The Melody Web what each genre heard, and what it passed on

heard passed on Click or tap a node to recenter. Use a connecting line, or Influence, for the story.

Heard

Romanticism movement · 1810–1910

Atonality takes late-Romantic chromatic saturation — prolonged dominant, third-relations, eroding cadence — and drops the tonic job.

Influence

Atonality

movement · 1908–1923

Also called atonal music, free atonality

Early-twentieth-century concert pitch practice that drops a governing tonic without yet using a twelve-tone series: Schoenberg’s free-atonal works, Webern’s aphorisms, Berg’s Wozzeck. It hears Romanticism for the late chromatic saturation it drops. It already gives Serialism the emancipated-dissonance job the 1923 row method then orders. Expressionism leftover as an art-historical label on this window. Later concert atonal writing stays on this node. Empty additional Given is historically checked.

Listen

  1. Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11 Arnold Schoenberg (1909) YouTube
  2. Erwartung Arnold Schoenberg (1909) YouTube
  3. Pierrot lunaire Arnold Schoenberg (1912) YouTube
  4. Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10 Anton Webern (1913) YouTube
  5. Wozzeck Alban Berg (1922) YouTube

Passed on

Serialism movement · 1923–

Serialism takes atonality’s emancipated dissonance and orders it as a twelve-tone series: the same Viennese workshop, a named method after 1923.

Influence

Romanticism → Atonality

harmonymelodyform and structurestrength: highscholarly consensus1900–1909notationpedagogy

Mechanism

Atonality takes late-Romantic chromatic saturation — prolonged dominant, third-relations, eroding cadence — and drops the tonic job. Strength high. atonality serialism is the later row method. Expressionism leftover as an art-historical label on the same window. A separate “late Romanticism” node leftover as a hinge inside this hop.

Evidence

Schoenberg’s 1908–09 works after a Wagnerian and post-Wagner training; Taruskin and Grove on emancipated dissonance as a recoding of late tonality.

Debate

Whether atonality is still Romanticism. The corpus splits them: Romanticism keeps Wagner, Liszt, and Mahler as tonal aim; this node starts when a governing tonic is refused.

Mediators

artist: Arnold Schoenberg; artist: Richard Wagner

Atonality → Serialism

harmonymelodyform and structurestrength: highscholarly consensus1921–1925notationpedagogy

Mechanism

Serialism takes atonality’s emancipated dissonance and orders it as a twelve-tone series: the same Viennese workshop, a named method after 1923. Strength high. Late-Romantic chromaticism leftover as a pre-atonal hinge. Integral serialism leftover as a 1950s wing on the child.

Evidence

Schoenberg’s Op. 25 suite; Grove on twelve-tone as a recoding of the atonal period; Taruskin on the method as a solution to free atonality.

Debate

Whether serialism simply is atonality. Atonality is the pitch-practice window; serialism is the row method that then travels as a school.

Mediators

artist: Arnold Schoenberg