Marcel Duchamp, Replica of a Bicycle Wheel. Flower t

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3 Ss Schoenberg, Serialism andThe Second
Viennese School
Please take a handout
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Listening Quiz A. Piano Work by Arnold
Schoenberg?
B. That crazy Saunders playing random notes?
That's Music??
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Marcel Duchamp, Replica of a Bicycle Wheel
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Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means
something, language of a flow. Was it a daisy?
Innocence that is. Respectable girl meet after
mass. Thanks awfully muchly. Wise Bloom eyed on
the door a poster, a swaying mermaid smoking mid
nice waves. Smoke mermaids, coolest whiff of
all. James Joyce, Ulysses
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Green Piece, performance art by Johann
Bjogvinsson
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Arnold Schoenberg Trio from Suite for Piano
(1924)
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Arnold Schoenberg
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Serialism
Serial Composition
Twelve-tone Composition
Arnold Schoenberg
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• Schoenbergs Late Romantic (Tonal) Period

A. Until ca. 1908 Late or Post-Romanticism
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• Schoenbergs Late Romantic (Tonal) Period

A. Until ca. 1908 Late or Post-Romanticism
B. Important Early Works Verklärte Nacht
(Transfigured Night)
Guerrelieder
II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20)

• Schoenberg Rejects
• 1. Rules of Simultaneity (music not based
  on triads or
• traditional chords)

2. Rules for control of dissonances (no longer
need resolve)
3. Rules of Progression
B. The Gains 1. Freedom and Originality
2. Musical Language apt for Expressionist texts
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Madonna from Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire
Arise, O Mother of all sorrows On the altar of my
verse! Blood from your thin breast Has spilled
the rage of the sword. You eternally fresh
wounds Like eyes, red and open, Arise, O Mother
of all sorrows On the altar of my verse!
Instrumental Interlude In your thin and wasted
hands You hold the body of your Son To show him
to all mankind Yet the look of men avoids You, O
Mother of all sorrows.
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Pierrot lunaire and Sprechstimme
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• Schoenbergs Late Romantic (Tonal) Period

A. Until ca. 1908 Late or Post-Romanticism
B. Important Early Works Verklärte Nacht
(Transfigured Night)
Guerrelieder
II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20)

• Schoenberg Rejects
• 1. Rules of Simultaneity

2. Rules of Progression
B. The Gains 1. Freedom from rules of
tonal composition
2. Musical Language apt for Expressionist texts
C. The Tradeoffs 1. Tonal Expectation,
tricks dont operate
2. No Tonality as organizing principle
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III. Serial Period ca. 1920-

• Serialism (a.k.a twelve-tone composition)
  Compositional method developed by Schoenberg with
  students
• Alban Berg, Anton Webern

B. Second Viennese School Schoenberg, Berg,
Webern
C. Serial Composition Basics
1. Serial composition based on a 12-note series
(row, set)
2. Series or row contatains all 12 pitches used
only once
0 2 4 5 7 9
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1 3 6 8 10
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III. Serial Period ca. 1920-

• Serialism (a.k.a twelve-tone composition)
  Compositional method developed by Schoenberg with
  students
• Alban Berg, Anton Webern

B. Second Viennese School Schoenberg, Berg,
Webern
C. Serial Composition Basics
1. Serial composition based on a 12-note series
(row, set)
2. Series or row contatains all 12 pitches used
only once
3. Series 12 pitches ordered in particular order
4. Four forms of the row original P,
retrograde R, inversion I, retrograde
inversion RI
5. Transposition does not change basic row (index
numbers)
6. Set complex48 possible forms of the row
7. Serial Composition Perpetual Variation on
Forms of Row
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Arnold Schoenberg Trio from Suite for Piano
(1924)
Line 10 I-6
Line 2original row P
Line 9 P-6
Line 4 I
R-6
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IV. The Appeal of Serial Composition
(Ordering vs. Content)

• Tonal Music based on Content
• sound possibilities similar for all
  pieces (sound familiar?)

• Serial Music based on Ordering

order fixes available intervals ? each row
produces a different sound world
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IV. The Appeal of Serialism (cont.)
(Ordering vs. Content)
A. New Unique Sound Universe for Each Piece
B. Logic, System
C. Richness of Abstract Note Relationships
Serial work continuous variation of the row
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Arnold Schoenberg Trio from Suite for Piano,
Op. 21
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Listening Quiz A. Piano Work by Arnold
Schoenberg?
B. That crazy Saunders playing random notes?
Schoenberg Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19
(no. 6)
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