Uploaded April 2010 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Given the paucity of other sources, it seems likely that Wallingford Riegger learned much of what he knew of the twelve-tone method from his personal contact with Adolph Weiss. Riegger was already composing rugged, dissonant, atonal music in what was emerging as a shared ultramodern style, but he became increasingly interested in the possibilities of the twelve-tone method. In 1932, he completed his first piece that can reasonably be described as twelve-tone in significant respects (Dichotomy), and thereafter most of his instrumental music was serial at least in part.14
Dichotomy uses two series. In the published score, Riegger labels them A and B and identifies their occurrences and transformations (inversion, retrograde, retrograde-inversion) in the score (see Example 1.4).15 Series A contains eleven of the twelve notes (F is excluded). Series B contains thirteen notes (F♯ and B are excluded; F, G, and A are each stated twice). The last three notes of Series A (G, G♯, and A) return as the first three of Series B the two series otherwise share no segments. What they do share, however, are some of the characteristics of ultramodern melody: variety of interval and pitch (the latter, of course, endemic to serialism) and an avoidance of triadic outline or implication.
In the passage shown in Example 1.5, there are two distinct musical streams, one serial and the other not. Within the serial stream, we hear an ongoing duet, pitting either Series A or B against its own inversion. These are driving, craggy, widely spaced melodic lines. In the opening of the passage, Series B, played by the lower strings and bassoon, is heard against its inversion at T9I, played in the upper woodwinds. The two melodies are mirror images of each other in register this is a pitch, not a pitch-class inversion. Subsequently, the T1 transposition of A (in retrograde) is heard against the T9I inversion of A (also in retrograde). Again, the contours of the two melodies are largely mirror images, although this breaks down at the end of the passage, when each melody ruminates on its concluding four or five notes. Throughout these duets, and throughout the piece, Riegger maintains a concrete conception of the series as an actual melody with a specific contour. When the series is transposed or transformed (via inversion and or retrograde), its rhythms may change, but its registral shape generally remains the same. For Riegger, a series was primarily a line of pitches (not pitch classes), an actual melody with a determinate contour.
In the passage in Example 1.5, there is a second, non-serial stream. It consists of pairs of four- or six-note chords. These chords, sometimes preceded by ascending scales in parallel major sevenths, punctuate the passage, dividing the serial duet into discrete phrases. The chords are also extended into the driving rhythmic ostinato that runs through most of the passage. The resulting musical texture is about as far removed from Schoenbergs (and Weisss) neo-Baroque dances as possible, showing a much greater aesthetic kinship with works like Stravinskys Rite of Spring and Bartóks Allegro Barbaro. Apparently Riegger understood right from the beginning that the serial approach is not wedded to any specific style or texture; rather, it is a way of thinking about and organizing tones related only to one another (not to a tonic), permitting many different kinds of musical realizations.
The chords are identified with numbers in the score in Example 1.5. The first chord is a segment of the chromatic scale (which Riegger would have understood and described as a cluster chord) arranged as two whole tones a minor ninth apart. The first chord is then transposed up a semitone to produce the second chord. Taking the first two chords together, we have a five-note segment of the chromatic scale: C♯DD♯EF. The third and fourth chords transpose the first and second up by a perfect fourth (but not in register), producing another, non-overlapping segment of the chromatic scale: F♯GG♯AB♭. The fifth chord repeats the notes of the third chord, adjoining to them the lower whole tone of the first chord. The sixth chord transposes the fifth chord up by a semitone, and thus consists of the content of the fourth chord to which the lower whole tone of the second chord has been adjoined. The fifth and sixth chords together thus project almost the entire chromatic aggregate (only B, C, and F are missing). The chordal stream in this passage thus involves the dissonant major seventh (or minor ninth) as a harmonic interval and a preference for verticalized segments of the chromatic scale.
[Joseph N. Strauss]
Given the paucity of other sources, it seems likely that Wallingford Riegger learned much of what he knew of the twelve-tone method from his personal contact with Adolph Weiss. Riegger was already composing rugged, dissonant, atonal music in what was emerging as a shared ultramodern style, but he became increasingly interested in the possibilities of the twelve-tone method. In 1932, he completed his first piece that can reasonably be described as twelve-tone in significant respects (Dichotomy), and thereafter most of his instrumental music was serial at least in part.14
Dichotomy uses two series. In the published score, Riegger labels them A and B and identifies their occurrences and transformations (inversion, retrograde, retrograde-inversion) in the score (see Example 1.4).15 Series A contains eleven of the twelve notes (F is excluded). Series B contains thirteen notes (F♯ and B are excluded; F, G, and A are each stated twice). The last three notes of Series A (G, G♯, and A) return as the first three of Series B the two series otherwise share no segments. What they do share, however, are some of the characteristics of ultramodern melody: variety of interval and pitch (the latter, of course, endemic to serialism) and an avoidance of triadic outline or implication.
In the passage shown in Example 1.5, there are two distinct musical streams, one serial and the other not. Within the serial stream, we hear an ongoing duet, pitting either Series A or B against its own inversion. These are driving, craggy, widely spaced melodic lines. In the opening of the passage, Series B, played by the lower strings and bassoon, is heard against its inversion at T9I, played in the upper woodwinds. The two melodies are mirror images of each other in register this is a pitch, not a pitch-class inversion. Subsequently, the T1 transposition of A (in retrograde) is heard against the T9I inversion of A (also in retrograde). Again, the contours of the two melodies are largely mirror images, although this breaks down at the end of the passage, when each melody ruminates on its concluding four or five notes. Throughout these duets, and throughout the piece, Riegger maintains a concrete conception of the series as an actual melody with a specific contour. When the series is transposed or transformed (via inversion and or retrograde), its rhythms may change, but its registral shape generally remains the same. For Riegger, a series was primarily a line of pitches (not pitch classes), an actual melody with a determinate contour.
