Chapter 79

Twelve-Tone Music and Serialism

after World War II

12-tone Music after World War II

• Following WW II, younger composers in Europe and America rejected neo-classicism, which before the war had been the dominant style of modern music worldwide.

• In its place they at first proposed a revival of 12-tone and serial composition extending the thinking that underlay these methods to:

– encompass not only the selection of pitch

– but also rhythm and other variables in composition, producing “total serialism.”

- represents a reduction in the free choices available to a composer and a step toward a more “automatic”

approach in the compositional process.

• Combinatoriality - in America, Milton Babbitt used a mathematical model to create a common procedure by which both rhythms and pitches could be inverted.

Various Post-WW II Approaches to 12-tone Music

• Babbitt’s interest in serial procedures received a boost when they were adopted in the 1950’s by Igor Stravinsky– who took the 12-tone music of Webern as his

principal model.

• Stravinsky’s use of the 12-tone method confirmed the existence of a new style period in the 1950’s– with serial composition as one of its principal

features.

• Pierre Boulez began his career as a composer of strictly serialized music– in Le marteau sans maître (1955) he reinterpreted

its methods for tonal organization in a far freer manner.

– this created and led to a general rejection of the 12-tone method and other strict serial procedures.

Igor Stravinsky’s 12-tone and serial works

• serialized but not 12 tone:– Cantata (1952)– Septet (1953)– Three Songs from William Shakespeare (1953)– In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954)– Canticum sacrum (1955)

• serialized and partly 12 tone:– Agon (1953-57)

• serialized and 12 tone (selected):– Threni (1958)– Movements (1959)– The Flood (1962)– Variations (1964)– Requiem canticles (1966)

Igor Stravinsky, Agon, 1953–1957, “Bransle double”

Rounded Binary form

The Life of Milton Babbitt (b. 1916)

• 1916 - born in Philadelphia, grows up in Mississippi

• 1931-35 - attends the University of Pennsylvania and New York University

• 1938 - joins the faculty at Princeton University

• 1959 - appointed director of the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center

Principal Compositions by Milton Babbitt

• Orchestra: character pieces; piano concertos (2)

• Chamber music: works include string quartets (6) and a woodwind quintet

• Piano: character pieces

• Voice: works include– Phonemena– Vision and Prayer– Philomel

• Tape works

Milton Babbitt, Composition for Piano No. 1, 1947

Free Rounded Binary form

The Life of Pierre Boulez (b. 1925)

• 1925 - born in Montribson (in central France)

• 1942-45 - studies at the Paris Conservatory

• 1954-67 - directs the Domaine Musical (for the performance of new music)

• 1971-77 - music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra

• 1977-92 - director of the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris

Principal Compositions by Pierre Boulez (many are works in progress without definitive final

versions) • Orchestra: works include

– Rituel– Livre pour cordes

• Voice and orchestra, works include:– Pli selon pli– cummings ist der Dichter – Le marteau sans maître

• Chamber music, works include:– Polyphonie X– Eclat– Répons– ‘. . . explosante-fixe . . ‘– Livre pour quatuor

• Piano: works include sonatas (3) and – Structures (for two pianos, two books)

Pierre Boulez, Le marteau sans maître,

1955, “L’artisanat furieux”Through-composed form