samo8011 June, 2008 21:22 Journal ofthe Society for American Music (2008) Volume 2, Number 3, pp. 355-395. ‘© 2008 The Society for American Music doc40.1017/S1752196308080115 A Revisionist History of Twelve-Tone Serialism in American Musi JOSEPH N. STRAUS Abstract The history of twelve-tone serial music in the United States extends from the late 1920s to the ‘present day. Practitioners ofa distinctively American brand of twelve-tone music have included ‘many well-known composers in three distinct waves of activity: prewar experimentation by native-born “ultra-modern” composers amid an influx of European émigrés; a postwar booms and a third wave of twelve-tone activity since 1980. This extensive repertoire shares certain structural features, including twelve-note aggregates and serial ordering, but even these very general compositional commitments are subject to individual modification, and Americart tvelve-fone serial music has taken astonishingly varied forms. To give an accurate account of, this musics history, we must first pry away’ the many myths that have accreted around it. In the process, we will need to abandon historiographical models that focus on one or two “reat ‘men’ and that describe the history of style asa series of changing fashions. This article proposes that we regard American music since 1925 as a dynamic steady state within which modernist syls, including twelve-tone seralism, persist as vibrant strands within the postmodern musical fabric. ‘The history of twelve-tone music in the United States beginsin May 1927, the month Adolph Weiss returned from studying with Schoenberg in Vienna and Berlin and composed the first twelve-tone pieces written in the United States by an American feiss became an important source of information for American “ultra- ‘composers (including Henry Cowell, Wallingford Rieger, Ruth Crawford, and Carl Ruggles) only three years after Schoenberg had first explained his new “method of composing with twelve tones” to his students. Early twelve-tone composition by ultra-modern composers received a boost in ‘the 1930s when first Schoenberg and then a small wave of European twelve-tone composers (including Ernst Krenek, Stefan Wolpe, and Hanns Eisler) arrived in the United States to escape Nazism and the war. Their arrival had an impact not only on musicin the States, giving a new impetus to indigenous twelve-tone writing, but also ‘on their own music: the European twelve-tone composers became Americanized to some extent, their twelve-tone styles modified by the change in their circumstances ‘The combined efforts of indigenous serialists and émigrés laid the groundwork for an upsurge of twelve-tone compositional activity during and after the Second World War! During the 1950s and 1960s, twelve-tone music became a prominent part of the contemporary music scene in the United States. A number of established Dh shall ase the term “twelve-tone” to refer to music that deals in some systematic way with ‘the aggregate ofall twelve tones and the term “serial” to refer to music that employs serial ordering, that is, with ordered presentations of pitch classes and with serial transformation (i.., transposition, inversion, retrograde, and combinations of these). This article addresses music that is either twelve- tone of serial of, as is often the case, both. I shall avoid the common use of the term serial to reler to European-style postwar “integral serialism: 355sox sam08-011 June, 2008 21:22 356 Straus composers (including Stravinsky, Copland, and Sessions) modified their compo- sitional approach, influenced by these developments. Many composers of the next generation came to maturity as twelve-tone composers (including Milton Babbitt Cred and George Perle) or an earlier style (including George Rochberg, modi vite Louise Talma, Ross Lee Finney, Arthur Berger, and Irving Fine), followed by yet another group of composers who grew up in the twelve-tone tradition (including Donald Martino, Ursula Mamlok, and Charles Wuorinen). Although the extent to hich these composers dominated the music of this period is debatable, twelve-tone composition flowered in the United States in the decades following the war. Beginning in the 1970s, twelve-tone music became less fashionable, but many composers continued to write it, While some composers (Rochberg and David Del “Tredeci, for instance) turned away from twelve-tone composition, others (Elliott Carter and Ralph Shapey, for instance) found new ways of writing it. And although by this time twelve-tone music had been deemed passé, the longevity and continued activity of the leaders of the style (Babbitt, Martino, Wuorinen, Mamlok, Perle, Carter, among others) and the interest of later generation of composers (including Joseph Schwantner, Peter Lieberson, Robert Morris, Andrew Mead, Jeff Nichols, Louis Karchin, Jonathan Dawe, Dan Welcher, and Judd Danby, among others), have ensured that twelve-tone music has remained an important part of American contemporary music into the first decade of the twenty-first century, continuing a vigorous tradition that has lasted for more than eighty years. This extensive repertoire shares certain structural features, most notably the aggregate of al twelve tonesasa referential harmonic unitand an ordered succession oftonesasa source of motives, melodies, and harmonies. Buteven these