Serialism in Music: 4 Composers Associated With Serialism

In music, serialism was a technique used in specific classical and avant-garde musical compositions that became popular in the twentieth century. Serial composition is centered around arranging a series, or row, of musical elements, including tones, collections of notes, rhythms, or pitches, into a pattern that repeats itself throughout a composition.

A basic form of serial composition is to select a certain number of notes on the chromatic scale—which arranges all 12 notes in ascending or descending order of pitch or pitch classes—and create permutations using only that number of notes. The notes, referred to as a row, must all be played once before repeating, though you can repeat a note immediately after playing it (for example, A, and then A). The first arrangement of the chosen musical notes is called the tone row.

The tone row can then be played in reverse order, which is called retrograde; inversion, which is when a composer drops a note after each successive note (D, then E, then F); and retrograde inversion, which combines both serial techniques (in reverse and dropping after each note).

Twelve-tone serialism is a serial technique that focuses on 12 notes on the chromatic scale. The twelve-tone technique was developed by twentieth-century composer Arnold Schoenberg, though medieval composers previously explored serial music and its elements. It was intended as a replacement for tonality, which, in its most basic sense, is music built on keys and the foundation of most Western music for centuries. However, 12-tone serialism is different from atonality, which has no key on which to build a composition.

By focusing on the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, no emphasis is given to any single key. Twelve-tone compositions were based around the particular order given to the 12 tones. Beyond the fact that all 12 notes had to be played before they could be repeated, 12-tone composition is not given a theme, rhythm, or loudness, so listeners may never hear one as the composer initially intended.

There is often very little connection between serial composers’ music other than the serial pattern because serial technique rarely addresses the music’s sound or style. As a result, serial music includes a diverse array of composers, including:

1. 1. Arnold Schoenberg. The Austrian-born Schoenberg is credited with having conceived the idea for twelve-tone serialism after World War I. Many of his best-known pupils, including Alban Berg, John Cage, and Anton Webern, employed the 12-tone technique in their own works, as did composers outside his circle; among the later serialists were Igor Stravinsky (who initially disliked serialism), Ernst Krenek, and Milton Babbitt.
2. 2. Anton Webern. Both Webern and Alban Berg were students of Schoenberg. They were regarded as part of the “Second Viennese School,” a group of like-minded composers who employed his notions of serialism, and in particular, 12-tone serialism in their own work. Webern’s music is often referred to as integral or total serialism, meaning that he would apply serial techniques to as many parts of a composition as possible.
3. 3. Karlheinz Stockhausen. German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was greatly influenced by serialism through one of his teachers, Olivier Messiaen. He applied serial techniques to various musical elements, including intensity, duration, articulations, and instrumentation.
   
4. 4. Pierre Boulez. French composer Pierre Boulez, a significant figure in twentieth-century avant-garde music development, also deviated from a strict interpretation of serial technique and used it in elements like volume, pitch, and attack—the intensity with which notes are played.

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