An Outline of The History of Western Music Grout ... - The Reel Score

i- theorists later developed the concept of "pitch-class set" to describe the
collection of notes from which melodies or harmonies were formed
ii- arranged the notes in normal order, inverted, reverse, or in transposition
iii- holding to the set, gave the music a consistent sound
c) after 1923 he wrote music based upon the 12 Tone Row - which need not be
atonal and may observe a tonal center
2. Expressionism
a) Schoenberg & his pupil Alban Berg (1885-1935) were the chief exponents
b) like Impressionism, Expressionism is a term first used to describe painting
1: seeking to represent inner experience - as opposed the Impressionisms aim to
represent objects of the external world at a given moment
2: dealt with the emotional life of the modern person - isolated, helpless in the grip
of poorly understood forces, prey to inner conflict, tension, anxiety, fear, and all
the elemental irrational drives of the subconscious
3: grew out of the subjectivity of Romanticism
4: Berg's opera "Wozzeck" is an outstanding example
3. Twelve Tone Method (dodecaphonic)
a) as formulated by Schoenberg, it was a "method of composing with twelve tones
that are related only to one another"
1: basis for each compostition is a row or series consisting of the twelve tones or
pitch classes of the octave arranged in the order the composer chooses
2: the tones may be used both successively (as melody) and simultaneously (as
harmony or counterpoint)
i- in any octave
ii- any desired rhythm
3: the row may be used in its prime form (original) but also intervalically inverted
form, in retrograde order (backward), or retrograde inverted form - and in
transpositions of any of the four forms
b) the composer exhausts all twelve pitches of the series before going on to use the
series in any of its forms again
1: ultimately, it is intervals that count, not pitches
2: the unifying force between pitches (and the composition) is a basic set of
intervals and the motives created out of them
i- often broken into segments of three to six pitches
ii- these used to create melodic motives & chords
c) method may strike one as mechanical but the sensitivity and taste of the composer
governs choice from many possibilities
B. Alban Berg (1885-1935)
1. a pupil of Schoenberg
2. invested the 12 Tone technique with a warmth of feeling that gives it more immediate
impact than it had in the hands of other 12 Tone composers
C. Anton Webern (1883-1945)
1. a pupil of Schoenberg personifies the cool, constructive side of Schoenberg's method
2. passed through the stages of late Romantic chromaticism, free atonality
3. also used "pointillism"