organist, and music editor.-Biography:John McGuire initially studied composition with Robert Gross at Occidental College, where he earned a BA in 1964. He received a succession of three Alfred E...
- Bruno Maderna
Bruno Maderna was an Italian conductor and composer. For the last ten years of his life he lived in Germany and eventually became a citizen of that country.-Biography:...
- Ursula Mamlok
Ursula Mamlok is a German-born, American composer and teacher.-Education and influences:Mamlok was born as Ursula Meyer in Berlin, Germany and studied piano and composition with Professor Gustav Ernest and Emily Weissgerber until her family fled Nazi Germany following the nationwide pogrom in 1938...
- Philippe Manoury
Philippe Manoury is a French composer.-Biography:Philippe Manoury was born in Tulle. His first composition studies were at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, with Gérard Condé and Max Deutsch. He continued his studies from 1974 to 1978 at the Conservatoire de Paris with Michel Philippot, Ivo...
- Donald Martino
Donald Martino was a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer.Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Martino studied composition with Ernst Bacon, Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, and Luigi Dallapiccola...
- Paul Méfano
Paul Méfano , is a French composer and conductor.-Biography:Paul Méfano pursued musical studies at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, and then later at the Paris Conservatory , where he was a student of Andrée Vaurabourg-Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Georges Dandelot...
- Jacques-Louis Monod
Jacques-Louis Monod is an influential French-born, American domiciled composer, pianist and conductor of 20th century and contemporary music.-Paris 1940s: early years under Messiaen and Leibowitz:...
- Robert Morris
Robert Morris is an American composer and music theorist.-Work in music theory:As a music theorist, Morris' work has bridged an important gap between the rigorously academic and the highly experimental. Born in Cheltenham, England in 1943, Morris received his musical education at the Eastman...
- Luigi Nono
Luigi Nono was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music and remains one of the most prominent composers of the 20th century.- Early years :Born in Venice, he was a member of a wealthy artistic family, and his grandfather was a notable painter...
- Per Nørgård
Per Nørgård is a Danish composer.-Biography:Nørgård studied with Vagn Holmboe at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and subsequently with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. To begin with, he was strongly influenced by the Nordic styles of Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen and Vagn Holmboe...
- Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
- Goffredo Petrassi
Goffredo Petrassi was an Italian composer of modern classical music, conductor, and teacher. He is considered one of the most influential Italian composers of the twentieth century.-Life:...
- Michel Philippot
Michel Paul Philippot was a French composer, mathematician, acoustician, musicologist, aesthetician, broadcaster, and educator.-Life:...
- Walter Piston
Walter Hamor Piston Jr., , was an American composer of classical music, music theorist and professor of music at Harvard University whose students included Leroy Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, and Elliott Carter....
- Henri Pousseur
Henri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...
- Roger Reynolds
Roger Reynolds is an American composer born July 18, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan. He is a professor at the University of California at San Diego. He received an undergraduate degree in engineering physics from the University of Michigan where he later studied composition with Ross Lee Finney...
- Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
- George Rochberg
George Rochberg was an American composer of contemporary classical music.-Life:Rochberg was born in Paterson, New Jersey. He attended the Mannes College of Music, where his teachers included George Szell and Hans Weisse, and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Rosario Scalero and...
- Claudio Santoro
Cláudio Franco de Sá Santoro was an internationally renowned Brazilian composer and violinist.-Early life:...
- Peter Schat
Peter Schat was a Dutch composer.Schat studied composition with Kees van Baaren at the conservatories in Utrecht and The Hague from 1952 until 1958, and then went on to study in London with Mátyás Seiber in 1959 and with Pierre Boulez in Basle in 1960–61...
- Dieter Schnebel
Dieter Schnebel is a composer. From 1976 until his retirement in 1995, Schnebel served as professor of experimental music at the Berlin Hochschule der Künste.-Career:...
- Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, considered the founder of serialism
- Humphrey Searle
Humphrey Searle was a British composer.-Biography:He was born in Oxford where he was a classics scholar before studying — somewhat hesitantly — with John Ireland at the Royal College of Music in London, after which he went to Vienna on a six month scholarship to become a private pupil of Anton...
- Ruth Crawford Seeger
Ruth Crawford Seeger , born Ruth Porter Crawford, was a modernist composer and an American folk music specialist.-Life:...
- Mátyás Seiber
Mátyás György Seiber was a Hungarian-born composer who lived and worked in England from 1935 onward.-Career:Seiber was born in Budapest, and studied there with Zoltán Kodály, with whom he toured Hungary collecting folk songs. In 1928, he became director of the jazz department at the Hoch...
- Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...
- Nikos Skalkottas
- Roger Smalley
Roger Smalley AM is a British-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley is currently a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in Perth and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney.-Biography:Smalley was born in Swinton, Lancashire,...
- Ann Southam
Ann Southam, CM was a Canadian composer.She was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2010. She died, aged 73, on 25 November 2010...
- Leopold Spinner
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- Karlheinz Stockhausen
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- Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
- Robert Suderburg
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- Richard Swift
- Camillo Togni
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- Gilles Tremblay
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- Fartein Valen
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- Wladimir Vogel
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- Anton Webern
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- Hugo Weisgall
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- Peter Westergaard
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- Stefan Wolpe
Stefan Wolpe was a German-born composer.-Life:Wolpe was born in Berlin. He attended the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory from the age of fourteen, and the Berlin Hochschule für Musik in 1920-1921. He studied composition under Franz Schreker and was also a pupil of Ferruccio Busoni...
- Charles Wuorinen
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- La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
Further reading
- Gollin, Edward. 2007. "Multi-Aggregate Cycles and Multi-Aggregate Serial Techniques in the Music of Béla Bartók." Music Theory Spectrum 29, no. 2 (Fall): 143–76.
- Gredinger, Paul. 1955. "Das Serielle". Die Reihe
Die Reihe was a German-language music journal, edited by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen and published by Universal Edition between 1955 and 1962 . An English edition was published, under the original German title, between 1957 and 1968 by the Theodore Presser Company , in association...
1 ("Elektronische Musik"): 34–41. English as "Serial Technique", translated by Alexander Goehr. Die Reihe 1 ("Electronic Music"), (English edition 1958): 38–44.
- Rahn, John. 1980. Basic Atonal Theory. New York: Schirmer Books.
- Savage, Roger W. H. 1989. Structure and Sorcery: The Aesthetetics of Post-War Serial Composition and Indeterminancy. Outstanding Dissertations in Music from British Universities. New York: Garland Publications. ISBN 0-8240-2041-3.
- Schoffman, Nathan. 1981. "Serialism in the Works of Charles Ives". Tempo, new series, no. 138 (September): 21–32.
- Scruton, Roger. 1997. Aesthetics of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-816638-9. Quoted in Arved Ashbey, The Pleasure of Modernist Music (University of Rochester Press, 2004) p. 122. ISBN 1-58046-143-3.
- White, Eric Walter, and Jeremy Noble. 1984. "Stravinsky". In The New Grove Modern Masters. London: Macmillan.
External links
- Art of the States: serial/twelve-note serial and/or twelve-note works by American composers.
- The tone row in the last movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 40. Beginning at Bar 128 on page 54, the tone row
In 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...
might be the following: B, C, D, E, F, B, C, F, G, A, E, G—where the exposition of the last three notes of the tone row trails into the sounding of the A major dominant chord for the D minor development section that follows. The first page of Mozart's Symphony No. 40Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his Symphony No. 40 in G minor, KV. 550, in 1788. It is sometimes referred to as the "Great G minor symphony," to distinguish it from the "Little G minor symphony," No. 25. The two are the only minor key symphonies Mozart wrote....
can be found at this link.