Die Reihe-A Scientific Evaluation

Abstract

THE periodical Die Reihe is a relatively new addition to the family of journals in the field of music, the first issue having been published in Germany in 1955.1 However, it is a publication that will inevitably confront anyone interested in the present-day development and future evolution of Edited by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen, it is, according to its title page, devoted to developments in contemporary music. At the time of this writing, seven issues have appeared, of which four are available in English: I, Electronic Music; II, Anton Webern; III, Musical Craftsmanship; and Iv, Young Composers. These issues contribute a total of about four hundred pages to the literature on the theory and practice of avantgarde European musical composition. One's first reaction upon a cursory examination of these volumes is likely to be the realization that music has evidently become the province of mathematicians and engineers as well as of composers. We see in these pages numerous tables, impressive graphs and charts, and even an occasional mathematical formula, all immersed in an ocean of diffuse and technical language. A synthesis of acoustics, mathematics, and musical composition to produce a new musical art is obviously in the making; indeed, the self-confident attitude of most of the authors of the articles is evidence that they at least are convinced that this new art has arrived.