Tone row

In music, a tone row or

note row (German: Reihe
or Tonreihe), also series or
set,[2] is a non-repetitive
ordering of a set of pitch-
classes, typically of the
twelve notes in musical set "Mirror forms", P, R, I, and RI, of a tone row (from Arnold Schoenberg's
theory of the chromatic Variations for Orchestra Op. 31, "Called mirror forms because...they are
scale, though both larger and identical".[1]
smaller sets are sometimes 0:00 MENU
found.

Contents
History and usage
Theory and compositional techniques
Nonstandard tone rows
See also
References
Further reading
External links

History and usage

Tone rows are the basis of
Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-
tone technique and most
types of serial music. Tone
rows were widely used in
20th-century contemporary
music, like Dmitri
Shostakovich's use of twelve-
Tone row of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen für drei Orchester, the
tone rows, "without
registrally fixed pitches of which correspond with duration units and
dodecaphonic
metronome marks.[3]
transformations."[4][5] 0:00 MENU

A tone row has been

identified in the A minor
prelude from book II of J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier (1742)[6] and by the late
eighteenth century, their use was a well-established technique, found in works such as Mozart's
C major String Quartet, K. 157 (1772), String Quartet in E-flat major, K. 428, String Quintet in G
minor, K. 516 (1790), and the Symphony in G minor, K. 550 (1788).[7] Beethoven also used the
technique but, on the whole, "Mozart seems to have employed serial technique far more often
than Beethoven".[8] Franz Liszt used a twelve-tone row in the opening of his Faust Symphony.
Hans Keller claims that Schoenberg was aware of this serial practice in the classical period and
that "Schoenberg repressed his knowledge of classical serialism because it would have injured
his narcissism."[9]

Theory and compositional techniques

Principal forms of the tone row of Anton Webern's Variations for piano, Op.
27. Each hexachord fills in a chromatic fourth, with B as the pivot (end of P1
and beginning of IR8), and thus linked by the prominent tritone in the center
of the row.[10]
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Tone rows are designated by letters and subscript numbers (e.g.: RI11, which may also appear as
RI11 or RI–11). The numbers indicate the initial (P or I) or final (R or RI) pitch-class number of
the given row form, most often with c = 0.

"P" indicates prime, a forward-directed right-side up form.

"I" indicates inversion, a forward-directed upside-down form.
"R" indicates retrograde, a backwards right-side up form.
"RI" indicates retrograde-inversion, a backwards upside-down form.
Transposition is indicated by a T number, for example P8 is a T(4) transposition of P4.[11]

A twelve-tone composition will take one or more tone rows, called the "prime form", as its basis
plus their transformations (inversion, retrograde, retrograde inversion, as well as transposition;
see twelve-tone technique for details). These forms may be used to construct a melody in a
straightforward manner as in Schoenberg's Piano Suite Op. 25 Minuet Trio, where P-0 is used
to construct the opening melody and later varied through transposition, as P-6, and also in
articulation and dynamics. It is then varied again through inversion, untransposed, taking form
I-0. However, rows may be combined to produce melodies or harmonies in more complicated
ways, such as taking successive or multiple pitches of a melody from two different row forms, as
described at twelve-tone technique.

Initially, Schoenberg required the avoidance of suggestions of tonality—such as the use of

consecutive imperfect consonances (thirds or sixths)—when constructing tone rows, reserving
such use for the time when the dissonance is completely emancipated. Alban Berg, however,
sometimes incorporated tonal elements into his twelve-tone works. The main tone row of his
Violin Concerto hints at this tonality:
 0:00 MENU

This tone row consists of alternating minor and major triads starting on the open strings of the
violin, followed by a portion of an ascending whole tone scale. This whole tone scale reappears
in the second movement when the chorale "Es ist genug" (It is enough) from J.S. Bach's cantata
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 60 is quoted literally in the woodwinds (mostly clarinet).

