The Musical Language of the "Symphonic Pieces" from "Lulu" (Alban Berg).

Abstract

This dissertation comprises an examination of the musical language in the Symphonic Pieces (1934) from the opera Lulu (1928-35) by Alban Berg. The Pieces offer the advantages of being relatively brief and of including passages that display the most characteristic themes and transformations of material. Thereby, they allow for a self-contained analysis as well as providing an entry into a study of the entire opera. The analysis is directed from three related perspectives: the use of systematic procedures related both to twelve-tone and non-twelve-tone elements, the components of the harmonic language, and the local and larger-level organization of material into formal units. One of the principal characteristics of the musical language is the integration of tonal and twelve-tone elements. Tonal elements are related to the twelve-tone set structure principally by means of triads derived both segmentally and non-segmentally from various sets, the diatonic hexachords in the principal sets, and the general determination of transposition levels by diatonic "white"-note and predominantly "black"-note pitch-class collections. Areas of tonal focus are characterized by the use of extended and delayed resolution of tones and chords in an extension of late nineteenth-century practice, creating an ambiguous language often only implying tonal function. A development of twelve-tone techniques unique to Lulu, where more than one set is used, is the relationship of the derived sets to the Basic Set. Rather than being related by the classical twelve-tone operators, these sets are derived by operations on order position such as cyclic and extended cyclic operations and extraction based on numerical gradations. The nature of the operation defines specific relationships between sets capable of compositional exploitation. The methods of derivation, which may be seen as analogous to operations on pitch-class, constitute a considerable expansion of the twelve-tone system.