Serial Music, Serial Aesthetics Compositional Theory in Post-War Europe [Paperback]

A study of serial music, an important aesthetic movement in post-war Europe.Composers of serial music in post-war Europe wrote almost as much about music as the music itself, but the relationship between theory and practice in the work of key figures like Stockhausen, Eimert, Pousseur and Schnebel has often been misrepresented. This book, which focuses on the controversial journal Die Reihe, traces serialism's cultural history, its debt to the artistic theories of Klee and Mondrian, and its relationship to contemporary developments in concrete art, poetry and information aesthetics, sketching a aesthetic theory of serialism as an experimental music.Composers of serial music in post-war Europe wrote almost as much about music as the music itself, but the relationship between theory and practice in the work of key figures like Stockhausen, Eimert, Pousseur and Schnebel has often been misrepresented. This book, which focuses on the controversial journal Die Reihe, traces serialism's cultural history, its debt to the artistic theories of Klee and Mondrian, and its relationship to contemporary developments in concrete art, poetry and information aesthetics, sketching a aesthetic theory of serialism as an experimental music.Composers of serial music in post-war Europe wrote almost as much about music as the music itself, but the relationship between theory and practice in the work of key figures like Stockhausen, Eimert, Pousseur and Schnebel has often been misrepresented. Focusing on the controversial journal Die Reihe, this book traces serialism's cultural history, its debt to the artistic theories of Klee and Mondrian, and its relationship to contemporary developments in concrete art, poetry and information aesthetics. It sketches a aesthetic theory of serialism as an experimental music.Acknowledgements; Note on the text; Introduction; Part I: 1. European culture in the post-war years; 2. The isolated tone: electronic and serial music, 19451954; Part IIl#"