The Listening Service Extra 6 of 12 - Twelve Tones

Tom listens to Schoenberg’s distillation and defence of his theory of composition with 12 tones: serialism in a nutshell.

'The method of composing with twelve tones substitutes for the order granted by the permanent reference to tonal centers an order according to which every unit of a piece being a derivative of the tonal relations in a basic set of twelve tones, the "Grundgestalt," is coherent because of this permanent reference to it. Shall I repeat this? I mean instead of relating every configuration in a piece to a tonal center, every configuration in a twelve-tone piece is related to the Grundgestalt in that it consisted of always the same tone relation as this Grundgestalt provides. Reference to this set offers also the justification of dissonant sounds.' - Arnold Schoenberg, 1949

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien