Bach/serialism

From Keyboard mag, March '85 (a special Bach issue)...Rosalyn Tureck said "And when I was studying composition with Schoenberg, he told me that Bach was the first twelve-tone composer. The B minor fugue in Book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier was the first twelve tone composition; the subject is a perfect tone row." So guess the old wig was an innovator after all...Hstick www.microstick.net

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Yes, the b-minor Bk I fugue subject---that's an oft-quoted example, too!

Admittedly, this kind of example is pretty rare in the common practice
classical repertoire, though. The serialists were fond of having these
examples on hand to perhaps 'justify' their experiments. Perhaps they
shouldn't have felt the need to be defensive, although they came under such
attack from the conservatives that it was of course understandable. And
Schoenberg sure knew his music history and repertoire, so he had
gargoyle-like examples
galore to boot.

Another famous example is the opening octaves passage at the beginning of
the development of the last mvt. of Mozart's 40th (g-minor) symphony.....

AKJ

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Neil Haverstick <microstick@...>wrote:

>
> From Keyboard mag, March '85 (a special Bach issue)...Rosalyn Tureck said
> "And when I was studying composition with Schoenberg, he told me that Bach
> was the first twelve-tone composer. The B minor fugue in Book 1 of the Well
> Tempered Clavier was the first twelve tone composition; the subject is a
> perfect tone row." So guess the old wig was an innovator after all...Hstick
> www.microstick.net
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

--
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.untwelve.org

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Hi Neil,

That is a great issue, and Rosalyn Tureck was an unsurpassed
genius. However as I understand it, it is not a true tone row
because notes are repeated before all are introduced.

Here is a nice page on this wonderful fugue
http://www2.nau.edu/tas3/wtc/i24.html

The theme is what Lady Gaga turns off, with a disapproving look,
at the start of her music video for "Bad Romance".

-Carl

> From Keyboard mag, March '85 (a special Bach issue)...Rosalyn
>Tureck said "And when I was studying composition with Schoenberg, he
>told me that Bach was the first twelve-tone composer. The B minor
>fugue in Book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier was the first twelve tone
>composition; the subject is a perfect tone row." So guess the old wig
>was an innovator after all...Hstick www.microstick.net