# Serialism in modern times?



## sonnenuntergangstunde (Apr 20, 2013)

When researching the story behind serialism, a lot can be found about the origins and development of twelve-tone by the second Viennese school, and then its move towards total or integral serialism, but all information seems to stop in the middle of the 20th century.. I'd really like to know if there are any prominent composers that wrote serial works up to the 21st century, or even today? I know Boulez, Babbit and Piston all composed serial works, but I can't find examples of more recent works. Works by musicians in other genres would be helpful too. I know of jazz pianist Bill Evans' 'T-T-T' and its sequel, but that's about all. I'm also struggling to find anything about people's reactions to serial works, and how people's feelings about it have developed then and since.

My research is for an essay so I'm not looking to copy 'answers', but some thoughts and ideas I could use as a springboard for further research would be very helpful. :tiphat:


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Integral serialism ran itself out within a matter of a few years, after the above names and a few others dipped into it. After that, composers looked for ways to work from the ideas of serialism (controlled presentation of the total chromatic, constant variation) into less restrictive frameworks. Boulez, Ligeti, Stockhausen, and Carter (who had never written 12-tone music of any kind) were among the many who wrote non-12-tone music influenced by serial ideas.

There were several composers, primarily in America, who continued to write 12-tone music: Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, and Charles Wuorinen are probably the best-known.

The backlash against serialism (and the utter misunderstanding of what it is and how it works) dates back to around the time European composers were moving beyond it, because it was at this time that a number of prominent Neoclassical composers turned to writing 12-tone or 12-tone influenced music, most importantly Stravinsky.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I'd add that there are composers who totally bypassed serialism and looked to innovate and develop other areas. I just read an interview with Edgard Varese, who argued that serialism was like a "hardening of the arteries." Its reliance on the traditional 12 tone scale and all its rules - even if bent and modified - meant that for him it was too restrictive. Others, especially those who did microtonal music, like Xenakis, Partch, Penderecki and Sculthorpe, they made similar conclusions. They innovated in sonority.

Serialism was basically a dead end, or at least the highly controlled Webern type aspects of it where. As Mahlerian mentioned, you got composers who continued along those lines - another one I'd add to Sessions et al is two from the UK, Humphrey Searle and Elizabeth Luytens. But what happened is more composers used it flexibly, Carter as mentioned said he had not 12 note rows but rows of any number. I have just listened to Bartok's Violin Concerto #2, the only work in which he used the method, and in that he broke all the rules - spinning all these note rows with a lot of freedom that would make Webern, and probably Schoenberg as well, baulk.

It seems to me that the more flexible views of serialism have prevailed, if any. Varese had no use for it, Bartok had some use for it, and guys like Carter - and also others who I like, Dutilleux and Ginastera - flexed it to their own ends.

I was at a public lecture on this topic, about the impacts of atonality and serialism a while ago. I asked the question whether there are any composers who can be called "serialists" today. The answer I got was "no." 

What I garnered from that and other things I've read is that serialism was important but kind of overhyped. It was also used as part of various agendas and ideologies. Ultimately its like any technique, or set of technical innovations, its there for composers to use if they want to, according to their own needs. As far as it being "the future" of music, and "inevitable," well I got my reservations about that. Those ideologies bit the dust decades ago anyway.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Walter Piston wrote serial music ? Everything I've heard by him is tonal . No more atonal than Brahms,in fact .
Did he actually write some serial music which never got performed ? By the way , I like his music .


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Sid James said:


> I'd add that there are composers who totally bypassed serialism and looked to innovate and develop other areas. I just read an interview with Edgard Varese, who argued that serialism was like a "hardening of the arteries." Its reliance on the traditional 12 tone scale and all its rules - even if bent and modified - meant that for him it was too restrictive. Others, especially those who did microtonal music, like Xenakis, Partch, Penderecki and Sculthorpe, they made similar conclusions. They innovated in sonority.


I'd add Messiaen and Takemitsu here as well, neither of whom ever showed any interest in writing serial music (although they were both influenced by some serial compositions).



Sid James said:


> Serialism was basically a dead end, or at least the highly controlled Webern type aspects of it where. As Mahlerian mentioned, you got composers who continued along those lines - another one I'd add to Sessions et al is two from the UK, Humphrey Searle and Elizabeth Luytens. But what happened is more composers used it flexibly, Carter as mentioned said he had not 12 note rows but rows of any number. I have just listened to Bartok's Violin Concerto #2, the only work in which he used the method, and in that he broke all the rules - spinning all these note rows with a lot of freedom that would make Webern, and probably Schoenberg as well, baulk.


Pieces like those by Carter, Bartok, Copland, and Shostakovich I would call more serial-inspired than serial, but the point is taken.

Webern really never wrote serial music in the sense that he is sometimes credited with (expanding parameterization beyond pitch to sonority or register), although the composers who developed total serialism did look to his spare textures as their model. Never underestimate the extent to which him and Schoenberg would alter their system if they weren't satisfied with the result, either.



Sid James said:


> It seems to me that the *more flexible views of serialism have prevailed*, if any. Varese had no use for it, Bartok had some use for it, and guys like Carter - and also others who I like, Dutilleux and Ginastera - flexed it to their own ends.
> 
> I was at a public lecture on this topic, about the impacts of atonality and serialism a while ago. I asked the question whether there are any composers who can be called "serialists" today. The answer I got was "no."
> 
> What I garnered from that and other things I've read is that serialism was important but kind of overhyped. It was also used as part of various agendas and ideologies. Ultimately its like any technique, or set of technical innovations, its there for composers to use if they want to, according to their own needs. As far as it being "the future" of music, and "inevitable," well I got my reservations about that. Those ideologies bit the dust decades ago anyway.


I'd agree with the highlighted part, certainly. Webern remains influential through Boulez and Takemitsu, but Schoenberg's influence is more widely felt, and Berg's perhaps even more so. Stockhausen seems influential more for his ideas about new sounds to use than the ways he organized them. Contemporary music is as eclectic as ever.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

> Pieces like those by Carter, Bartok, Copland, and Shostakovich I would call more serial-inspired than serial, but the point is taken.