Some tone rows have a high degree of internal organization. An example is the tone row from
Anton Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments Op. 24, shown below.[12]

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In this tone row, if the first three notes are regarded as the "original" cell, then the next three
are its retrograde inversion, the next three are retrograde, and the last three are its inversion. A
row created in this manner, through variants of a trichord or tetrachord called the generator, is
called a derived row.

The tone rows of many of Webern's other late works are similarly intricate. The tone row for
Webern's String Quartet Op. 28 is based on the BACH motif (B!, A, C, B") and is composed of
three tetrachords:

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The "set-complex" is the forty-eight forms of the set generated by stating each "aspect" or
transformation on each pitch class.[2]

The all-interval twelve-tone row is a tone row arranged so that it contains one instance of each
interval within the octave, 0 through 11.

The "total chromatic" (or "aggregate")[13] is the set of all twelve pitch classes. An "array" is a
succession of aggregates.[13] The term is also used to refer to lattices.

An aggregate may be achieved through complementation or combinatoriality, such as with

hexachords.

A "secondary set" is a tone row which is derived from or, "results from the reversed coupling of
hexachords", when a given row form is immediately repeated.[14][15] For example, the row form
consisting of two hexachords:

0 1 2 3 4 5 / 6 7 8 9 t e
when repeated immediately results in the following succession of two aggregates, in the middle
of which is a new and complete aggregate beginning with the second hexachord:

0 1 2 3 4 5 / 6 7 8 9 t e / 0 1 2 3 4 5 / 6 7 8 9 t e
secondary set: [6 7 8 9 t e / 0 1 2 3 4 5]

A "weighted aggregate" is an aggregate in which the twelfth pitch does not appear until at least
one pitch has appeared at least twice, supplied by segments of different set forms.[16] It seems
to have been first used in Milton Babbitt's String Quartet No. 4. An aggregate may be vertically
or horizontally weighted. An "all-partition array" is
created by combining a collection of hexachordally
combinatorial arrays.[17]

Nonstandard tone rows

Schoenberg specified many strict rules and desirable
guidelines for the construction of tone rows such as
number of notes and intervals to avoid. Tone rows that
depart from these guidelines include the above tone row
from Berg's Violin Concerto which contains triads and
tonal emphasis, and the tone row below from Luciano First array of four aggregates (numbered
Berio's Nones which contains a repeated note making it 1–4 at bottom) from Milton Babbitt's
a 'thirteen-tone row': Composition for Four Instruments, each
vertical line (four trichords labeled a–d) is
an aggregate while each horizontal line
(four trichords labeled a–d) is also an
aggregate[13]

Pierre Boulez's Second Piano Sonata series consists of three cells: A) an

ascending perfect fifth followed by a tritone and a perfect fourth, B) a
descending perfect fifth followed by an ascending major second and a
descending augmented fifth, and B1) B inverted.[18]
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Thirteen-note tone row from Luciano Berio's Nones,[20] symmetrical about

the central tone with one note (D) repeated.
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Igor Stravinsky used a five-tone row, chromatically
filling out the space of a major third centered tonally
on C (C–E), in one of his early serial compositions,
In memoriam Dylan Thomas.

In his twelve-tone practice, Stravinsky preferred the

inverse-retrograde (IR) to the retrograde-inverse Prime form of five-note tone row from Igor
(RI),[21][22][23] as for example in his Requiem Stravinsky's In memoriam Dylan Thomas.[19]
Canticles: 0:00 MENU

Basic row forms from Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles:[23] P R I IR

Ben Johnston uses a "just tone row" (see just

intonation) in works including String
Quartets Nos. 6 and 7. Each permutation
contains a just chromatic scale, however,
transformations (transposition and
Unordered sets from the second of Stockhausen's
inversion) produce pitches outside of the Klavierstücke I–IV which "retained only the rudiments of
primary row form, as already occurs in the the 12-note series".[24]
inversion of P0. The pitches of each 0:00 MENU
hexachord are drawn from different
otonality or utonality on A+ utonality, C
otonality and utonality, and E ! - otonality,
outlining a diminished triad.

