Top 5 Favorite Twelve-Tone Works

[EigenUser]

Not to be confused with "Top 12 Favorite Five-Tone Works".

1. Webern Symphony
2. Berg Chamber Concerto
3. Schoenberg Piano Concerto
4. Berg Violin Concerto
5. Stockhausen Gruppen

[EigenUser]

No answers to a poll? I expect more from GMG'ers...

[Dax]

"12 tone" in the Schoenberg sense? Not necessarily?

Webern - Concerto
Skalkottas - 4th string quartet
Barraqué - Concerto for clarinet, vibraphone + 6 instrumental groups
Valen - La cimitière marin
Schoenberg - Serenade

[Sergeant Rock]

Copland Connotations
Berg Violin Concerto
Boulez Répons
Schoenberg Piano Concerto
Stravinsky Agon


Sarge

[(poco) Sforzando]

Copland Connotations
Berg Violin Concerto
Boulez Répons
Schoenberg Piano Concerto
Stravinsky Agon


Sarge

Unfortunately Agon is not 12-tone, and I'm not certain about Répons. (The central pas-de-deux from Agon is 12-tone, but none of the surrounding music.) I have to admit that from Schoenberg I greatly prefer the earlier atonal works like Erwartung and the Five Orchestral Pieces to most of his 12-tone works, where I feel that ironically. the row constricted his powers of invention. (Things like the Wind Quintet and Serenade are to me almost unlistenable.)

That said, I do like some of the dodecaphonic works of Berg, Webern, and early Boulez. So I'll vote for Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments and Das Augenlight, Berg's Lulu and Chamber Concerto, and Boulez's Marteau. If Pli selon pli is genuinely 12-tone, I'll vote for it too.

[vandermolen]

No answers to a poll? I expect more from GMG'ers...

Am happy to contribute but suspect my choices may not be Twelve Tone due to musical technical ignorance. 

I'm also happy to go along with Sarge's choice of 'Connotations' by Copland

Usko Merilainen: Symphony 3

Blomdahl: Symphony 3 'Facetter'

Hoddinott: Symphony 3. I gather that his work 'encroaches on tonality' 

Lilburn: Symphony 3

[EigenUser]

Unfortunately Agon is not 12-tone, and I'm not certain about Répons. (The central pas-de-deux from Agon is 12-tone, but none of the surrounding music.) I have to admit that from Schoenberg I greatly prefer the earlier atonal works like Erwartung and the Five Orchestral Pieces to most of his 12-tone works, where I feel that ironically. the row constricted his powers of invention. (Things like the Wind Quintet and Serenade are to me almost unlistenable.)

That said, I do like some of the dodecaphonic works of Berg, Webern, and early Boulez. So I'll vote for Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments and Das Augenlight, Berg's Lulu and Chamber Concerto, and Boulez's Marteau. If Pli selon pli is genuinely 12-tone, I'll vote for it too.

Agon does have a 12-tone row in it, but it isn't exclusively dodecaphonic. In fact, it certainly seems to have a home key of C-major. I'd replace the Stockhausen with this. I'm not sure about Repons, either.

I guess it is kind of a grey area. I wanted to include the orchestrated Notations by Boulez, but they are so far removed from the original twelve-tone piano pieces that I'm not sure how much of a role (if any) the rows play in the orchestral version.

[vandermolen]

If my choices above are irrelevant how about:

Norgard: Symphony 3
Ruggles: Sun Treader.

Do these count?

[Sergeant Rock]

Unfortunately Agon is not 12-tone, and I'm not certain about Répons[...]Things like the Wind Quintet and Serenade are to me almost unlistenable.

True, they are not strictly, or entirely 12-tone but they do employ elements of or techniques of 12-tone. However if they don't qualify I'll substitute Schoenberg's Serenade op.24, which I do find more than listenable. And Moses und Aron.

Sarge

[Cato]

And Moses und Aron.

Sarge

Amen!

Just a few more than 5  0:)

Schoenberg: String Quartets III and IV Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto
Skalkottas: The Return of  Ulysses, Piano Concerto #1
Wuorinen: Grand Bamboula

[Dax]

Are you sure that The Maiden and Death is 12-note?

[Cato]

Are you sure that The Maiden and Death is 12-note?

Fixed: I was thinking  of The Return of Ulysses, and became distracted while looking at the notes in the CD's again!

[jochanaan]

Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra
Schoenberg: A Survivor from Warsaw (I'm pretty sure this is 12-tone; amazing tone poem!)
Webern: Symphonie
Berg: Wozzeck
Richard Rodney Bennett: Sonata for Oboe and Piano (I'm prejudiced; I've played this piece in recital! )

[(poco) Sforzando]

Berg: Wozzeck

Great work, to my mind maybe the greatest opera of the 20th century, but not 12-tone.

[James]

Late Webern, uses the technique, which is just a technique, but he transcends all that and creates powerful door-opening music.

[San Antone]

Wuorinen - Piano Quintet #2
Webern - Variations for Piano
Stravinsky - Requiem Canticles
Goeyvaerts - Nummer series
Boulez - Piano sonata no. 2
Krenek - Lamentatio Jeremiae prophetae

[(poco) Sforzando]

Late Webern, uses the technique, which is just a technique, but he transcends all that and creates powerful door-opening music.

I would say Webern uses the technique Schoenberg developed in its purest form. Take for instance the Concerto for Nine Instruments, a piece I know particularly well. The row - B-Bb-D / Eb-G-F# / Ab-E-F / C-C#-A - is constructed so that each set of three notes outlines a major seventh and a major third, and each of these three-note cells is in some way a retrograde and/or an inversion to one of the others. This intervallic structure also gives the piece its unique characteristic sound, in which the cells are sometimes heard in sequence and other times in chords, but always without any hint of conventional tonality (v.s. say the start of Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, where Schoenberg begins the piece by extracting two tritones that outline a diminished seventh chord).

[Todd]

Berg - Lulu
Berg - Violin Concerto
Berg - Lyric Suite
Webern - Variations for Piano
Boulez - Piano Sonata 1

[Cato]

The Return of Ulysses

For those who would like to hear Skalkottas:

https://www.youtube.com/v/D48jbbcPUEw

[Mandryka]

Is there a way that I can tell, as a listener, whether a piece is 12 tone? That's to stay, is it a style? Or is it just a technical thing which I can leave to composers and music analysts to worry about?

Let me take some examples, is the Schoenberg String Trio twelve tone? Is Ferneyhough's 6th quartet? Is Finnissy's 3rd Quartet? lachenmann's Gran Torso? Nono's Prometeo? The Barraque concerto?  Is the Birtwistle piano trio? I don't know how to tell.


Anyway if the answer's yes to five of those, there's a list from me.