Page 266 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained
P. 266
264
MUSICALLY, THERE IS
NOT A SINGLE CENTER OF
GRAVITY IN THIS PIECE
SYMPHONIE, OP. 21 (1927–1928),
ANTON VON WEBERN
ince Arnold Schoenberg can mean “note,” “tone,” or “sound.”
IN CONTEXT (1874–1951) developed his Serialism, on the other hand,
S method of composing works means “notes deployed in series.”
FOCUS “with 12 notes related only to each In that sense, argued Anton von
Serialism
other,” serial music has remained Webern, Schoenberg’s former pupil,
BEFORE contentious territory. Although the serialism was deeply rooted in the
1908 Arnold Schoenberg terms “serial” and “12-note” are musical tradition. The overlapping
enters new and modernist sometimes used interchangeably, repetitions of a “round” song like
harmonic territory in the last they emphasize subtle musical “Frère Jacques” or “London’s
two movements of his String differences. “Twelve-tone music” burning” are serial music—as are
Quartet No. 2. is a mistranslation of the word a choral motet by the Renaissance
Zwölftonmusik: in German, Ton master Palestrina, or a keyboard
1921–1923 In his Suite for fugue by Bach.
Piano, Op. 25, Schoenberg
evolves a complete musical Webern’s method
statement from a chosen Twelve-note music first developed
sequence of the 12 notes of from the “atonal” chromatic idiom
the Western chromatic scale. explored by Webern and his
contemporaries. Freedom from
AFTER traditional tonality had brought
1932 Schoenberg completes exciting new possibilities—and
the first two acts of the first- also the risk of musical anarchy,
ever fully 12-note opera, Moses with conventional melody or
und Aron. harmony now abandoned. Webern’s
instinct was to rationalize the
1955 Pierre Boulez’s Le situation. His 12-note method is
marteau sans maître (“The about creating a musical work out
hammer without a master”) of a “row” consisting of all 12 notes
is the first masterpiece of the
“post-serial” music championed
by the new, Webern-influenced Anton Webern (right) poses with
avant-garde generation. his fellow student in Vienna, Alban
Berg. Webern, Berg, and Schoenberg
were the principal composers of the
Second Viennese School.
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