Customer Reviews

Twelve-Tone Tonality, Second edition

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This book should really be titled "My method of composing with 12 tones". Because it is George Perle's account of how he composes serial music. The examples are taken from his music and a few other like minded folks, but it is not a general description of how composers such as Schoenberg, Stravinsky, or anyone else wrote serial music.

There is nothing wrong with writing a book like this. Many people admire Perle's music and love working through a very technical book like this. Certainly, the music puzzle solvers will get a big kick out of all the ways of manipulating all of the set possibilities.

However, the general music lover will simply be overwhelmed. Can you hear the stuff Perle is talking about? Some say they can. I think Perle's method does provide aural structures that gain a certain kind of priority and in that way function as a kind of "tonality" (the traditional way of producing a hierarchy of pitches in a key). Still, the average music listener will not have the understanding or listening chops to get at what Perle is going after. But do they really get Berg or Webern?

So, if you really want to dig into one man's view of a way to work 12-tone sets into music, this could be an interesting book for you. If not, then turn to something else. Maybe Perle's "Serial Composition and Atonality" would be more appropriate and useful to you.

I find Perle's extension (and refinements, which were much needed) of the idea of dodecaphonic music to be really and truly genius. Incredibly fascinating for both composers and musicians just interested in theoretical oddities. I do, however, think this book could've used some editing. Some of the concepts Perle presents could use more thorough explanations and some could use substantially less. Also, I feel that the order of the first few chapters could've been juggled a bit to build more cleanly upon one another. If you can slog your way through this one though, you'll have some really fresh and exciting compositional ideas as well as a renewed appreciation for the potential of the twelve-tone idiom.

A very good book, but you will need patience to
read it. However, once you have understood the
concepts, the amazing structures inherent in the
12-tone scale become apparent. I am presently
working on an extension of the theory to N-fold
divisions of the octave