I think "serial-inspired" is a good way to describe what they did with the technique.



> Webern really never wrote serial music in the sense that he is sometimes credited with (expanding parameterization beyond pitch to sonority or register), although the composers who developed total serialism did look to his spare textures as their model. Never underestimate the extent to which him and Schoenberg would alter their system if they weren't satisfied with the result, either.
> 
> ...
> I'd agree with the highlighted part, certainly. Webern remains influential through Boulez and Takemitsu, but Schoenberg's influence is more widely felt, and Berg's perhaps even more so. Stockhausen seems influential more for his ideas about new sounds to use than the ways he organized them. Contemporary music is as eclectic as ever.


What you say there, it makes me think how the influence of the Viennese serialists went beyond what was predicted early on in the post-1945 period. I think Takemitsu and Messiaen as well took Webern's influence on as part of their unique musical voices, and of course Debussy (and Ravel?) was big influence on them as well.

I read an interview with Steve Reich where he said that Webern was one of the composers that made impact on him early on, and that makes sense in what you say about spare textures at least (and also those layerings). Another one using Webern as a starting point was Sofia Gubaidulina.

Then you got the Varese interview I mentioned, and in it he said he liked Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, and compared Schoenberg's more lush and romantic sound to Webern's more pared down style. Its an interesting interview in terms of being done in the post war period (1960's I think). I like how Varese doesn't rubbish anyone, he marks out people as diverse as Widor, Busoni, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Satie, Scriabin as having various impacts on him musically speaking. But he says the biggest impacts where outside music, in the natural world and in architecture. In terms of serialism and its offshoots, he says they don't interest him. Of Babbit and his experiments combining serialism with electronics, he says that his aims are different. He says the same thing about John Cage, that he is an intelligent musician but their aims differ. Varese himself was influential on composers as diverse as Xenakis, Stockhausen and Birtwistle.

You know its interesting how already you had that diversity back then. I think it points to two things - the bypassing of serialism by some, also common links going back to various people (eg. Satie who had impact on Varese, but also the Minimalists, and Cage), and also developments and adaptations of serialism that the Viennese guys wouldn't have dreamt about. The interview is in this book, and Gunther Schuller was the interviewer. Unfortunately I can't find it online for free. The rest of the book is interesting, including material by and about Babbitt, Sessions, Copland, Carter and others, but I have so far just read the Varese interview.

Getting back to what you described as "serial-inspired" I would give Australian composer *Graeme Koehne *as an example of that. His piece _*Elevator Music *_ (on the Naxos cd below) is based on a twelve-tone row, but he used none of the conventional twelve-tone methods to develop that material. This piece is bringing the much derided "elevator music" of John Barry and Henry Mancini into the concert hall. Koehne says that the piece "introduces a possibility I wish Schoenberg had thought of one day while playing tennis with Gershwin, perhaps."

Koehne lists amongst his influences as being Boulez, and I'd guess Ravel's _Bolero_ would be too in terms of its minimalism, and his teacher was Richard Meale (who early in his career did use serialism a lot, but he went through many changes - including minimalism and neo-romanticism - so he kind of went into other directions, like the reverse of Stravinsky, maybe).

But what of the music? I can't find this on youtube. I think its like a combination of classical with the cliches of film music, especially to action films. It has this element of suspense and rhythmic propulsion a la Latin American music.


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## sonnenuntergangstunde (Apr 20, 2013)

Thanks to you both for your considered, lengthy and valuable replies.



Mahlerian said:


> The backlash against serialism (and the utter misunderstanding of what it is and how it works) dates back to around the time European composers were moving beyond it, because it was at this time that a number of prominent Neoclassical composers turned to writing 12-tone or 12-tone influenced music, most importantly Stravinsky.


Could you please clarify this paragraph, as it appears to be information that I'm very much in need of (the beginning of the decline of serialism), but after reading a few times I'm still struggling to understand:

Decline begins caused by European composers moving onto other things - - - > a number of prominent neoclassical composers started to write 12-tone or 12-tone style music, including Stravinsky (considered a European composer?).

Sid James, could you elaborate on what you mean when you say integral serialism is a 'dead end'? Do you mean the technique is too limiting in terms of the number of possible variations, or in terms of mass appeal or something else?

The Koehne recording is on Spotify, and I enjoyed listening to Elevator Music, and will be finding out more about it.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> There were several composers, primarily in America, who continued to write 12-tone music: Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, and Charles Wuorinen are probably the best-known.


Andrew Imbrie, I think, continued to write dodecaphonic music well past the 1960s; his 1984 _Requiem_ sounds serial to me (although it may not be strictly 12-tone).

And should not George Perle be included as well?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

sonnenuntergangstunde said:


> Could you please clarify this paragraph, as it appears to be information that I'm very much in need of (the beginning of the decline of serialism), but after reading a few times I'm still struggling to understand:
> 
> Decline begins caused by European composers moving onto other things - - - > a number of prominent neoclassical composers started to write 12-tone or 12-tone style music, including Stravinsky (considered a European composer?).


Up to around 1951, the use of serial techniques was mostly confined to Schoenberg, his students, and his admirers. But there was an explosion in the influence of serial ideas around this time, and pieces resembling integral serialism began to appear. Babbitt in America and Messiaen in France were decisive in this regard. For a few years, the extremely influential circle of Messiaen's students (Stockhausen, Boulez) dabbled in integral serialism.

Then, after the initial phase, the composers moved away from this, and began to write non-12-tone (albeit fully chromatic) music that did not "serialize" multiple parameters, but used serial procedures. Boulez in interviews has spoken about how he wanted to reclaim a measure of compositional freedom, and 1955's _Le marteau sans maitre_ was the piece that solidified this direction.

