12-tone music


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Noun1.12-tone music - a type of serial music introduced by Arnold Schoenberg12-tone music - a type of serial music introduced by Arnold Schoenberg; uses a tone row formed by the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale (and inverted or backward versions of the row)
12-tone system, twelve-tone music, twelve-tone system
serial music, serialism - 20th century music that uses a definite order of notes as a thematic basis for a musical composition
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
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That said, 12-tone music that developed following the horrors of World War I cannot be said to be transcendentally beautiful in the same way as most music from preceding periods.
collo on classics
It is a masterpiece of 12-tone music as well as a work of penetrating social commentary, exploring as it does the dark underbelly of human behaviors, drives and desires.
Alban Berg. Lulu
A student of Arnold Schoenberg, Webern composed 12-tone music that dispenses with traditional harmony and substitutes a precise mathematical arrangement in which each of the 12 notes of the scale occurs without repeating.
Symphony's 6-minute challenge
ASK most people to go to a recital of 12-tone music and they'll fight shy.
Music: OPERA: High drama in the high notes; Glyn MOn Hughes on WNO spectaculars
In 12-tone music, the composer orders the 12 tones of the chromatic scale (the scale that on the piano includes all the keys, black and white, in any one octave) in a series of his choosing called a "tone row," and that row--in place of traditional scales, harmonies, and harmonic progressions--functions in complex ways as the basis for all the musical elements of the piece.
Music's missing magic: we expect nothing less from music than that it give meaning to our lives. And for centuries, Western classical music did just that. But in the 20th century many composers turned in a new and less satisfying direction, and it's unclear whether music will ever regain what was lost

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