Serialism

Hardly a week goes by that I don't see another variation on the "serialism is to blame for classical's marginalization" trope, but I could just as easily argue that said marginalization correlates nicely with both the abandonment of experimental modernism and the domestication of radical minimalism. ❋ Matthew Guerrieri (2008)

Schoenberg got it right: serialism is the result of a neo-Classical impulse, not a Romantic one. ❋ Matthew Guerrieri (2007)

The result of this search for a new system was called serialism, or 12-tone composition. was redefining the profile of French music, with a style that transferred the ideals of opera Pelléas and Mélisande was first performed in ❋ Unknown (2009)

On the other hand, there are listeners who think a piece of totally-determined serialism sounds random, arbitrary, ungrammatical. ❋ Matthew Guerrieri (2009)

Minimalist music developed in the U.S. during the 1960s as an alternative to the complexities of academic serialism on the one hand, and "chance" music on the other. ❋ Barbara Jepson (2010)

(Of course, our arbiter classifies Boulez's scare-quoted "total serialism" as evil "Postmodernism" while considering non-scare-quoted serialism as progressively "Modern," which is rather like considering pork chops meat but bacon a vegetable.) ❋ Matthew Guerrieri (2009)

But there's something else in early Reich, Glass and Riley, too – an insistence on returning music to the roots that all three composers felt European modernisms, such as serialism, had left behind: melody, modality and rhythm. ❋ Unknown (2011)

(These are extremes, of course, but I would think we recognize features of the caricatures in most negative reactions: criticisms of minimalism seize on the repetition, serialism, the dissonance.) ❋ Matthew Guerrieri (2009)

Rands' musical style is distinctive among contemporary composers in that he has absorbed the technical disciplines of Berio and Berio's teacher Luigi Dallapiccolla where familiar tonality yields to spare serialism without losing his natural inclinations to sumptuous orchestration and sensuous musicality of the kind we might associate with Ravel or Debussy. ❋ Benjamin R. Barber (2011)

Certainly total serialism springs to mind — has there ever been a more thorough musical realization of the notion that every event should have its own function, and no other, within an overall structure? ❋ Matthew Guerrieri (2009)

Composed in the late 1930s – with one ear directed toward the rise of fascism, and the other turned to the conservative critics complaining about his progressive, atonal style – the work combines elements of 12-tone serialism, nostalgic lyricism and folk dance, all couched in the swashbuckling rhetoric of the Romantic concerto. ❋ Guy Dammann (2010)

For new music, even more so, now that the serialism/minimalism paradigms have become but two elements in an experimental eclecticism. ❋ Matthew Guerrieri (2009)

Many of Spicer's poems manifest a doubling effect, where serialism becomes a structure for the poem. ❋ The Huffington Post News Team (2010)

But actually, total serialism — and, oddly, its uncharitable reputation among many listeners — shows that music inherently resists turning into a deterministic experience. ❋ Matthew Guerrieri (2009)

"I just heard Gurre-Lieder, [What the f]*[ck] was that? That's a year of my life I'll never see again. Perhaps serialism will be shorter and make more [sence]" ❋ Kiss My Leitmotif (2009)

Only [terrible] composers like [Pierre Boulez] [bother] with serialism. ❋ Eddy1701 (2006)

[Al Gore]: "[Manbearpig] is very serial." ❋ Forceflow15 (2006)

1: "[hey guys], im [preggo]" 2: "for serials?" or 1:im am for serials going to [explode] if we dont get to a bathroom soon, yo. ❋ Hellzabaygruh (2010)

usu. in response: [exp]: Richard, [I'm pregnant]! Are you serial? [Holy rusted metal] batman! Are you serial? ❋ DueEast (2006)

"What? [Are you] serial?" ❋ CHOPOPJR (2003)

"Dude, I'm [super serial]. Why don't you believe me when I say I'm [super duper] [serial]?" ❋ Bryan Castillo (2008)

I got a serial for [photoshop] last night and [it worked] [perfectly]. ❋ Invalid H. User (2003)

"[serial] killers [tote] guns without the serials" --Streetlife in Rules (Iron Flag, [Wu-Tang Clan]) ❋ Dubhex (2008)

John: "I scored with Kelly last night, it was TIGHT! man!" Jeff: "You serial?" John: "Hell yeah!" Jeff: "[With trix]?" (aka: you're [bullshitting]) John: 'No, I'm for real!" Jeff: "Dam, [mofo]! Hell yeah!" ❋ Olgie (2010)