ALLEN FORTE

Schoenberg's Opus 19 Number 4 : A Set-Theoretic Perspective

Abstract

Despite their brevity, Arnold Schoenberg's Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke (1911) occupy a singular and important position in the composer's oeuvre as "experimental" compositions in a transitional period in his career. The fourth piece, Rasch, aber leicht, although texturally thin is structurally rich. The set-theoretic approach used in this analysis reveals a dynamic interaction among melodic and harmonic components (pitch-class sets) derived from four large "source sets", producing cohesive structures in the linear dimension and marked by especially salient articulative events that are transformed and replicated at strategic moments. Although the source sets belong to the "background" structure of the music and rise to its surface only in special instances-notably in connection with the octatonic source set 8-28-they are continuously represented by smaller sets (subsets), whose intersection creates a beautiful and charming work, one whose intricacy challenges the analyst and the analyst's methodology.

Analytical graphics of a linear nature are presented along with the verbal analysis, in order to bring the technical readings as close as possible to the notated music and to clarify and support the descriptions of structure, which involve the language of traditional ("classic") pitch-class set theory.

Biography of Allen Forte