# the evolution of twelve tone systems and atonality



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I'm very ignorant about this argument. Normally the story goes that in the XX century there was Schoenberg, then Webern and the serialists, then the reaction against that with minimalism, with twelve tone system considered as a dead end street by many (ok, i know it's a simplification).

But i'm discovering that there are and were composers using different systems beside Schoemberg's. There was Joseph Matthias Hauer even before. There was Skalkottas who used a different system in great pieces like Largo sinfonico. George Perle who used a system called twelve tone tonality, who said "Schoenberg's idea of the series seemed so primitive compared to mine". There was even a jazz composer and arranger, Lyle Spud Murphy, who developed a "melodic" 12-tone system (that could be listened on his album gone with the woodwinds).
And there were also other composers like Fartein Valen, Matthijs Vermeulen, Dane Rudhyar and the more famous Scriabin that had their different approaches with atonality. I'd like to know if there is someone else that i need to listen... and please excuse my poor english


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2011)

You say you're ignorant, but then you go on to mention composers that many people have never even heard of!

But here are a _few_ names that you didn't mention.

Egon Wellesz--it's fun to listen to his symphonies from first to last as he gets progressively more dodecaphonic.

Goffredo Petrassi--it's fun to listen to his concerti for orchestra from first to last as he gets progressively more dodecaphonic.

Roberto Gerhard--the Skalkottas of Spain (and England, where he relocated)

Pierre Boulez--surely you know about Boulez

Karlheinz Stockhausen--surely you know about Stockhausen

Milton Babbitt--even more (in)famous than George Perle (and possibly more important historically if not musically. Musical historically.)

Copland and Stravinsky dabbled in twelve-tone near the ends of their careers. Good illustration of how individual twelve-tone technique allowed composers to be, in contrast to the canard.

Roger Sessions--even more rigorous and consistent than Copland and Stravinsky.

The term "atonality" is troublesome. It was coined by an antagonistic journalist who meant it as derogation. It doesn't really describe anything musical. If it did, it might be some sort of oxymoron like "free dodecaphony." It would include a few post-common practice/pre-dodecaphonic pieces by Schoenberg. And could include any number of twentieth and twenty-first century composers, from Varese to Ferrari.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Ive also heard the term atonality thrown around with guys like Charles Ives and Debussy. But like yourself its a subject Im not very educated on.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some guy said:


> You say you're ignorant, but then you go on to mention composers that many people have never even heard of!
> 
> But here are a _few_ names that you didn't mention.
> 
> ...


thank you. I really like the symphonies of wellesz. I know very little about Gerhard (i've discovered only recently his violin concerto and it seems to me a very interesting work, it reminds me of Berg's). 
Same for Babbitt, i've listened only few works years and i've mixed feelings, there was something that i didn't like at all (sorry but now i don't remember even what works were) but i remember his "jazzy " All set fascinating. 
I think that of this list i've never heard nothing of Petrassi, so if you have suggestions about some of his works (and Gerhard and Babbitt and Sessions) you're welcome 

Anyway i think that my previous post was not that clear, because i'm interested not only in atonality but in different uses of harmony (for example the music of Lyle spud Murphy is an original system called 12 tone system but it's all but atonal)


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2011)

There's a two CD set of all eight concerti for orchestra by Petrassi, so that makes the listening in sequence thing I mentioned easy to do. Just push "Play"!

Gerhard has serial (loosely speaking) and tonal (loosely speaking) works. I have no idea what will thrill you on first hearing. I was thrilled by the 3rd symphony (_Collages_) when I heard it. Unfortunately, the best recording of that (the best balance between tape and ensemble) has only appeared on LP. It's with Prausnitz and the BBC Orchestra on Angel. Fortunately, that LP is not at all difficult to find. Vinyl Renaissance has one for only 9USD.

If you're set up (as I now am) for CDs only, Bamert and the BBC Orchestra have done a decent recording for Chandos. There's quite a lot of Gerhard on Chandos, which is about all that Amazon shows as being available, though you can still find the pioneering (on CD that is) series on Auvidis Montaigne, particularly that label's issue of _Pandora,_ which I think is far better than Bamert's.

