A Revisionist History of Twelve-Tone Serialism in American Music

Abstract

The history of twelve-tone serial music in the United States extends from the late 1920s to the present day. Practitioners of a distinctively American brand of twelve-tone music have included many well-known composers in three distinct waves of activity: prewar experimentation by native-born “ultra-modern” composers amid an influx of European émigrés; a postwar boom; and a third wave of twelve-tone activity since 1980. This extensive repertoire shares certain structural features, including twelve-note aggregates and serial ordering, but even these very general compositional commitments are subject to individual modification, and American twelve-tone serial music has taken astonishingly varied forms. To give an accurate account of this music's history, we must first pry away the many myths that have accreted around it. In the process, we will need to abandon historiographical models that focus on one or two “great men” and that describe the history of style as a series of changing fashions. This article proposes that we regard American music since 1925 as a dynamic steady state within which modernist styles, including twelve-tone serialism, persist as vibrant strands within the postmodern musical fabric.

Portmantonality and Babbitt’s Poetics ofDouble Entendre

“…Return to text 2. Straus (2009) lists, as one of 12 myths, that 12-tone serialism cannot be tonal, and provides examples of tonal 12-tone music.…”

Experiencing Structure in Penderecki’s Threnody: Analysis, Ear-Training, and Musical Understanding

“…36 Indeed, such criticism would not be unprecedented with respect to sonoristic repertoire (see, for example, Cone [1960]; for a rebuttal, see Morgan [1977]; for recent commentaries on the "myth" concerning serialism in composition and perception, see Straus [2008] and Hermann [2011]). 37 Rings (2011a, 499).…”

Radical Socialism, Simplified Serialism: John Weinzweig and CBC Wartime Radio Drama during the Second World War

“…This includes the pressure 9 Due to the scope of this article, a critical discussion of the development of Schoenberg's application of the twelve-tone technique has not been included; nevertheless, this author acknowledges that Schoenberg also developed and adopted a more flexible and less rigid approach to the technique upon immigrating to America during the 1930s, which may have also impacted Weinzweig's approach and application of the technique in his radio works of the time. For further discussion of Schoenberg's flexible approach serial approach, please see Haimo (1998), Straus (2008) and Feisst (2011). 10 For further discussion concerning Weinzweig's application of the serial techniques in these works, please see Keillor (1994) and Nolan (2011).…”

“…At this time, several American ultra-modern composers adopted and transformed the Schoenbergian twelve-tone technique into their own idiosyncratic technique. For further discussion on the emergence of serial writing in the US, seeStraus (2008).12 The rise of the Popular Front in Canada is rooted in the activities and values embraced by the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) during the interwar period. The CPC embraced and adopted the ideals of the Popular Front following the seventh Comintern Congress in 1935, in which the general secretary Georgi Dimitrov called for the formation of a united Popular Front against the rise and threat of fascism.…”