In the US, however, composers like Babbitt and Sessions continued to write 12-tone music, and Stravinsky (who was at this time living in America) turned to writing it himself in the late 1950s. There and elsewhere, composers not otherwise associated with the movement like Copland, Britten, and Shostakovich began to write music that was influenced by the ideas of 12-tone composition.

So composers outside of the European avant-garde turned to writing 12-tone music around the time composers within the European avant-garde were modifying or abandoning it.



Prodromides said:


> Andrew Imbrie, I think, continued to write dodecaphonic music well past the 1960s; his 1984 _Requiem_ sounds serial to me (although it may not be strictly 12-tone).
> 
> And should not George Perle be included as well?


There are numerous other examples.

Like I said, the locus of 12-tone music shifted to America after a certain point.


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## sonnenuntergangstunde (Apr 20, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Up to around 1951, the use of serial techniques was mostly confined to Schoenberg, his students, and his admirers. But there was an explosion in the influence of serial ideas around this time, and pieces resembling integral serialism began to appear. Babbitt in America and Messiaen in France were decisive in this regard. For a few years, the extremely influential circle of Messiaen's students (Stockhausen, Boulez) dabbled in integral serialism.
> 
> Then, after the initial phase, the composers moved away from this, and began to write non-12-tone (albeit fully chromatic) music that did not "serialize" multiple parameters, but used serial procedures. Boulez in interviews has spoken about how he wanted to reclaim a measure of compositional freedom, and 1955's _Le marteau sans maitre_ was the piece that solidified this direction.
> 
> ...


Perfect! Thank you very much Mahlerian. It appears then that it was less a case of serialism declining, but more about it first being worked to its extremes (integral serialism), then changing and being diluted (music in a serial style), before shifting geographically and almost having a rebirth with composers that hadn't been involved with serialism the first time around.

Now I need to find some contemporary composers who are still writing serial music; I can assume Carter and Babbitt were writing such works until their recent deaths? I think from what you've said, American composers are where I should be focusing my search.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

You may also want to look at Russian composers of the 1990s (Denisov, Volkonsky, etc.). The first generation of post-Soviet composers were attracted to serialism, now that it was no longer dangerous to do so.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

I think serialism is a wonderful aid to composition, whether used strictly or quite loosely. Schoenberg said it would take a hold of european classical music for the next hundred years when he devised it and he was somewhat right. To say it is finished or a thing of the past is perhaps as foolish as to say tonal music is finished. Controversial maybe but it surely has had major effects on classical music, whether tonal, atonal, serial or whatever.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

sonnenuntergangstunde said:


> Now I need to find some contemporary composers who are still writing serial music; I can assume Carter and Babbitt were writing such works until their recent deaths? I think from what you've said, American composers are where I should be focusing my search.


Hi, sonnenuntergangstunde.

I wouldn't necessarily limit the search to only American composers. Exploration of Americans who composed dodecaphonic music is, of course, a valuable and worthwhile area in which to start, but should not by any means remain the only focus.

Listening since last year to a piece entitled "Instants" composed in 2006/'07 by Austrian Friedrich Cerha, I have been pleasantly surprised to encounter aspects of 12-tone techniques still utilized within 21st century compositions.

Here's a YouTube clip on Cerha's "Instants":


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

sonnenuntergangstunde said:


> ...
> 
> Sid James, could you elaborate on what you mean when you say integral serialism is a 'dead end'? Do you mean the technique is too limiting in terms of the number of possible variations, or in terms of mass appeal or something else?
> ...


Basically, as far as I can gather, because it was too limiting. Mahlerian addressed this in his reply to you. Webern controlled more things with the technique than Schoenberg (and Berg was the most flexible of the three). After Webern you had the controls increased but taking this kind of thing too far stifles artistic lisence and creativity. Music always had mathematical and scientific aspects, but everything has its limits. So ultimately the controls where relaxed and serialism became part of a suite of options composers can use at their own behest, rather than it controlling them.

There where many criticisms of that push towards too much control. One was Varese who I mentioned, who had impeccable Modernist credentials as anyone else, but he chose to take other paths. As I said Varese was influential on a whole lot of composers who similarly had little time for serialism, from Xenakis to Sculthorpe, and also those who did take on ideas of serialism but can't be called serialists either (eg. Stockhausen and Birtwistle).

Bartok, who I mentioned, was not a fan of the technique. But in his Violin Concerto #2 he adapted it to his own needs. The Transylvanian folk tune that starts off the work is developed with the application of serial technique, but loosely. Yehudi Menuhin described this as as spinning of gems that would be restricted by serialism of more controlled variety. Menuhin said that in that work, Bartok had enough ideas for a whole serialist opera. Or probably many operas. He said that the stricter application of serialism would just be as restrictive as a "slide rule" of the type that gave us Modernist architecture, those perfect boxes that all look the same.

Ultimately there was a confrontation over this and Boulez, who proseletyzed about the technique being "inevitable" and all that ideological stuff, was challenged, even by the likes of Stockhausen. So those within the ranks rebelled, but it doesn't mean serialism is restrictive in itself, only certain views of it.

As for popularity, I think that played a role as well. The serial work that entered the repertoire most quickly was by Berg, his violin concerto "To the Memory of an Angel." In that he treated the technique flexibly, combining it with vernacular waltz and landler tunes and also coming out with a Bach chorale at the end. The work also broke with the Modernist dogma expressed by Stravinsky in that music is about nothing but itself. Berg's highly autobiographical piece broke those sorts of taboos - already then, this was 1935 - and you can see how a wide range of listeners connect with that, not with the anonymous "slide rule" type views.

The other thing is that as a result of the move away from the more restrictive views of serialism, you had things like Minimalism in America drawing on jazz and rock, you had so called Holy Minimalism in Europe going back to ancient choral music, you had neo-Romanticism re-emerge as composers went back to things like less fragmented melody and more traditional aspects of counterpoint. There was much else as well, the idea of a serialist hegemony I think was shaky in the first place. Composers like Berg and Bartok where doing it flexibly already, then immediately after 1945 you had this overhyping of Webern's controlled view of it and downgrading of Berg's and even Schoenberg's more flexible views of it, it lasted for a while into the 1950's but by the 1960's it was being heavily challenged (and some never cared for it much in the first place), and by the 1970's it was over.

