Twelve-tone system
One of the modern composition techniques. It was founded in 1921 by Austrian composer Schoenberg. The composer abandoned the traditional mode, tonality and harmony system, arbitrarily arranged the twelve tones in the chromatic scale into a one-year sequence, and then processed them with techniques such as inversion and retrograde. Unless all the tones have appeared, otherwise No sound may be repeated. Berg and Webern (1883-1945) inherited this method and developed it. Other composers influenced by this method include Darapicola, Stravinsky, Wolf, Britten, Hindemith, Xiao Starkovitch, etc.
In the first half of the 20th century, with the rapid advancement of human scientific civilization and the ups and downs of social development, a large number of composers who created new artistic concepts and new musical languages ??appeared. The complexity of genres and changes in styles More frequently than at any other time in history. These are reflected in the piano music of the first half of the 20th century: "Expressionism" represented by Arnold Schoenberg, "Expressionism" represented by Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith, etc. Neoclassicism” and “New Nationalism” represented by Béla Bartók. Among them, the "expressionist" twelve-tone music of the New Vienna School with Schoenberg as its founder is the most extreme in terms of musical language.
Schoenberg was the originator of twelve-note sequence music. "Three Piano Pieces" composed in 1908 was the first complete atonal work. After nearly 10 years of experiments, Schoenberg published the first complete twelve-tone music work "Piano Suite" in 1923, completing a strict twelve-tone music composition technical system. Although the musical language of Schoenberg's works is obscure, they contain rich dramatic power. On the basis of inheriting his creative system, Schoenberg's two disciples each created a new path. Alban Berg incorporated more melody elements into twelve-tone music, weakening the complexity of the musical language; while another disciple, Anton Webern, although his creative techniques were concise, his musical language was simpler than Schoenberg's. The grid is more obscure. However, Webern further developed the thinking of sequence music and pioneered the writing of overall sequence music for later generations.
Twelve-tone technique music
Twelve-tone technique music is one of the modern Western composition techniques, also known as the twelve-tone system. It is a genre of modern expressionist music. It occurred in the painting world in 1911 on the eve of the First World War. The German Russian painter Kandinsky and painters Markel and Mark founded the magazine "The Blue Rider", which not only published the paintings of Kandinsky and others, but also published many expressionist theories on painting, poetry, drama, etc. article, in which the Austrian musician Schoenberg's writings set off a craze for Expressionism in the history of music.
Twelve-tone technique music is completely different from Impressionism in aesthetic ideas and creative techniques. They believe that art should neither "describe" nor "symbolize", but should directly express human spirit and experience. . This view is in line with expressionism in painting, which is to reveal the human inner world through art, mixing together morbid emotions such as madness, despair, fear, anxiety, and the incredible fate of human beings.
This technique is absolutely anti-traditional in terms of composition skills. It completely ignores the past tonal rules and harmonic function rules. Instead, it gives equal value to the twelve tones in the octave and abandons the past. Concepts such as tonic, dominant, and subordinate tones make atonality occupy an absolutely dominant position. Because the old melody track is destroyed, the melody is neither balanced nor repetitive, but just a series of unique sounds. The rhythm is also elusive, with almost no beat at all, breaking the balance of the past, so it seems very free. In terms of orchestra formation and orchestration, we never pursue the past grandeur and exaggeration of sound. Instead, we adopt a delicate and simple small arrangement, with obvious characteristics of chamber music, but the color is not as leisurely and indifferent as impressionism, but Simple, bright and intense.
The first composer to experiment with twelve-tone technique is generally the Austrian composer Hauer. After years of exploration by the Austrian composer Schoenberg, a musical expressionist figure, and his disciples Berg and Webern, they all proved the possibility of this new thinking in music creation with their own practices. The basic technique of their composition is: all twelve semitones form a sequence of notes in a fixed order. Each note in the sequence cannot be repeated. It has no concept of theme, it is just a skeleton, a music that permeates the works that use it. concept. In 1923, Schoenberg's "Five Piano Pieces" and chamber music "Serenade"; Berg's "Violin Concerto" and operetta "Lulu"; Webern's "Piano Variations" (Op. 27), "Six Pieces" "Song" (Operation 9) are their representative works.
Who is the real creator of the twelve-tone technique? This issue is still controversial. Some people used twelve-tone compositions in the Middle Ages; the Russian composer Scriabin’s “Mysterious Chords” It is also an example of twelve-tone composition; the German composer Jef Gorishev wrote an apparently twelve-tone piece of music in 1914. But in any case, on the basis of studying the composition techniques of their predecessors, Schoenberg and his disciples developed the twelve-tone technique into a modern composition technique, which has had a major impact on the history of world music. This is There is no doubt about it.
Later, twelve-tone technique music developed into "sequence" music, "whole sequence" music, "point tracing" music and so on.