Unordered sets from the third of Stockhausen's

Klavierstücke I–IV[24]
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Primary forms of the just tone row from Ben Johnston's String Quartet No.
7, mov. 2[25]
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 and hexachords. 0:00
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See also
A literary parallel of the tone row is found in Georges Perec's poems which use each of a
particular set of letters only once.

"Tone row" may also be used to describe other musical collections or scales, such as in Arabic
music.

Musical set theory

Unified field
Side-slipping
Pitch interval
List of tone rows and series

References
1. Leeuw 2005, 154. Italics original.
2. Perle 1977, 3
3. Leeuw 2005, 174.
4. Andrew Kirkman and Alexander Ivashkin, Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music and
Film: Life, Music and Film. (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2013): [unpaginated].
ISBN 9781409472025.
5. Stephen C. Brown, "Twelve-Tone Rows and Aggregate Melodies in the Music of
Shostakovich," Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Fall 2015): 191–234.
6. "Discovery Reveals Bach's Postmodern Side" (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php
?storyId=112602288&ft=1&f=1039). Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR, 6 September 2009.
7. Keller 1955, 14–21.
8. Keller 1955, 22–23.
9. Keller 1955, 23.
10. Leeuw 2005, 158.
11. Perle 1996, 3.
12. Whittall 2008, 97.
13. Whittall 2008, 271.
14. Perle 1977, 100.
15. Perle 1996, 20.
16. Haimo 1990, 183.
17. Evan Allan Jones, Intimate Voices: The Twentieth-Century String Quartet. Volume 2:
Shostakovich to the Avant-garde. Dmitri Shostakovich: The String Quartets (Rochester:
University of Rochester Press, 2009): 228. ISBN 9781580463225.
18. Leeuw 2005, 166.
19. Whittall 2008, 127.
20. Whittall 2008, 195.
21. Claudio Spies, "Notes on Stravinsky's Abraham and Isaac", Perspectives of New Music 3,
no. 2 (Spring–Summer 1965): 104–126, citation on 118.
 no. 2 (Spring–Summer 1965): 104–126, citation on 118.
22. Joseph N. Strauss, "Stravinsky's Serial 'Mistakes' ", The Journal of Musicology 17, no. 2
(Spring 1999): 231–271, citation on 242.
23. Whittall 2008, 139.
24. Leeuw 2005, pp. 176–177
25. John Fonville, "Ben Johnston's Extended Just Intonation: A Guide for Interpreters",
Perspectives of New Music 29, no. 2 (Summer, 1991): 106–137, citation on 127.

Sources

Keller, Hans (Autumn 1955). "Strict Serial Technique in Classical Music". Tempo. New
Series (37): 12–24. doi:10.1017/S0040298200055212 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS004029
8200055212).
Ton de Leeuw, Music of the Twentieth Century: A Study of Its Elements and Structure,
translated from the Dutch by Stephen Taylor (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press,
2005). ISBN 90-5356-765-8. Translation of Muziek van de twintigste eeuw: een onderzoek
naar haar elementen en structuur (Utrecht: Oosthoek, 1964; third impression, Utrecht:
Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema, 1977). ISBN 90-313-0244-9.
Perle, George (1977). Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of
Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern (4th ed.). Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of
California Press. ISBN 0-520-03395-7.
Perle, George (1996). Twelve-Tone Tonality (2nd, revised and expanded ed.). Berkeley:
University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20142-6.
Whittall. Arnold (2008)

Further reading
Hunter, David J.; Hippel, Paul T. von (February 2003). "How Rare Is Symmetry in Musical
12-Tone Rows?". The American Mathematical Monthly. 110 (2): 124–132.
doi:10.2307/3647771 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F3647771). JSTOR 3647771 (https://www.j
stor.org/stable/3647771).

External links
Database on tone rows and tropes (https://web.archive.org/web/20140522213508/http://ww
w.uni-graz.at/~fripert/db/), Harald Fripertinger, Peter Lackner

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