I'm not attempting an objective run down of history here, and it is simplified. But if you read about that period, it was very ideological, things where attached to controlled serialism and ultimately it failed to deliver. I always say this, but classical music is the most factionalised and cliquey of all the musical genres. What happened post-1945 is a good example of that but of course the farther you go back, you realise similar things happened.



> The Koehne recording is on Spotify, and I enjoyed listening to Elevator Music, and will be finding out more about it.


Well that's good, I'm glad you got a chance to hear it. If you can find something by Koehne's teacher Richard Meale it would be an interesting step back. Meale, like Sculthorpe, was influenced by Messiaen. Meale's Incredible Floridas, a chamber work from the 1970's, is the high point of his more experimental serial-influenced phase. After that he went to other things, Minimalism and neo-Romanticism, and some avant gardists here still can't forgive him for being an outspoken critic of the more restrictive and ideological views of music which I talked about. In this long post I gave a long quote by him about all that factionalism that occured here.

Now its largely over, however serialism came to Australia late, in the 1960's. By that time it was under challenge elsewhere, so it didn't come to dominate as much as it had previously in other places. Australian composers adapted it to their own needs. Another was Peggy Glanville-Hicks, who combined serialism with influenced from other Modernist styles as well as Asian music. She said that serialism, in its more rigid forms, was like a perfectly built house that had no windows and doors. Looked good on paper, but in reality it turned out to be different. That cristallyses how many composers saw it - just a technique, and one if taken too far with many limitations, and quite limiting.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

sonnenuntergangstunde, here are two threads I made before which can act as catalysts for your research. The first is a lecture by Andrew Ford, who himself as a young composer in the 1970's was attracted to serialism, but since that he's changed. He is a composer as well as musicologist and broadcaster. He has done some books about classical music, including books on Modern music.

http://www.talkclassical.com/10930-second-viennese-school-21st.html

The second thread discussed a quote from a book by Aaron Copland, who again used serialism but was already in the 1950's questioning aspects of Modernist orthodoxy.

http://www.talkclassical.com/15486-complexity-music.html

I must say that those threads will show you how my initial interest in Modern music led to a discovery that many of the ideologies associated with it are questionable and kind of dodgy. Composers themselves have done the questioning, and they got a lot of flack for it from those who had certain interests and agendas to maintain. Now there is an element of opening up about what serialism meant, or all the hoopla and hype surrounding it. In my own way I regret talking about this here to a great extent. I have made mistakes in terms of getting too involved in these debates. That is why I find it useful to look at history, to what was said, and is being said. In that way we can combine those views and formulate our own opinions on controversial areas like this. To talk about this one has to accept diversity, which is the big thing I learnt about on this forum - especially with regards to music of the past 100 years or so.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

superhorn said:


> Walter Piston wrote serial music ? Everything I've heard by him is tonal . No more atonal than Brahms,in fact .
> Did he actually write some serial music which never got performed ? By the way , I like his music .


Common misunderstanding... Serial DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY EQUATE WITH "12 tone" and / or ATONAL.

Serial is a basic way to order pitch materials, any number of them, not necessarily atonal.

For serial but not atonal, i.e. tonal of a newer sort, look at 
Stravinsky ~ Cantata / Septet 
Irving fine; String Quartet

those are but a few of numerous instances of works which are serial, but not at all atonal.


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## badRomance (Nov 22, 2011)

Serialism seems like a silly gimmick having little to do with how humans experience sound. Even this 12-tone restriction is silly and Eurocentric. How anyone thought it would be the future of human music is beyond me ... unless our future involves us replacing our current hearing apparatus with some new cybernetic implant that "free" us from liking some intervals over others.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

badRomance said:


> Serialism seems like a silly gimmick having little to do with how humans experience sound. Even this 12-tone restriction is silly and Eurocentric. How anyone thought it would be the future of human music is beyond me ... unless our future involves us replacing our current hearing apparatus with some new cybernetic implant that "free" us from liking some intervals over others.


Restrictions often lead to the best art. Yes the twelve tone scale is Eurocentric, but so what if people like it. Maybe with time our ears will re-adjust to some other tuning but it seems to me there is a distinct lack of creativity in certain composers who resort to experiments with other temperaments, as though they just want to sound different without making the effort to find an individual style.

If they hold genuine beliefs about it, like Harry Partch, then yes they are admirable, but if you cannot compose well in twelve tone temperament you're not a very flexible or talented composer. A bad craftsman blames his tools after all!

Serialism makes perfect sense if you think about the whole notion of equal temperament, where the notes are divided 'equally' within an octave. Why should they not have equal precedence? Surely the harmonic relationships apply more in just intonation than in our equal tempered twelve tones?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid's statements are too general. First you have to know what tonality is, and how its relations and manifestations are derived from harmonic phenomena. That's a given, in order to see what "serial" methods are.
Harmonic, tone-centric "tonal" music is based on the hierarchy of the tonic note, and its internal harmonic relations. Classic Western tonality takes this simple, visceral, everyone-can-hear-it model further, into more cerebral territory, by extending these harmonic relations through time, in the form of "progressions" and "harmonic function." These more cerebral, horizontal functions are still based on the original, primal "vertical" sonority of the "one" note and its harmonic components, which we perceive naturally, as a result of the way sound vibrations affect our eardrum surface, or any surface which can be modelled by using "waves" or ripples: a simple ratio, a simple recurrence of "waves" per second, a "frequency."

