Mts 2002 24 1 1

Society for Music Theory
Schoenberg's Klangfarbenmelodie: A Principle of Early Atonal Harmony

Author(s): Alfred Cramer
Source: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 2002), pp. 1-34
Published by: {oupl} on behalf of the Society for Music Theory
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Schoenbergs Klangfarbenmelodie:
A Principle of Early Atonal Harmony
Alfred Cramer
INTRODUCTION De ning Klangfarbenmelodie as music in which consecutive

tones differ timbrally re ects a reasonable attempt to make sense
Klangfarbenmelodie, the concept that Arnold Schoenberg in- of a term whose elementsKlangfarbe and Melodieseem
troduced in 1911, has never been considered fundamental to strangely juxtaposed. It disposes of the terms seeming self-
atonality, but it has always been regarded as an original and im- incompatibility by retaining the traditional concept of melody as
portant part of Schoenbergs theoretical legacy. The term has be- a frame within which to revise the use of timbre. In this way,
come accepted as a name for a common twentieth-century prac- Klangfarbenmelodie becomes a succession of individual tones
tice in which the timbres of successive tones gain melodic heard with attention to timbral variety. The established view of
importance comparable to that of pitch. It is from this perspective Klangfarbe as an attribute of individual tones is consistent with
that MGG 2 calls Schoenbergs Orchestral Piece op. 16, no. 3, the the common understanding of early atonality, in that tones func-
model example of the use of Klangfarbe as an autonomous tion somewhat like geometric points, their primary status being
compositional element, with its varying instrumentation constitut- that of discrete points in pitch space. (The most in uential demon-
ing Klangfarbenmelodie. 1 Similarly, the New Grove Dictionary strations of this kind of geometry in atonal music have been given
states that Schoenbergs use of the term implied that the timbral by pitch-class set theory.) Timbre then functions in a dimension
transformation of a single pitch could be perceived as equivalent distinct from that of pitch, and is separate from pitch as an aspect
to a melodic succession, and that this ideal inspired efforts to of tone.
serialize timbre.2 But at the turn of the twentieth century, connotations of the
term Klangfarbe made it not quite a synonym for what we nor-
This essay was presented in an earlier form in Chapel Hill, North Carolina,
mally mean by timbre. One of the elements of the word,
at the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory in December, 1998. I am
grateful for helpful comments from YouYoung Kang, Wayne Slawson, and four Klang, meant sound in the sense of a composite of partial
anonymous readers. I also wish to thank Lawrence Schoenberg for permission
to consult Arnold Schoenbergs correspondence in connection with this project. make reference to Schoenbergs Klangfarbenmelodie as a starting point for
1MGG 2, Sachteil, s.v. Klangfarbe III, 1: Klangfarbe und Sound in der
their theories. Both are sensitive to recent ways in which electronic and digital
Westlichen Musik, by Helmut Rsing. synthesis undercut the distinction between pitch and timbrean awareness
2New Grove 2, s.v. Klangfarbenmelodie, by Julian Rushton. Efforts to the-
often missing from discussions of Klangfarbenmelodie. Another important con-
orize the use of timbre in this sense continue. Slawson 1985 and Lerdahl 1987 tribution to this post-serialist tradition is McAdams 1999.
2 Music Theory Spectrum
tones. Since a widely accepted scienti c explanation of harmony etrating qualities of tone.8 Yet Mahler and others integrated bells
held that tones within chords originate in the partial tones of a into the fabric of several works, and Debussy used chords whose
single tone, Klang was also used to mean chord,3 implying tones appear to imitate the partials of bells in his Cloches tra-
that chord progressions as well as melodies could be regarded as vers les feuilles (Images, series 2, 1907). Schoenberg himself did
successions of Klnge. Like many theorists, Schoenberg treated not dismiss the harmonic series as irrelevant, but he did argue
the relationship between two chords as a macrocosm of the rela- against the claim that the harmonic series provided a license to use
tionship between two tones (Klangvertretung),4 and he probably certain sounds in art music while excluding others. Observing that
agreed with Helmholtz that the feeling for the melodic relation- the complex of lower partial tones was normally thought eupho-
ship between consecutive notes . . . is based on the sensation of nious, suitable for art [kunstfhig], he proposed that even the
identical partial tones in the sounds in question.5 highest partial tones should be similarly embraced.9
After the mid-nineteenth-century discovery (chie y by Thus, although the Helmholtzian interpretation used the theory
Helmholtz) that timbre was determined by the presence and of Klang and Klangfarbe to explain traditional limits on what con-
strength of particular partial tones, the study of timbre came under stituted music, by the early twentieth century the theory was sug-
the purview of Klang theory,6 which set the stage for chords even- gesting new musical possibilities. It was possible to interpret the
tually to be identi ed with (and as) timbres. At the same time, the theory of Klang and Klangfarbe as the basis of music in which
knowledge that important frequency components in some sounds soundsand by extension, chordswere not modeled on the har-
were not directly tied to the harmonic series seems to have begged monic series in the traditional way. Schoenbergs Klangfarben-
the question of the universality of the harmonic series. Helmholtz melodie is a development of this possibility. If a traditional
noted that timbres of speech were characterized by partial-tone harmonic progression is a succession of Klnge (in a sense, a
frequencies that remained the same regardless of the fundamental melody) whose tones are thought to be rei ed partial tones, and
pitch, 7 and, further, that some partials of bells were not contained Klangfarbe connotes variety in partial-tone patterns, then Klang-
in the harmonic series at all. For this reason, the sounds of bells farbenmelodie can be considered a progression of chords of varied
were not suitable for real artistic music, although they were formation not necessarily grounded in the harmonic series.
heard in newer military and dance music on account of their pen-
*****
In this article, I claim that Schoenbergs usage of the word
3On the usage of this term in late nineteenth-century music theory, see New Klangfarbenmelodie re ects the outline I have just constructed,
Grove 2, s.v. Klang (i) and Klang (ii), by Kevin Mooney.
4On Schoenbergs understanding of this concept of Klangvertretung, see
and further, that it refers to an idealized hearing of tones for the
Bernstein 1992, 345, 5053. timbral contributions of frequencies rather than for pitch values.
5Dahlhaus [1970] 1987 makes this point, 143. The quotation is from Helm- The timbres of Klangfarbenmelodie, then, result from pitches
holtz [1863] 1954, 368 (translation adapted), summarizing points made in heard alone or in harmonic combination; such Klangfarben are
Helmholtz [1863] 1954, 2536, 28892. not attributes of discrete tones, and they are not distinct from
6Awareness of other timbre-determining features such as attack, envelope,
and spectral irregularity is comparatively recent. For an introduction to recent

