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Serialism is one of the most conceptually significant and technically productive ideas to emerge in twentieth-century musical thought, and it played a decisive role in shaping the breakthroughs of the postwar avant-garde. Its interpretation as a phenomenon with considerable creative potential remains highly relevant today. The present article proceeds from the premise that the crystallization of serial thinking was neither methodologically unified nor stylistically homogeneous. This is demonstrated through a comparison of Bagatelle No. 1, Op. 9 by Anton Webern and Piano Piece No. 3, Op. 23 by Arnold Schoenberg, whose differing compositional approaches underscore the individuality of each work. Both pieces are generally situated within the domain of free atonality as cultivated by the Second Viennese School in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Although Schoenberg’s piano piece (1923) postdates Webern’s Bagatelle by roughly a decade, the earlier work proves no less rigorous in its organization of pitch. Indeed, in certain respects, Webern’s Op. 9 may be regarded as even more forward-looking than Schoenberg’s pre-dodecaphonic composition. On the basis of a structural analysis of Bagatelle No. 1, the author argues for the presence of an incipient form of serial organization—what might be described as a “serial genesis”—within Webern’s work.
atonality, seriality, dodecaphony, A. Webern, A. Schoenberg, Bagatelle, microseries
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