I think tonality, and sound, is quite fascinating, and these many basics need to be "grokked" and pondered before any real appreciation of "other" types of musical relations, which occur in serial music and post-tonal thinking, can be really understood to a degree of "intellectual justification," although at the visceral level, it's all still visceral, and still music, and still art...and as John Cage said, music is still "just sounds." Although, I admit, we "classical" listeners are in search of a certain intellectual titillation as well as pretty sounds (or sublimely ugly sounds), depending on your political orientation.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

"Serialism in MODERN times," just the title implies datedness. Not so, as the language of "series" or interval-relations started by Schoenberg has evolved into an "enormous room" of possibilities. Tonality is a recursive hierarchy, where pitch-identity is a fixed quantity, and recursive. Serialism is about relationships, not fixed quantities. That's art, isn't it? Ratios? The Greeks' Golden Mean?


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

sonnenuntergangstunde said:


> (the beginning of the decline of serialism)


In addition to what has already been said, I would add that it's important to keep the word "decline" in perspective. Serialism never really went away; as has been pointed out in this thread there are still plenty of serial composers even today. The "decline" doesn't really pertain to the _number_ of active serialists. Rather, the decline has to do with serialism's prestige. For a decade or so starting in the 1950s, serialism was the most (and in some places only) academically respectable type of music. This was due almost single-handedly to Milton Babbit, who managed to convince universities that total serialism was a form of "research" and therefore deserved to be taken as seriously as the sciences. The political circumstances were also just right for this turn of events: in the 1950s, the prestige of science itself was at a high in America owing to the way science had "won" the war; and the ensuing Cold War, from the American and Russian perspectives, was very much a war of science. Add to that the repressive situation of the arts in the communist countries, where composers had little choice but to write accessible and functional music, and the notion of writing abstract, pseudo-scientific music in the isolated "laboratories" of academia for no other reason than the pursuit of knowledge became not only highly valued but encouraged. That's one reason why Copland and Stravinsky's serial phases came at exactly this time.

When the political situation started to change, however, that prestige started to fade. With the 1960s came more tolerant art policies in the east (a period commonly called "The Thaw"), so the west no longer had a monopoly on abstract, disinterested, experimental music; consequently, serialism no longer had the symbolic value it had the previous decade. The 1960s also saw the emergence of competing styles-collage, minimalism-that provided alternatives to serialism. By the time you get to the 1970s, it is no longer a given that academic composers are serialists. The most prominent example was George Rochberg, a composer who began his career as a serialist and landed a cushy Ivy League job, but who later renounced serialism (and took a lot of abuse for it from less ideologically flexible modernists).

From that point onward, serialism merely became (and still is) one compositional style among many. That is the sense in which it "declined."


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## sonnenuntergangstunde (Apr 20, 2013)

Thanks everyone, I've been pouring over your posts and it's been very helpful in signposting the way and especially putting serialism into historical context.

I've been trying to find out if any of Boulez' student are still continuing his work and ideas. Information online seems very thin on the ground, I have only been able to pinpoint one composer who participated in Boulez' master class at the music academy in Basel between '61-63, and nothing about any serial works he might have written nowadays.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Phillipe Manoury comes to mind, and David Froom's Chamber Concerto is just beautiful. The book "Serialism" is well worth reading (I forgot the author).
But, in fact, "Serialism" as a school or term is still problematic. Take a composer like Elliott Carter, who devised & named his own versions of the possible triads, tetrads, etc. He found his own unique individual voice using these tools (innovating in the rhythmic area); I hear Ives, Ruth Seeger, Bartok and Sessions in him. Speak of the Devil, Roger Sessions is another good example. He was already practically writing 12-tone, before he admitted to using it. 
Serialism, in its broadest sense (read the book) is a way of thinking about music, a meta-language which is much more than a mere "method" or historically-entrenched "school."


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Take a composer like Elliott Carter, who devised & named his own versions of the possible triads, tetrads, etc. He found his own unique individual voice using these tools (innovating in the rhythmic area)


Carter was often puzzled to find himself described as a serialist, or at least he was a few decades ago. In an interview dating back to 1960, he was asked point-blank whether he uses the 12-tone system, and here was his response: "Some critics have said I do, but since I have never analyzed my works from this point of view, I cannot say. I assume that if I am not conscious of it, I do not."

The response seems to have taken the interviewer by surprise because his next question was, "Do you mean to say that your rhythmic method is not a product of serialization?" Carter's response: "It is not."


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> Sid's statements are too general. First you have to know what tonality is, and how its relations and manifestations are derived from harmonic phenomena. ...
> I think tonality, and sound, is quite fascinating, and these many basics need to be "grokked" and pondered before any real appreciation of "other" types of musical relations, which occur in serial music and post-tonal thinking, can be really understood to a degree of "intellectual justification," although at the visceral level, it's all still visceral, and still music, and still art...and as John Cage said, music is still "just sounds." Although, I admit, we "classical" listeners are in search of a certain intellectual titillation as well as pretty sounds (or sublimely ugly sounds), depending on your political orientation.


Yes I was being general, and as I said, its not mean to be an objective view. I just re-read Boulez's famous "Schoenberg is dead" diatribe and that's the cornerstone of that kind of attempt to control things that I was alluding to. But already you had diversity, in terms of Varese, and yes John Cage. Of course that was the 1950's, and things have moved on from then since.

But an analogy in Modern architecture is say comparing the slide rule type buildings of Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe, that hard core Modernist aesthetic with things that came later, like Hundertwasser or even Frank Gehry. You got a bit more freedom developing from those dogmas of "purity" and "rationalism" and all that. I'm not saying that I love all aspects of post modernism or whatever we want to label it.

However my bias here is I think the sort of control that certain people where trying to do post-war was a kind of limited view of serialism, and a view that tried to make it dominant when it wasn't. Maybe its even a distortion of it? Innovations in sonority for example have been going on parallel to innovations in other areas like tonality or structure. I just listened to some Haydn piano trios and he was already doing it there. Haydn was just as poorly served by Romantic ideology as Schoenberg was by the post-war Webern cultists. We get these repeats in the history of music, of elevation or hyping of one thing, and the corresponding downgrading or even denial of another. I see it all the time. I'm reading a book on Rachmaninov now, shedding light on how he was similarly mistreated, and its the same thing. That injustice was rectified in the 1970's, when his contributions where accepted and understood by musicologists. So in the end fads come and go but the music remains, and we can listen to that and composers can build on it and use it however so they wish.

