The Classical Music Book

264

MUSICALLY, THERE IS

NOT A SINGLE CENTER OF

GRAVITY IN THIS PIECE

SYMPHONIE, OP. 21 ( 1927 –19 28 ),

ANTON VON WEBERN

S

ince Arnold Schoenberg

(1874 –1951) developed his

method of composing works

“with 12 notes related only to each

other,” serial music has remained

contentious territory. Although the

terms “serial” and “12-note” are

sometimes used interchangeably,

they emphasize subtle musical

differences. “Twelve-tone music”

is a mistranslation of the word

Zwölftonmusik: in German, Ton

can mean “note,” “tone,” or “sound.”

Serialism, on the other hand,

means “notes deployed in series.”

In that sense, argued Anton von

Webern, Schoenberg’s former pupil,

serialism was deeply rooted in the

musical tradition. The overlapping

repetitions of a “round” song like

“Frère Jacques” or “London’s

burning” are serial music—as are

a choral motet by the Renaissance

master Palestrina, or a keyboard

fugue by Bach.

Webern’s method

Twelve-note music first developed

from the “atonal” chromatic idiom

explored by Webern and his

contemporaries. Freedom from

traditional tonality had brought

exciting new possibilities—and

also the risk of musical anarchy,

with conventional melody or

harmony now abandoned. Webern’s

instinct was to rationalize the

situation. His 12-note method is

about creating a musical work out

of a “row” consisting of all 12 notes

Anton Webern (right) poses with

his fellow student in Vienna, Alban

Berg. Webern, Berg, and Schoenberg

were the principal composers of the

Second Viennese School.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Serialism

BEFORE

1908 Arnold Schoenberg

enters new and modernist

harmonic territory in the last

two movements of his String

Quartet No. 2.

1921–1923 In his Suite for

Piano, Op. 25, Schoenberg

evolves a complete musical

statement from a chosen

sequence of the 12 notes of

the Western chromatic scale.

AFTER

1932 Schoenberg completes

the first two acts of the first-

ever fully 12-note opera, Moses

und Aron.

1955 Pierre Boulez’s Le

marteau sans maître (“The

hammer without a master”)

is the first masterpiece of the

“post-serial” music championed

by the new, Webern-influenced

avant-garde generation.

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