EPITOME

Chapter:

CHAPTER 12 In Search of Utopia

Source:

MUSIC IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

Even more economical are the Webern compositions in which the row itself is so contrived as to do “double duty,” reducing the number of independent row forms and multiplying the field of potential relationships among them. In the two-movement Symphony, op. 21 (1928), the second hexachord is the first reversed at the tritone, as tracing them from the middle out to the ends will quickly show. But this means that the entire row is an intervallic palindrome: its retrograde form is the same as the prime transposed by a tritone, so that P_o = R₆ and R_o = P₆. This eliminates the retrograde as an independent row form, leaving only twelve possible primes and twelve possible inversions (= retrograde inversions).

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 12 In Search of Utopia." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 May. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-012010.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 12 In Search of Utopia. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 May. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-012010.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 12 In Search of Utopia." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 May. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-012010.xml