One positive thing to be said about the Webern cult though is that prior to it, before the 1950's, Webern wasn't that widely known. So Boulez and others interpretations of his music bought him to light, and I have little doubt that others later who took on his influence like Feldman and Takemitsu would have benefited from this. There is good and bad in everything, or most things like this. Its just better to do it without the ideology, but we learn.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

"Ideology" is another conveniently general term which I've seen used by another modernist-basher, who always parroted his signature aphorism, "Ideology is the anathema of the artist" or something like that; except he was using it to bash George Russell's "Lydian Chromatic Concept" instead of post-war serialism. I think he was still embittered by the incident he recalled involving a private lesson with George Russell; when he showed up at Russell's front door, Russell, expecting a taxi to catch a flight, mistakenly handed him his luggage. (they must all look alike to him).
Serialism is, at its core, a way of thinking about the musical materials (namely, the 12 notes). If you say that's an "ideology," that is essentially a meaningless generalization. Beware of meaningless generalizations; they appeal to "belief" rather than knowledge.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Serialism, like any compositional technique, is of course not an ideology.

The reasons why serialism acquired the prestige that it did in the 1950s over other compositional techniques... _that's_ ideology.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

...but one can't argue with good art, such as Carter, Babbitt, and Boulez produced, unless one chooses to dismiss miss them as individuals and cast them aside, along with the "ideology" they represent to some. For me, that's artistic genocide.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

I don't see a conflict between appreciating serialist music and acknowledging the ideology behind serialism's prestige in the 1950s. Both can coexist quite easily without requiring "dismissal" of one or the other.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> ...
> Serialism is, at its core, a way of thinking about the musical materials (namely, the 12 notes). If you say that's an "ideology," that is essentially a meaningless generalization. Beware of meaningless generalizations; they appeal to "belief" rather than knowledge.


I didn't say serialism is an ideology, its a technique. I was questioning opinions of serialism, that it equated to as being about so-called progress and other things being about regression, stagnation, retrenchment. This was an important factor to composers ignoring these values some imposed on it and just doing with it what they wanted, or bypassing it altogether and innovating in other ways (or even not innovating, so what?).

So there is all this baggage around serialism, and its obvious if you read various sources on this, it was almost like a kind of Messianic fervour with which its adherents elevated it and correspondingly denigrated other ways of composition. So this is an issue around ideology, aesthetics, opinions around music, and connected to it. Its not only problematic in the 20th century as I alluded to - Haydn for example was given a raw deal in the 19th century, but by the mid 20th century his reputation had been rehabilitated after more balanced assessments of his music. So this type of thing have been happening in the aftermath of various ideologies of the 20th century as well - note the comeback of Sibelius' music and recognition of his innovations in the 1970's. A similar thing happened with others around then, eg. Rachmaninov.

So its not serialism that's the problem, or any technique or innovation for that matter, its the things attached to it I am questioning. Of course, sometimes its hard to separate the two, and in many ways unnecessary. I am questioning ideas and assessments of composers and musicologists. But as regards the music, its probably better to focus on that rather than the ideology to get to the heart of the matter. Musicologists in more recent decades for example have drawn parallels between Webern and Sibelius. With both you get a concision and not a note wasted. Sibelius said of his 4th symphony that he couldn't take one note out of it. Webern was similar, and now the trend is to look at commonalities and connections between various composers rather than the differences, thus set up various dichotomies and continue these divisive ways of thinking that plagued much of the 20th century.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> So there is all this baggage around serialism, and its obvious if you read various sources on this, it was almost like a kind of Messianic fervour with which its adherents elevated it and correspondingly denigrated other ways of composition. So this is an issue around ideology, aesthetics, opinions around music, and connected to it. Its not only problematic in the 20th century as I alluded to - Haydn for example was given a raw deal in the 19th century, but by the mid 20th century his reputation had been rehabilitated after more balanced assessments of his music. So this type of thing have been happening in the aftermath of various ideologies of the 20th century as well - note the comeback of Sibelius' music and recognition of his innovations in the 1970's. A similar thing happened with others around then, eg. Rachmaninov.
> 
> So its not serialism that's the problem, or any technique or innovation for that matter, its the things attached to it I am questioning. Of course, sometimes its hard to separate the two, and in many ways unnecessary. I am questioning ideas and assessments of composers and musicologists. But as regards the music, its probably better to focus on that rather than the ideology to get to the heart of the matter. .


Ok, I see your point, but I think that emphasizing the ideology of any music, of any era, is somewhat distracting, and might indicate an agenda of some sort, or less creatively, the touting of a "status quo" lowest common denominator opinion regarding the art in question. Haydn could just as easily be dismissed as being a pawn of the Esterhazy court, and of being an unimaginative "sell-out."


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## xjr15 (Jul 1, 2020)

I have been doing a 'philosophical investigation' into the nature and mechanism of human symbolism; it turns out that symbolism is a uniquely human function, not shared by any other species of organism. Music, therefore, as a form of symbolism, can only be a human product; as Louis Armstrong famously said: "I ain't never heard a horse sing." 

Music, like all human symbolic activities, including all 'artistic' productions, can be defined as a transform into the human nervous system that happens in real time, as we listen. It is a transform in which human-produced SOUND patterns evoke NON-AUDITORY memories, feelings, or often visual structures that 'dance' in our imaginations as we listen. The important thing about music is that it is a transform of SOUND patterns into NON-AURAL patterns or feelings in our imaginations as we listen, and that's the essence of it, what makes it music, as opposed to only sound. 

