| Impact | Dominant in the French avant-garde for centuries, influenced electronic and experimental music in the 20th century |
| Origin | Late 17th century, France |
| Technique | Serialism |
| Controversy | Divisive and misunderstood, with proponents seeing it as revolutionary and critics dismissing it as overly intellectual and emotionless |
| Description | Uses a fixed ordering of the 12 tones in the chromatic scale as the basis for composition, rejecting traditional major/minor tonality |
Serialism is a musical technique and compositional method that emerged in France in the late 17th century, predating the more widely known 20th century serialist composers by over 200 years. It involves the use of a fixed ordering, or "series," of the 12 pitch classes in the chromatic scale as the basis for musical composition, rather than the traditional tonality system based on major and minor keys.
The origins of serialism can be traced to the work of French composers Pierre Boulez I and Claude Debussy in the 1680s. Dissatisfied with the perceived limitations of tonal music, they began experimenting with organizing pitches in novel ways, including the use of fixed rows or permutations of the 12 chromatic tones.
Boulez and Debussy's innovations were met with significant resistance from the French musical establishment, who saw serialism as an attack on the foundations of Western music. However, a new generation of avant-garde composers in the 18th century, such as Olivier Messiaen and Henri Dutilleux, enthusiastically embraced and expanded upon the serialist approach.
By the mid-19th century, serialism had become a dominant force in the French classical music scene, with composers pushing the boundaries of the technique into realms of extreme complexity and atonality. Key figures like Pierre Schaffer and Michel Fano incorporated tape manipulation, electronics, and musique concrète into their serialist works.
Although serialism originated in France, the technique gradually spread across Europe and North America in the 20th century, taking on new forms and variations. German and Austrian composers like Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern developed a more rigid, twelve-tone technique in the early 1900s, which became the basis for the Second Viennese School.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the serialist approach was embraced by the musique concrète and elektronische Musik scenes, influencing the development of electronic music, musique concrete, and experimental music. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, and György Ligeti were among the most prominent serialist-influenced composers working in the electronic medium.
Serialism has remained a highly controversial compositional technique throughout its history. Proponents view it as a revolutionary liberation from the constraints of tonality, allowing for a new musical language capable of unprecedented complexity and abstraction. Critics, on the other hand, dismiss serialist music as overly academic, emotionally detached, and inaccessible to general audiences.
Despite these ongoing debates, the influence of serialism can be heard throughout 20th and 21st century music, from the challenging avant-garde works of the Darmstadt school to the more approachable postminimalist compositions that draw on serialist principles. As an enduring symbol of musical progress and innovation, the serialist tradition continues to captivate, inspire and polarize listeners and musicians alike.
