Twelve-tone
composition
A technique in which the twelve pitches of the Western
chromatic scale are ordered in a series and used to generate
the harmonic material for a piece of music.
[Example 1: Dallapiccola: Quaderno Musicale di Annalibera, last mvt.]
Twelve-Tone Composition is a technique in which the twelve pitches of the Western chromatic scale are ordered in a series and used to generate the harmonic material for a piece of music. The series (sometimes called a "row" or a "12-tone row") attains its identity from the particular harmonic intervals between its successive pitches. The way the series sounds is entirely dependent on how the pitches are ordered. A series may sound tonal or atonal; however, almost all serial compositions are atonal.
Because the series comprises a specific succession of intervals between successive pitches, it maintains the ordering of those intervals when it is moved in its entirety to a higher or lower pitch -- that is, when it is transposed. Just as the major and minor scales have particular interval patterns that make them identifiable in different transpositions (which is why we hear tonal music in a major or minor mode regardless of its key), the series may be transposed and still be recognized as the same series.
(Move your cursor over the diagram, then hold it there while the music example plays.)
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Fig 1: Quaderno series:
original (gold lines) and transposition (blue). |
[Example 2: Quaderno series: (a) original; (b) transposition.]
In addition to transposition, the series can undergo several other sorts of transformations. Three others are common. The second transformation turns the series back-to-front by reversing the order of pitches in the series. This technique, called retrogression, produces a retrograde series.
(Cursor over.)
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Fig 2: Quaderno series:
original (upper) and retrograde (lower). |
[Example 3: Quaderno series: (a) original; (b) retrograde.]
The third transformation reverses the down-up direction of the intervals. It is called inversion. For example, if a series begins with an ascending perfect fourth [Example 3c] followed by descending minor third [Example 3d], then the inversion of that series will begin with a descending perfect fourth [Example 3e] followed by an ascending minor third [Example 3f]. The original sounds like this [Example 3g], and the inversion, like this. [Example 3h].
(Cursor over.)
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Fig 3: Quaderno series:
original (gold) and inversion (blue). |
[Example 4: Quaderno series: (a) original; (b) inversion.]
The fourth transformation is a combination of the last two, retrogression and inversion. The result is the series both back-to-front and upside-down.
(Cursor over.)
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Fig 4: Quaderno series:
original (upper) and retrograde-inversion
(lower). |
[Example 5: Quaderno series: (a) original; (b) retrograde inversion.]
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Fig
5: Luigi Dallapiccola. |
Using these four types of transformations (transposition, retrograde, inversion, retrograde inversion), 47 variants may be derived from the original series. The derived series are related because the interval pattern that results from the pitch ordering remains unchanged under these transformations.
In general twelve-tone compositional practice, the twelve pitches must be completely used up, one after another, before a new form of the series may begin. The composer is at liberty to deploy the pitches of his series in any manner, with regard to rhythm, register, dynamic, instrumentation, etc., providing that the order of pitches is maintained and one series is finished before the next begins. For example, in his Quaderno Musicale di Annalibera ("Musical Notebook for Annalibera," 1952) for piano, composer Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975) uses the series to compose a twelve-note melody.
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Fig
6: Quaderno left-hand
tune. |
[Example 6: Quaderno, mvt 3, left-hand tune.]
Dallapiccola also uses the series to compose three chords, each with four pitches.
[Example 7: Quaderno, mvt 8, chords in 3rd system.]
Homophonic and polyphonic textures (of both the imitative and non-imitative variety) may be created, by either dividing up the notes of a single series or simultaneously employing more than one form of the series. In the third movement of Quaderno Musicale, Dallapiccola writes a canon by overlapping entries of the same melody. This melody is built from the pitches of the series. You can hear the canon begin when the fourth note, the same note as the first note of the movement, begins the imitation.
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Fig
7: Quaderno tune (gold
lines) and canon (blue lines). |
[Example 8: Quaderno, mvt 3, opening.]
In the first movement of Quaderno Musicale, Dallapiccola uses the first two notes of the series as an ostinato that underlies a progression of chords that are assembled using the remaining pitches of the series.
[Example 9: Quaderno, mvt 1, opening.]
The way in which the series is employed in a composition is limited only by the composer's imagination.
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Fig 8: Schoenberg self
portrait. |
Twelve-tone composition was developed in the 1920s by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) as a means of organizing the harmonic materials in his atonal compositions. The earliest twelve-tone compositions were written by the Second Viennese School: Schoenberg and two of his exceptional students, Alban Berg (1885-1935) and Anton Webern (1883-1945). Although some uninformed critics asserted that all music written using the twelve-tone method would sound alike, these composers wrote vastly different sounding works, from Webern's pristine and delicate Symphony (1928) to Berg's tenderly romantic Violin Concerto (1935) which quotes a Bach chorale using twelve-tone transformations.
[Example 10: Berg: Violin Concerto, mvt 4: chorale It is Enough.]
Later, composers as diverse as Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) Karlheinz Stockhausen (b. 1928), Pierre Boulez (b. 1925), Milton Babbitt (b. 1916), and Luciano Berio (b. 1925) also used twelve-tone techniques in their compositions. It is important to remember that serialism is a compositional technique no more prescriptive than the tonal system. Just as Bach, Haydn, and Berlioz recognized the beauty and power of the organizational principles of the tonal system, so did the aforementioned 20th-century composers understand the fecundity of the twelve-tone system.
Summary:
- Twelve-tone composition is a technique of composition that uses a series (or row).
- A series is a specific ordering of the twelve pitches of the chromatic scale, without repetitions.
- A series attains its harmonic sound quality from the successive intervals that result from the ordered pitches.
- To derive related series, a series is typically subjected to four types of transformation: transposition, retrograde, inversion, and retrograde inversion. These transformations maintain the intervallic patterns that give a series its particular sound.
- In most twelve-tone compositions, all pitches of the series must be used before the next series may begin, unless more than one series is employed simultaneously.
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Visual & Sound Materials from the Gabe M. Wiener Music & Arts Library of Columbia University | |
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Twelve-tone composition written by:
Jason Eckardt Recording & Mixing: Terry Pender & Christopher Bailey |
Narration:
Thomas Payne Technology & Design: Maurice Matiz Piano Performance: Marilyn Nonken |