But there is another way in which music can be defined, and this is the definition of music you will get from books and courses on 'music appreciation': the idea that music can be formalized in a 'musical notation', and that it is this formalism that makes music music. This view regards music as a transform also, but as a transform of the (notated) formal patterns into sound patterns. From this definition of music, the formalism, the 'notes', is where the music resides. The listener, in this view, needs to understand the compositional procedures of the composer to fully appreciate the music. You need to make AN EFFORT to discern the 'musical structure' that the composer used while you are listening if you want to truly 'understand' the music, in this view. Never mind that, as you struggle to perceive the 'sonata form' while listening to a classical-period symphony, you are not hearing, or responding to, the music as music. Knowing the process by which a chef creates his culinary masterpiece will not make it taste any better!

The view of music as residing in the formal notation has led to the serialist fiasco in 20th century music. This view led to the bizarre schism between musical notation and musical sound that resulted in, first, dodecaphony (Schoenberg), and later, serialism and total ('integral') serialism. The problem with this definition of music is that it gets the process backwards. The composer starts with the notation , the 'row', rather than the sound. The tacit assumption is that if it is notated, then it's music. The written score is taken to be the music, and the embedding of all manner of formal, notational, patterns in the score becomes the central task of the 'composer'. Milton Babbitt believed that the more of these abstract, music-theory-driven structures you can get into your score, the more music you have composed. The only problem is, you need to study the score before listening to the 'music', and nobody really wants to listen to it OR to study the score to 'understand' it. And you have study the score according to the serialization rules defined by the composer, so you also have to read the composer's verbal analysis of his composition before you listen to it.

So my investigation of what people actually do when they listen to music shows that serialism (including dodecaphonic 'music') is NOT MUSIC. On one side, we have the actual history of music, made and appreciated by humans for millennia, and long before any musical notation was invented, versus this very recent idea that a kind of 'formalism uber alles' compulsivity called 'serialism' is the highest form of the art of musical composition, to which all else is but a pale, and uninteresting shadow with little or no value. Never mind that, to most people, and even to most composers, their sterile serial productions are yawn- or headache-inducing form of torture.

It turns out that the view of most people, even those who cannot 'read music', have the correct understanding of music, that it consists in interesting sound patterns, made by some humans (composers) for the enjoyment of other humans (composers or not). What makes a sound pattern interesting enough to be regarded as 'music' is a totally subjective matter that cannot and should not be the province of a priesthood of phony arbiters, looking down on, and condemning the true lovers of real music, to whom it gives solace and pleasure without any instruction or prescription from above. As Paul McCartney once unapologetically remarked, "I don't see music as dots on a page".


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ I see this is your first post so welcome to the forum. But, I'm sorry to say that what you have posted seems like tosh. Most people recognise that several animals use symbolic methods to communicate - song (birds - see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/why-canadian-white-throated-sparrows-have-changed-their-tune for a report of an interesting event), colour (octopuses), barks (my dog has a number of different barks which serve different purposes), body language, courtship behaviour etc. - which may not play the role that art plays for us but does involve the manipulation of symbols. But none of that has anything to do with your argument. anyway.

The argument itself seems to be another case of someone feeling inadequate because they can't understand some music that many people love. But really there is no need to feel inadequate. Just enjoy what you enjoy and let others do the same. No-one defines music as being something that is always written down and it is frankly silly to suggest that composers using one of the various atonal systems did not know what the resulting sounds and patterns would sound like, that they could not hear it in their minds before writing it. If you listen to the early ones you can hear them feeling their ways into new sounds and new artistic logic, each piece going a little further (with some backward steps). If your argument was correct then they would suddenly produce their music in one step.

It seems that it is only you who practices "formalism uber alles" - you have produced a very dodgy theory and then followed where it took you, somehow without recognising that it was taking you to a nonsensical position.

I don't read music. I am not really interested in musical theory. I love the music of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Boulez and many other composers who you believe did not write music. I love them in the same way that I love Bach and Beethoven and Mahler - although I will grant you that the experiences between all those is different. I love this music because my ears and brain and body tell me it is great (moving, awe-inspiring, touching etc) and have never read much about it. I don't know who your "priesthood of phony arbiters" are. Perhaps they don't exist. Perhaps you just don't understand them. Or perhaps they are talking rubbish but even if they are that would not on its own make the music they are praising bad. I care nothing for what Paul McCartney says and, given the terrible quality of his own "classical" doodles, could not take him as a reliable source.

I suggest you go back to listening to music. Find what you like. Try to expand your range. And enjoy.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

It needs to be clarified that 12-tone and serialism are what they are because they use "sets" of the total chromatic (not scales). "Sets" can be ordered or unordered; unordered sets are more like scales (which are unordered as well), but they are still "sets" if they are _considered_ or _used_ as being "non-tonal" or as _not _having a key note to which all the members of the set are related.

The "relatedness" of the members of a "set" is what we call tonality, and how it is manifest as scales.

There are "modern chromatic thinking elements" which are present in all "modern" music, and _these are shared by serialism, since serialism is a chromatic (non-diatonic) language._ This includes _non-diatonic_ pitch ideas such as division of the octave at the tritone and the treatment of all chromatic tones as being equally significant, no 'overall' tonality which includes all notes of sets, and "local" areas of tone-centricity.

The short answer: if it's non-diatonic, it's modern/chromatic.
...But if it's modern/chromatic, it's not necessarily "serial."

Serialism is characterized by being non-diatonic, and chromatic, _but most importantly of all, non-tonal.
_
Why is the _absence of tonality_ a requirement of 12-tone and serial thinking?

Because it is a departure from diatonic and harmonic thinking. Pitches are considered as part of a set, not as harmonically related.

This "removal" of the harmonic aspect (which our ears can also hear) makes serialism _in its essence_ less sensual, less harmonic, than all other systems of tonal music we are familiar with, including folk & ethnic musics.
It is more cerebral, more dependent on _non-sensual factors,_ such as "sets" of notes which have no built-in harmonic correspondences (and we can't_ hear _any harmonic correspondences, either).