very general compositional commitments are subject to individual modification, and American ‘welve-tone serial musichas taken astonishingly varied forms. In many cases, twelve- tone music coexists with contrasting music within a single piece or movement. This is a distinguishing feature of “ultra-modern” twelve-tone composition, and has remained a consistent trend since then. In many cases (see, for example, the music of Talma, Gunther Schuller, and Hale Smith), twelve-tone structures are used in conjunction with, or in expression of, traditional tonality or current popular music. In many cases (see, for example, the music of Stravinsky, Wolpe, Sessions, and Mamlok), the aggregate is not a surface feature of the music but rather is part of its precompositional design: the music is full of doublings and emphases of all kinds, with direct statements of the complete aggregate a relative rarity. In every case, composers have created idiomatic and highly individual compositional designs— ‘each has a distinctive way of composing serially Both the history and content of twelve-tone composition in the United States have long been mischaracterized in journalistic accounts and scholarly literature. Indeed, it is difficult to identify another repertoire so harshly attacked and little understood, This article aims to revise the history of American twelve-tone music by confronting some of the many myths that have accreted around it. In the process, I shall argue against two historiographic fallacies: the fallacy of the “great man” and the fallacy of stylistic evolution. ‘Twelve-tone music in the US is far from a monolith. As a result, many of the sweeping generalizations that appear in the literature are either simply false or applysamO8-011 June 5,2008 21:22 to only a relatively small handful of works within a very large and varied repertoire. A widespread illusion is promoted that the music by one or two “great men” (usually Schoenberg and Babbitt) may be taken as representative or typical. There are, -course, as many ways of writing twelve-tone musicas there are composers of twelve- tone music—each composer finds a distinctive path, one that may change over time. Composers of twelve-tone music in the US are as varied as their music, in their gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, places of origin and residence, and. professional circumstances. Instead of focusing on only one or two heroic figures and ignoring the rest, we must come to terms with the astonishing variety of twelve- tone music composed over the past eighty years. A more complete history of twelve- tone composition should not rely primarily on scholarly writings and journalistic accounts of this repertoire that are based on the composers’ prose but should examine the music itself. This article accordingly offers brief, thumbnail sketches of the twelve-tone compositional style of more than thirty composers in order to offer a revisionist history grounded in the realities of compositional practice. This article thus questions what has become an unjustifiably evolutionary his- toriography of American music since 1925, especially with regard to the position of twelve-tone music. Most historical accounts regrettably ignore the presence of twelve-tone music in the United States before and during the Second World War; virtually all historical accounts ignore its presence after 1970, even though so many of our major composers have continued to compose serially. These failures partly stem from an overriding interest in whatever is most fashionable—because twelve- tone music came to seem passé, it has tended to disappear from our historical accounts. Rather than engaging the traditional metaphors of stylistic rise and fall, and imagining our cultural landscape as a zero-sum game where yesterday's winners are today's losers, this article proposes that we regard American music since 1925 as, a dynamic steady state within which twelve-tone serialism has long been, and still remains, a persistent presence. ‘The myths that have gathered around twelve-tone music in the United States have obscured its range and variety, its historical longevity, its most salient musical characteristics, and its position in American musical culture, both in an earlier period and in the present day. By identifying and debunking twelve particularly persistent and pernicious myths, | offer a more balanced musical and historical understanding of this important repertoire. Myth No. 1: The Myth of Serial Origins ‘The myth of serial origins maintains that serialism burst upon the musical scene in the United States essentially as a postwar European import. ‘Afier the war neoclassicism and a folklike Americanism had waning appeal to younger composers. Like the late tens, the late 0s seemed atime bomb waiting to go off. Around 1950, it happened. All hell it seemed, broke lose. Serious composers, experimental inthe 1920s, socially aware in the 1930s, and quieted by war in the 1940s, suddenly diverge in (wo totally different but equally radical paths. Some, extending ideas of Arnold Schoen- berg and Anton Webern, sought total determination of every nuance of apiece through ‘mathematical calculations; others, exploring various chance and indeterminate techniques, wanted to eliminate the will and emotion of the composer. But all seemed to be moving howe ver