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7 - Summary, and the Way Forward to Twelve-Tone Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2019

Jack Boss
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Summary

Chapter 7 reviews the arguments presented throughout the whole book, reminding the reader that my portrayal of Schoenberg’s atonal music as connected by common frameworks such as “musical idea” and “basic image” goes against the grain of much previous Schoenberg scholarship. It argues against the idea that each piece creates its own unique organization (the concept of “contextual atonality”) and also against the notion that Schoenberg went through a phase in 1909–11 where he abandoned motives and motivic process. But if the atonal music can be understood as a logical, continuous development with its pieces linked by common frameworks, how can one justify Schoenberg’s turn to 12-tone music in the 1920s? The latter part of my chapter explains the transition as motivated by two factors (with analysis of selected pieces): the desire for regular circulation through the 12-tone aggregate, and the need for complete control over all pitch classes of the piece through transformation of the Grundgestalt.

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Chapter
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Schoenberg's Atonal Music
Musical Idea, Basic Image, and Specters of Tonal Function
, pp. 343 - 365
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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