The reissues of _The Plague_ (with Dorati on Explore) and the fourth symphony and violin concerto (with Davis on Lyrita) are very good. But the whole Chandos series is pretty decent. The only recording of his only opera is only on Chandos. (This is the from the same Sheridan play that Prokofiev used for his opera _Betrothal in a Monastery._)

The Nieuw Ensemble's CD on Polifonica of the horoscope pieces is very fine. Though there are some other chamber CDs out there that are perfectly acceptable.

Babbitt's music I've never liked, either. Some day, maybe!

Sessions has been pretty well served on recordings. I don't know of any total dogs, anyway. (My apologies to canines everywhere.) It's pretty fun to listen to his symphonies in order, too. I suppose that's probably true for all series of things.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Talking about Gerhard I would second Someguys recommendation of The Plague, if youve read the book (camus) then this is a perfect musical representation of the events described. The Dorati being the only good recording available, though the american accents of the chorus are occasionally annoying..


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## toucan (Sep 27, 2010)

Several ways of presenting XXth century music history, depending on which composers you believe deserve to be singled out.

There have been many reactions to twelve-note compostion, the minimalists, but also the Arvo Part/Kancheli/Silvetrov group, French neo-tonals (Florentz/Hersant/Escaich et alii), John Adams

+ modernists composers like Witold Lutoslawski who did not like Schoenberg and Boulez (to the point of defining himself against Boulez in Lutoslawski's case.

Salonen (in his work as a composer) used to present himself as a middle road between twelve-tone and return to the past, a middle road he thought he could derive from Lutoslawski and Messiaen; though his recent avocation of Arvo Part makes one wonder if he is returning to the past.

As Messiaen presents them, Boulez, Stockhausen et alii perfected twelve-tone composition (by extending series to pitch etc) and then overcame it. This leads one to an oddly little known fact - the fact that Boulez/Berio/Stockhausen et alii have long ago moved away from serialism: indeed, Boulez and Berio have become rather critical of it. Only for a few years (during the early fifties) did they practice it; and only after they moved away from it did it become ideologically dominant (1960's and 1970's, basically).

With *Repons*, composed when Modernism as dominant ideology was collapsing (early 1980's), Boulez redefines a renovated modernism, freed from the rigors and austerities and abstractions of serial composition, without return to the past or stale imitation of past formulas.

Which is to say that after being the most radical and polemically talented advocate of serialism, Boulez ended up providing some of the most creative ways out of it!.

Modern music, the best, the most productive and creative modern music all flows out of the *Tristan* Prelude, it is music from composers who have found solutions to the problem unwitingly created by Wagner when he makes tonality dissolve itself into melodies that do not find resolution.

From Wagner, two great currents: the current which, from Wagner, goes through Mussorgsky into Debussy, and from Debussy, well, to most of the great composers of the twentieth century, Stravinsky, Bartok, Scriabin, Varese, Messiaen, Dutilleux, Lutoslawski. And the current which from Wagner goes to Bruckner, Mahler and then Schoenberg and the Schoenbergians.

Whether classical tonality, in the XXth century, is still productive of masterpieces, is open to question; but then, there are those who say atonality has never produced masterpieces. Not even late Liszt. Go figure.


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## schrodingasdawg (Jan 2, 2011)

Regarding the history of serialism, especially the idea that it was dominant or has died, I'd suggest reading this.

http://mq.oxfordjournals.org/content/83/3/301.full.pdf


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

some guy said:


> Babbitt's music I've never liked, either. Some day, maybe!


I don't blame you. He wrote a lot of weird electronic fart types.

_Ensembles for Synthesizer _(1964). Farting begins almost instantly.


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> Talking about Gerhard I would second Someguys recommendation of The Plague, if youve read the book (camus) then this is a perfect musical representation of the events described. The Dorati being the only good recording available, though the american accents of the chorus are occasionally annoying..


Somebody has put the whole cantata (sound only) on Youtube. I don't know who the performers are.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

That is definitely a different recording, the narrator has a different voice. Unfortunately this recording doesnt seem to be available anywhere.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

thank you all for the suggestions


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