The Search for New Sounds:

From Atonality to Twelve-tone

Expressionism and Serialism
The Search for New Sounds
(1890-1945)
Impressionism Symbolism

Nationalism Primitivism Neoclassicism

Serialism
Expressionism
 Learning Outcome
• Understand atonal and 12-tone music as a search for
new sounds in the early 20th century in relation to other
contemporary attempts such as primitivism and
neoclassicism.
• Explain expressionism and its relationship to
Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire
• Explain 12-tone music and its techniques as evident in
Schönberg’s Piano Suite, Op. 25
• Know the composers of the Second Viennese School
• Know the stylistic features of Webern’s music
 Expressionism
• Artistic movement emerged from the late 19th
century in Germany.
• Represented by works of Edvard Munch -- The
Scream (1893), Kokoschka, and Kandinsky.
• Expressionistic works explored intense emotions
through the subject matters as well as the
techniques.
• In music, expressionism refers to Schönberg’s
atonal period works composed prior to 1916.
Edvard Munch --
The Scream (1893)
 Arnold Schoenberg / Schönberg
(1874-1951)
• Austrian composer, music theorist,
painter, pedagogue.
• Leader of the Second Viennese
School.
• Invented the 12-tone system.
• His works were condemned by the
Nazi Party due to their modernistic
approach.
• He emigrated to the US in 1934 and
taught at UCLA.
Schönberg’s paintings

http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/schoenberg/asi.htm
 Schönberg as an expressionist
painter – self portraits from 1910

http://www.hnh.com/composer/schoenbe.htm
"I am a conservative who was
forced to become a radical"

-- Schoenberg described himself.

 Schönberg (Schoenberg)
the Romantic
• Tonality pushed to the limits in the works of
the post-romantic composers.
• Schönberg was a successor to the post-
romantic tradition of Mahler and Strauss
• Early works (before 1900) used the post-
romantic musical language.
– Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) (1889)
• One movement string-sextet inspired by Richard Dehmel's poem
– Pelleas und Melisande (1903) (symphonic poem)
– Guerrlieder (1901-1911) (A choral symphony)
 Atonality / Expressionism
• Schoenberg’s style went through some changes in around
1905.
• Musical characteristics show parallels to features in the
expressionistic paintings.
• Some of the works from this period:
– Erwartung (Waiting) (1909)
– Pierrot lunaire (1912)
• Musical characteristics show parallels to features in the
expressionistic paintings.
– smaller performing forces
– emphasized on quick change of instrumental colors
– The rhythm and counterpoint became very complex.
– Used fragmented melodic lines.
– Used very focused musical materials, such as the first string quartet
entails themes derived from a few motives.
 Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire
• For voice and a small ensemble
of eight instruments played by
five players;
• Song cycle but Melodrama-like
• Text: Hartleben’s translation of
Albert Giraud’s cycle of poems.
• Actress Albertine Zehme
commissioned and premiered it.
• In three parts, each with seven
pieces. [3x7=21]
• 1) Pierrot’s lonely world
Pierrot, comic
• 2) Preoccupation with the idea of death
character of
• 3) Returning to commedia dell’arte commedia dell’arte
 Pierrot lunaire, Op.21: No.8,
Nacht (Night) (1912)
• Atonal work – no pitch is the
tonal center
• Use of sprechstimme
(speaking voice), a cross
between speaking and singing
• The opening three note motive
– “E-G-Eb” forms the basis of
the rest of the movement – a
technique known as
‘developing variation’ -- the
motive can appear in many
different forms.
• This motive appears as
ostinato here and there played
by the piano left hand.
Schönberg and 12-tone Music
• Composed no works from 1916-1923.
• He was concerned with the direction of
musical development: what to replace
tonality as an organizing force in musical
composition?
• Confided to his student in 1921 about the
system he was to introduce.
• First 12-tone work, Suite for Piano Op. 25
(1923). Why Twelve-Tone
Nathan Nokes
 12-tone system / Serialism
The 12-tone system as
(Dodecaphony) explained by Naviglec

• Each composition is based on a pre-compositional arrangement

of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale in a certain order. The
produced ‘melody’ is known as a ‘tone row’.
• The idea is not to repeat any notes in a tone row, so no note
acquires tonal importance.
• The tone row can be manipulated into three other forms, so a
total of 4 forms:
• prime
• retrograde
• inversion
• retrograde inversion
• Each form can be transposed to other pitches of the chromatic
scales. Thus a tone row can generate 48 different row forms.
Matrix (magic square)
for Op. 25
Schönberg, Suite for Piano, Op. 25
Four forms of the row used in Op. 25
Schönberg Suite for Piano, Op. 25
 12-tone techniques
• As pitch materials appearing in order.
• As a few separate groups of notes that can be
freely treated.
• Repeated to produce a desired effect.
• Schoenberg was particularly interested in
exploiting certain intervalic qualities of the row --
tritone relationships.
• Harmonic conception of the row is evident in a
number of works
• Combinatoriality – part of one form of a row
combines with part of another form of a row to
form a new row.
 Combinatoriality
• Combinatorial tone rows from Schönberg’s Moses und
Aron pairing complementary hexachords from P-0/I-3

Whittall, Arnold. 2008. The

Cambridge Introduction to
Serialism. Cambridge Introductions
to Music, p.103.
 Schönberg as a traditionalist
• Op. 25, is a suite utilizing the dance archetypes
of the Baroque period with the following
movements:
• Präludium (1921)
• Gavotte (1923)
• Musette (1923)
• Intermezzo (1921–1923)
• Menuett. Trio (1923)
• Gigue (1923)
• In Musette and Menuet he used exact repeats.
 Schönberg’s contribution
• The minds of the musicians, and of the
audiences, have to mature before they can
comprehend my music. I know this, I have
personally renounced an early success,
and I know that - success or not - it is my
historic duty to write what my destiny
orders me to write.

Arnold Schönberg in 1947.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/profiles/schoenberg.shtml
Alban Berg (1885-1935) Schönberg (1874-1951) Anton Webern (1883-1945)
 Alban Berg (1885-1935)
• Studied with Schoenberg from 1904-1911.
• Combined 12-tone and non-12-tone approaches in
a single work.
• Opera Wozzeck (1922) – based on Georg
Büchner’s play.
• String quartet “Lyric Suite” (1924-1925) - 6
movement, dedicated to Alexander von Zemlinsky,
whose Lyric Symphony is quoted in the piece, but
with a secret program.
• Violin Concerto (1935) – two-movement work,
used a diatonic row,

and quoted Bach’s Chorale “Es is genug” in the

last movement.
 Anton Webern (1883-1945)
• Studied with Schoenberg. Had also a degree in
musicology studying Renaissance music.
• Strong interest in canonic procedures.
– Symphony Op. 21 (1928) – integrated canon techniques into
his serial manipulation.
• Preferred certain row characteristics – second
hexachord is the retrograde inversion of the first.
• Favored ‘pointillistic’ texture – sparse texture with
disconnected notes.
• Very short works.
• Form of the work corresponds to the row structure.
• His approach to serialism anticipated total serialism.
Webern, Symphony Op. 21, first movement