Twelve-Tone Serialism

Compositional method ordering all 12 chromatic pitches into a fixed row, devised by Arnold Schoenberg.

Core Principles & Analysis

• Schoenberg introduced the technique in the early 1920s as a method of composing with twelve tones related only to one another.
• A row can be transformed by inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion, yielding up to 48 forms.
• Alban Berg and Anton Webern adopted it within the Second Viennese School, and Stravinsky embraced serialism in the 1950s.