On the Development of the Structural Potentialities of Rhythm, Dynamics, and Timbre in the Early Nontonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg

Abstract

In this essay, James Tenney discusses the development of the structural potentialities of rhythm, dynamics, and timbre in the early nontonal music of Arnold Schoenberg. Beginning with the Three Piano Pieces op. 11, and continuing through Pierrot Lunaire and the Four Songs with Orchestra opp. 21 and 22, Schoenberg developed a style that he later characterized as one based on “the emancipation of the dissonance.” His further descriptions of the developments of the period are almost exclusively in terms of harmonic innovations. Analytical writings by others have reflected this same concern with the harmonic (and, to a lesser extent, the melodic) aspects of the music. Tenney considers the twelve-tone method in music and argues that it is a partial systematization of procedures that Schoenberg had used. He hopes that his observations on rhythm, dynamics, and timbre that are articulated in this essay might later serve as the basis for a broader generalization of the basic ideas underlying twelve-tone music.