Serial Composition

by Reginald Smith Brindle

This introductory text for students covers all the most important aspects of serial composition, including full discussion of such topics as melody writing, twelve-note harmony, polyphonic writing, forms, stylistic factors, avant-garde techniques, and free twelve-note composition. The author's intention is to avoid a pedantic exposition of serial principles and to include many technical details which are also valid in non serial contexts, being the common property of contemporary musical languages. Richard Smith Brindle (born 1917) is a native of Lancashire. He studied at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, in Rome at the Academia di Santa Cecilia, and in Florence privately with Dallapiccola. His own music is influenced by he Italian avant-garde school of berio, Maderna, non, and others. From 1970 until his retirement in 1985 he was Professor of Music at the University of Surrey.

Genres: Music

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll start with an aesthetic note-- I have to say that I greatly prefer my bright red copy of the book to the cover that Goodreads shows. It seems to make the topic more exciting!



(See the end of the review for a table of contents)

I tremendously enjoyed Brindle's writing style, and his thoughts on the act of composition as presented in the first chapter are truly poetic. Brindle approaches his topic with a refreshingly pragmatic attitude. Serialism is viewed as a compositional and pedagogical tool to enable the composer to obtain previously inaccessible realms of sound. Brindle doesn't dogmatically cling to one ideology or another, but he discusses the most successful routes to writing tonal and atonal serialist works, works in free atonality, or works that mix tonal and atonal spheres.

The text is augmented with some great examples from serialist composers and illustrations of important principles. While I didn't find the book to be technically demanding or particularly challenging to read, some Amazon reviews have cautioned that the reader should be at least familiar with the topic. Specifically, the reader should have a grasp on basic harmonic theory and an understanding of music history (i.e. why Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern are important). This text would not be suitable for beginning composers or musicians, however musicians of all types (composer or not) can benefit from Brindle's comments and insights.

I enjoyed the care that Brindle takes to represent the topic honestly and in detail for his audience, while at the same time advocating that the interested composer/reader push past the textbook representation of serial practice to develop an honest and personal method of writing that is more flexible than rigid technique. To this end, he finishes the book with short analyzes of works by Schoenberg and Webern to explicitly contrast their styles while highlighting the continuity of serialist technique.

I highly enjoyed this engaging book and would enthusiastically recommend it to composers or performers of modern and contemporary music.

Contents:

1. General
2. The Series
3. Constructing the Series
4. Derived Forms of the Series
5. Writing Melody
6. Writing in Two Parts
7. Music in Several Parts and Serial Usage
8. Twelve-Note Harmony
9. Polyphonic Writing
10. Forms
11. Vocal Writing
12. Orchestration, Texture, and Tone Color
13. Stylistic Factors
14. Permutations and Other Variants of a Series
15. The Avant Garde, Integral Serialism, and Improvisation
[Note: integral serialism is known as total serialism in the U.S.A.]
16. The Style of Free Atonalism and Free Twelve-Note Composition

[Anders · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book for composers/musicians about material/hands on dealing with a "total chromatic" viewpoint. Though cerebral, for once a book on "serious composition" includes rhythm and not only vertical/horizontal rows and intervallic schemata. Reginald Smith-Brindle was himself a composer (of course) and has a few labels or guidelines I find helpful since reading this book, i.e. "maintaining the atonal equilibrium".

[Pedro Proença · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insights, even if a little too prescriptive at times.