*Therefore, serialism and serial-related music is based on formal principles, not sensual principles or effects.
*
*Serialism thus represents a total departure from all other music which has existed. This is why it is so radical. This may be why it has not lasted or been accepted more widely.*

The only "exceptions" to this might be Japanese Noh music, or Tibetan ritual music, but this is not quite "music" in the accepted sense but more like _sounds_ which are created and reproduced in certain ritualistic ways.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Here are some non-classical artists that use 12 tone:

Thinking Plague - American avant garde prog band. Best examples are the albums: In Extremis, History of Madness, Decline and Fall, Hoping Against Hope. I would bet that some of the other bands within the avant-prog subgenre might have some serialism in their compositions, since they are highly influenced by mid 20th century composers.

Peculate - American Avant-metal band. They integrate a fair amount of 12 tone into their compositions. They also integrate jazz, prog. Growling vocals, so, YMMV.

Blotted Science - International technical-metal band. guitarist Ron Zarzombek writes using 12 tone method.






Canadian born jazz composer and band leader, Darcy James Argue, uses 12 tone on his latest (2016) album, Real Enemies.

Jazz sax player, and composer, John O'Gallagher uses a lot of 12 tone in his music. He has an album out called, "The Webern Project". He also has some You Tube vids talking about his use of 12 tone. He also has a book called, "Twelve-Tone Improvisation (A Method for Using Tone Rows in Jazz".


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

xjr15 said:


> As Paul McCartney once unapologetically remarked, "I don't see music as dots on a page".


Ironic... since he was the only one of The Beatles to learn how to read music.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

xjr15 said:


> blah blah blah.


Why is it so important to some people to label music they don't enjoy as "not music"? What do you gain by doing this? Why can't you just listen to the music you like and let everyone else enjoy the music they like without judgement?
I mean clearly, you went to great lengths to justify your preference, but I see it as wasted effort. Do you really think that you are going to convince people who enjoy listening to serialist music to stop listening to it with your bogus rationalizations.

The music exists. It is going to continue to exist whether you like it or not, and people will still choose to listen to it regardless of how you feel about it.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I think it was Ernst Ansermet who once tried to disprove twelve-note music mathematically. He was probably not the first, nor definitely the last. The fact that performers still program Schoenberg -- presumably because they appreciate it and not just to get even with the audience, should mean something. Like what you like, but don't expend a lot of energy disproving what you don't like.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SuperTonic said:


> Why is it so important to some people to label music they don't enjoy as "not music"? What do you gain by doing this? Why can't you just listen to the music you like and let everyone else enjoy the music they like without judgement?


It's fairly obvious: Serialism in its essence is less sensual, less harmonic, than all other systems of tonal music we are familiar with, including folk & ethnic musics.

It is more cerebral, more derived from non-sensual factors, such as "sets" of notes which have no built-in harmonic correspondences (and we can't hear any harmonic correspondences, either).Therefore, serialism and serial-related music is based on formal principles, not sensual principles or effects.

_Serialism thus represents a total departure from all other music which has existed._ This is why it is so radical. This may be why it has not lasted or been accepted more widely.
What those of us who listen and accept this music should realize is the utterly radical nature of this music.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ I can't really relate to that dualism. Sensualism vs formal/cerebral music? Neither category seems tied to a particular period or the invention of serialism. How is, say, Schoenberg more cerebral than Bach and does that cerebral quality make it formal or does it stem from its formality? I don't find all serial music less sensual or emotional than tonal music. Some is but then so is some tonal music. And do you really think that serial music has not lasted? Please, please, please don't come back to me with meaningless statistics of how often Schoenberg is programmed by American orchestras. But a quick glance at the recordings available (and presumably getting bought) as well as the many on this site who love Schoenberg but didn't 10 or 20 years ago. It is growing in popularity as many come to recognise that it is obviously from the same world as Bartok and Stravinsky, who were themselves despised ... until they weren't.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ I can't really relate to that dualism. Sensualism vs formal/cerebral music? Neither category seems tied to a particular period or the invention of serialism.


Well, I'm not talking about artistic style or periods of practice. This is strictly nuts & bolts, for those who understand some music theory, not just subjective listeners.

Tonality's "system" is based on how we hear. That's why it's sensual-based. "Tonality" in its general sense includes just about every form of music, ethnic, folk, and popular, that was created by Mankind.



> How is, say, Schoenberg more cerebral than Bach and does that cerebral quality make it formal or does it stem from its formality?


Because Bach's music is based on tonality, and Schoenberg's 12-tone music is not.



> I don't find all serial music less sensual or emotional than tonal music. Some is but then so is some tonal music.


Nonetheless, serial music is not based on consonance/dissonance factors which are "built-in" to the system; they have to be put there by effort.



> And do you really think that serial music has not lasted?


Yes. I don't think it will ever be totally accepted.



> It is growing in popularity as many come to recognise that it is obviously from the same world as Bartok and Stravinsky, who were themselves despised ... until they weren't.


Bartok and Stravinsky were not serial (except late Stravinsky, which is all but unrecognized by most listeners). If by "the same world" you are trying to make a connection, I've already done that in post #34:



millions said:


> There are "modern chromatic thinking elements" which are present in all "modern" music, and these are shared by serialism, since serialism is a chromatic (non-diatonic) language. This includes non-diatonic pitch ideas such as division of the octave at the tritone and the treatment of all chromatic tones as being equally significant, no 'overall' tonality which includes all notes of sets, and "local" areas of tone-centricity.
> 
> The short answer: if it's non-diatonic, it's modern/chromatic.
> ...But if it's modern/chromatic, it's not necessarily "serial."


I don't see what you're disagreeing with.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> Well, I'm not talking about artistic style or periods of practice. This is strictly nuts & bolts, for those who understand some music theory, not just subjective listeners.


I didn't read beyond this point as I am "just" a "subjective listener" (whatever that is). I expect your thoughts are above my head but then I always understood that composers were composing music for mere subjective listeners.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> I didn't read beyond this point as I am "just" a "subjective listener" (whatever that is). I expect your thoughts are above my head but then I always understood that composers were composing music for mere subjective listeners.


I'm not talking about the composer's intentions, or your reactions. I'm just talking about the systems themselves.


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