In the passage in Example 1.5, there is a second, non-serial stream. It consists of pairs of four- or six-note chords. These chords, sometimes preceded by ascending scales in parallel major sevenths, punctuate the passage, dividing the serial duet into discrete phrases. The chords are also extended into the driving rhythmic ostinato that runs through most of the passage. The resulting musical texture is about as far removed from Schoenbergs (and Weisss) neo-Baroque dances as possible, showing a much greater aesthetic kinship with works like Stravinskys Rite of Spring and Bartóks Allegro Barbaro. Apparently Riegger understood right from the beginning that the serial approach is not wedded to any specific style or texture; rather, it is a way of thinking about and organizing tones related only to one another (not to a tonic), permitting many different kinds of musical realizations.
The chords are identified with numbers in the score in Example 1.5. The first chord is a segment of the chromatic scale (which Riegger would have understood and described as a cluster chord) arranged as two whole tones a minor ninth apart. The first chord is then transposed up a semitone to produce the second chord. Taking the first two chords together, we have a five-note segment of the chromatic scale: C♯DD♯EF. The third and fourth chords transpose the first and second up by a perfect fourth (but not in register), producing another, non-overlapping segment of the chromatic scale: F♯GG♯AB♭. The fifth chord repeats the notes of the third chord, adjoining to them the lower whole tone of the first chord. The sixth chord transposes the fifth chord up by a semitone, and thus consists of the content of the fourth chord to which the lower whole tone of the second chord has been adjoined. The fifth and sixth chords together thus project almost the entire chromatic aggregate (only B, C, and F are missing). The chordal stream in this passage thus involves the dissonant major seventh (or minor ninth) as a harmonic interval and a preference for verticalized segments of the chromatic scale.
[Joseph N. Strauss]
![Edison Denisov, Symphony [No.1], USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra, Rozhdestvensky](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xiH4u8B_glg/mqdefault.jpg "Edison Denisov, Symphony [No.1], USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra, Rozhdestvensky
It seems to me that one of the greatest values of music is its spiritual power, its ability to carry a great spiritual charge. Music carried this charge during pre-Bach and Bach epochs, as well as for some time afterwards (Mozart, Brahms). In the 20th century, this charge was, to a considerable degree, lost. During our lifetime, for a long while, the loss of spiritual values has progressed, - or their leveling, or even a negative attitude to them revealed by the growth of so-called atheism - a phenomenon very dangerous to mankind. I remember Shostakovich telling me a few times a year or two before his death: Earlier, there were ten commandments: thou shall not kill; thou shall not steal; thou shall not seduce your neighbors wife; etc. But now we have just one single commandment - do not violate the purity of the teaching of Marx and Lenin. A lot of artists perceived the leveling of spiritual values and their replacement by false values. In music - both in academic and in new - there is a lot of what we may call bluff. Currently, even some prominent names, experiencing intense professional scrutiny closely follow all the slightest changes of fashion - and, since they possess a certain technique and skills in the application of cliché, they often deceive the audience. Take the great artists of the past - Mozart, Bach, or Brahms; from Russian music, take Mussorgsky, Glinka, Tchaikovsky. Those never cheated the audience, never fooled anyone - they were always honest and sincere. At present, unfortunately, the idea of honesty often disappears from art. Even significant composers, and to a much greater extent, artists, often indulge in bluffing, whereas the audience, having lost the criteria, takes this bluff at face value.
In our society, false art has often substituted true one. There was a long period when the true art was suppressed, whereas false art was hailed, presented as true, and the entire mass media industriously persuaded the people that this was true art. This was how, in particular, they managed to fend the people off the concert hall. When before the war, Soviet music was played, people went to listen to it. In the 20s, concert halls were packed. Nowadays, one has to organize the audience; there is even an expression, filling groups. Once there was an authors concert of some secretary-composer, related to his nomination for the Lenin award. I asked a clarinetist from the State Orchestra: How was the concert? And he told me: It was wonderful - one to five. - What do you mean? - Fifty people on the stage, ten in the stalls. This is a standard picture. Here also lies one of the reasons for the fact that opera houses, especially provincial ones, stay empty. For a long time, all had been done to divert the public from art.
Unlike some other composers who got carried away by serialism, I have never rejected intention, because purely abstract reasoning deprived of any intentional content, makes music more superficial. One may compose a lot of good pieces, but they will be, so to say, beautiful musical architecture with very little spiritual content. For example, I appreciate Xenakiss music, but objectively speaking, it is very superficial - it has almost no psychological content. In a sense, this is objective music. If we attribute Xenakis to French music, he will appear to continue the tradition of Roussel and Varèse, but in no way is he even close to Debussys tradition. To me, other things are more appealing. In my opinion, Debussy is one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. I think that he is even more innovative, if we use this word, than Stravinsky or Webern - but Debussys innovations do not lie on the surface. In Stravinskys music, the new immediately strikes you; whereas one initially takes Debussy as very traditional. However, when you start to analyze, you see that he was a much more daring thinker than many of his contemporaries. In this respect, Debussys music, in his best pieces, like Pelleas and Melisande, is to me as promising as Mussorgskys music - which was really appreciated almost one hundred years after [his death], or possibly has not yet been appreciated even today.
Edison Denisov
Denisov was born in Tomsk, Siberia into the family of a radio-physicist, who gave him the very unusual first name Edison, in honour of the great American inventor. He studied mathematics before deciding to spend his life composing. This decision was enthusiastically supported by Dmitri Shostakovich, who gave him instructions in composition.")
