Two Different Compositional Approaches Adopted by Composers as a Reaction to Serialism
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Despite the fact that it has often been criticised and challenged by both critics and musicians, serialism offered composers new ways of creating music, and, at its commencement, moved deeply the establishment. It also opened the door and made our ears used to atonality in music.
In fact, since the middle-age, composers have always used the same pitch-based structure that they slowly made evolve, perfecting the rules of harmony, the structure of their compositions and possibilities in orchestration.
However, the early 19th century witnessed the birth of a music that is not only about rhythm and melody, notably with the Futurist movement in Italy or the american composer Charles Ives whom “Symphony number four” (1910-1916) revisits a classic compositional form with an impression of total musical fragmentation, a juxtaposition of themes harmonically and rhythmically different.
This is the context in which Arnold Schoenberg develops the idea of atonality in its music, starting with the concept of “schwebende tonalitat” or fluctuating tonality.(camridge companion) In his book “Harmoniliehere” he states : “If the key is to fluctuate, it will have to be established somewhere. but not too firmly; it should be loose enough to yield. Therefore it is advantageous to select two keys that have some chord in common.”(reference)
Another concept elaborated by Schoenberg during the same period is the idea of non-repetition, in “Erwartung”(1909) for instance that the american musicologist Phillip Friedheim describes as “Schoenbergs only lengthy work in an athematic style, where no musical material returns once stated over the course of 426 measures.”(reference)
Eager to organize atonal music, Arnold Schoenberg established a method that uses tone row and their inversion, retrograde or retrograde inversion. “The essay “Composition with Twelve Tones,” published a year before his death in the first edition of Style and Idea (1950), was his most substantial public statement.”(reference)
The most significant and direct follower of Schoenberg is one of his pupil in the second viennese school, Anton von Webern. Even if his work follows on from Schoenberg and uses the same dodecaphonic technique, Webern is regarded by many as an even more radical composer.
In Five Movements for string orchestra (1929) Webern differentiates himself from Schoenberg by composing a very short piece, that leaves behind repetition of theme and motive.(reference cambridrge 2201) The second movement of “Piano Variations” is a good example of Weberns different approach to twelve-tone method , it “uses only three dynamic markings and five varieties of rhythmic cell.” (1002 modern music)
With Webern each separate note, dynamic and timber takes on a new meaning, this prefigures what was called later total or integral serialism.
Alban Berg, another of Schoenbergs student uses the twelve tone technique in his compositions but combines it with non twelve tone technique, in “lyric suite” (1925-1926) Berg joins Schoenbergs method and romantic influences in order to create his own kind of serialism.
fter the second world war, the french composer and ornithologist Olivier Messiaen pushes Schoenbergs system forward, in “Modes de valeurs et dintensités”, second part of the piece called “Quatre études de rhythm”(1949-50), three new parameters : duration, amplitude and timbre are organized in a serial manner. (modern 966,3). In “Ile de feu II”, also from “quatre études..” Messiaen introduces another technique “where a sequence of twelve chromatic durations is permuted by taking values successively from the centre; that generates the first “interversion”, from which the second can be obtained by repeating the process.”(modern 979,3) Directly after this, Messiaen composed music made from birdsong : “Réveil des oiseaux”(1953) and “Catalogue doiseaux”(1956-58) are two good examples of this music inspired by his on-field study of birds.
Both disciple and influence of Messiaen, the french composer Pierre Boulez is a major figure of serialism and, in a broad sense played a considerable role in modern music. While he was still a young composer, Boulez wrote several publications where he criticises other composers, such as Schoenberg, Berg (griffiths 370) and even his own mentor Messiaen : “In a critical paragraph published in 1948, he concluded that Messiaen does not compose, he juxtaposes.”(Boulez,49) “Messiaen recalled that during this period Boulez was in revolt against everything.”(Samuel,199 griffith 384)
In “Quartet pour ondes Martenot”(1945) that Boulez composed for this modern instrument, the artist combines Schoenbergs