Leaderboard

I’ve been doing my own detailed analyses of some important 20th century pieces to keep me up to speed and I figure some of my findings may be of use to those of you here who compose or want to start composing atonal music or anybody who is just trying to understand what the hell atonal music is all about! Anyway, I figured I’d do one thread looking at a work in detail and see how it goes from there. The first piece I’ll look at is Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite of 1926. It’s an important piece in Berg’s output as it is his first large-scale work to use serial technique. The piece is for string quartet and is in 6 movements: The 1st movement, outer sections of the 3rd movement and ‘B’ sections of the 5th movement are all serial while the rest of the work is composed freely. For now, I’m just going to focus on the 1st movement. 1st Movement Row: F E C A G D Ab Db Eb Gb Bb B The tone row used throughout the movement is of interest for several reasons. The 2nd 6-note group (hexachord) of the row is the retrograde (reverse) of the 1st hexachord transposed up a tritone. Notice that the 1st hexachord of the row contains all natural notes, whereas the 2nd hexachord contains all flats apart from B. The first half of the row can be said to be in the ‘key’ of F while the second half can be said to be in the ‘key’ of B. Also, if we look at note groups <1-2-3> and <8-9-10> we’ll notice that each group forms a minor triad. When the row is inverted, these same groups form major triads. These tonal implications aren’t accidental and will be fully exploited by Berg throughout the work. 1st movement link: The 1st movement, believe it or not, is in a standard sonata form. Rather than relying on separate key areas to mark the structure, Berg uses changes in tempo. The exposition’s 1st subject is marked ‘Tempo I’ while the 2nd subject is marked ‘Tempo II’. Development of the material from each subject is marked by a return to that particular subject’s tempo. This is a key technique used by 20th century composers to structure their music in the absence of tonality and can be observed throughout Berg’s music, even back to his Op. 1 Piano Sonata. Although the 1st movement is serial, Berg isn’t always totally strict with the method. On occasions he uses a system invented by Josef Hauer known as trope technique. The idea is that you construct a 12 note row and the notes can appear in any order as long as all of the notes of the 1st hexachord appear before any of the notes of the 2nd hexachord. As we discovered before, Berg’s row lends itself perfectly to this system because it can be split into 2 different ‘keys’. Using the trope technique allows Berg some freedom whilst retaining the same character as the strict serial parts as the F-B key divide stays intact. There is another reason for Berg using the trope technique. In bars 8-9, Berg uses the trope technique to create a cycle of 4ths in the cello part. This is one of Berg’s favourite tools known as an interval cycle. Interval cycles are literally cycles of notes that are all the same interval apart. A cycle of minor 2nds (otherwise known as a 1-cycle) would simply be a chromatic scale, eg. C-C#-D-D#-E-F-etc. A cycle of major 2nds (2-cycle) is otherwise known as the whole-tone scale, eg. C-D-E-F#-G#-A#. A 3-cycle forms a diminished 7th chord, a 4-cycle forms an augmented triad and a 5-cycle forms a cycle of 4ths as shown above. There are 2 things that are significant about interval cycles: 1. They can all be found in tonal music. 1-cycles are familiar from chromatic scale runs, 2-cycles are familiar from the whole-tone based music of Rimsky-Korsakov and later, Debussy, 3-cycles as diminished 7th chords have been in use since the Baroque period, 4-cycles can be found in the music of Liszt and Wagner as well as many composers who followed them and 5-cycles form the bass line to any cycle of 4ths progression which pops up in virtually all tonal music and is easiest to identify in the development sections of classical sonata-form movements. 2. They don’t suggest or lean towards any particular key and can therefore be used in atonal music without the fear of accidentally setting up a certain key. The fact that interval cycles are familiar to us from tonal music can be exploited by the composer, and Berg often does this. Berg uses interval cycles in the same way that a composer such as Chopin may use a major scale as a device to pad out the music or move smoothly from one section to another. As well as having this use as almost ‘filler’ material, cycles can be used to construct the main themes or motives of a piece. If this is done, the theme can be recalled or suggested to the listener simply by playing around with the cycle from which it is constructed. This is in fact done by Berg in later movements of the suite. Most importantly, interval cycles provide structure for the listener and are easy to follow due to their familiarity from earlier music. They are useful simply as material for transitions or even for the main thematic material of a piece and are probably the reason why Berg is possibly one of the most widely accepted serial composers. While others were looking to break completely free of the past, Berg was simply looking for a bridge to link the past to the future, taking what he could work with from it and combining it with his teacher, Schoenberg’s serial method. I’ll leave it there for now. I'm sure there's plenty I can improve upon but I’ve tried to make it understandable, hopefully without going too far and patronising people who may already know this stuff or taking for granted that people will know things and leaving important bits out. If anyone has any questions about any of this ask away either in the thread or PM me.

I'm still available. I said I'd be here in October to judge.