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PERENNIAL QUESTIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2005

Extract

In his essay ‘What are twelve-note rows really for?’ (Tempo, Vol. 57, No. 225, July 2003, p. 36), Michael Graubart suggests that ‘twelve-note rows may give back to atonal music a goal-directed force and the possibility of closure’. He argues that by using a row, composers set up a pattern that can ultimately provide a sense of completion or closure to an atonal piece, although he admits that listeners may have trouble recognizing this completion. Closure in tonal music is in fact a powerful musical force, but one whose strength depends largely upon the hierarchy found in tonal melody and harmony. Consider the closure at the end of a piece. It is here that an authentic cadence signals the coming to rest of large-scale musical forces, both melodic and harmonic, on several levels of structure. We might make analogies, as Graubart does, between tonal closure and the pattern-completion possible with a twelve-note row, but one wonders if any row, or any twelve-note piece for that matter, can provide the type of multi-level completion that is possible within the tonal hierarchy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2005

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Footnotes

‘Perennial Questions’ is an occasional series by different writers on broad issues of concern in the fields of performance, aesthetics, comprehension and silent assumption. The Editor will gladly consider topics and submissions for, and responses and answers to, these PQ's from all quarters.