thought about timbre, see New Grove 2, s.v. Psychology of Music II, 3: Helmholtz [1863] 1954, 7074.
8
Timbre, by Stephen McAdams. Schoenberg 1911, 1819 (Schoenberg 1922, 1718), translated in
9
7Helmholtz [1863] 1954, 10319. Schoenberg 1978, 201.
Schoenbergs Klangfarbenmelodie : A Principle of Early Atonal Harmony 3
pitch. I will show how writings by Schoenberg and his contempo- sues regarding this piece were captured in a 196970 exchange
raries support this de nition of Klangfarbenmelodie, and I will involving Erich Do ein, Carl Dahlhaus, and others. Do ein ob-
read some harmonic features of Schoenbergs early atonal music jected that pitch as well as instrumentation changed in the piece,
in terms of this concept of Klangfarbenmelodie. Finally, I will producing a sound-movement . . . completely different from
suggest that the richly relational networks of intervals in this Klangfarbenmelodie.11 Dahlhaus agreed that varying instrumen-
music, often described as autonomous designs of pitch-class sets, tation was the required element of Klangfarbenmelodie but
may have an underlying origin in the voice-leading involved in thought that pitch changes were not excluded. He argued in favor
successions of Klangfarbe. Even if atonal works do not contain of Farben as an exemplar of Klangfarbenmelodie by stating that
Klangfarbenmelodien, they may re ect Schoenbergs general instrumentation becomes Klangfarbenmelodie not because the
concept, which thus locates a source of early atonality in late pitch melody dwindles to monotony but because a balance is
nineteenth-century acoustical theory. achieved between instrumentation and pitch melody in place of
the usual predominance of the latter.12
Neither Do ein nor Dahlhaus seemed to consider the possibil-
KLANGFARBENMELODIE AS HARMONIC PRINCIPLE ity that Klangfarbenmelodie is a harmonic principle (although
Dahlhaus came close).13 The hair-splitting over the words precise
Schoenberg wrote about Klangfarbenmelodie only brie y, meaning contrasts with a statement by one of Schoenbergs asso-
once in the last paragraphs of his 1911 Harmonielehre and twice ciates, Marcel Dick (a composition student and viola performer
in 1951 while trying to counter the suggestion that Webern had under Schoenberg during the 1920s), who used no special vocabu-
been the rst to compose Klangfarbenmelodien. The best known lary in pointing out three kinds of melodies in Schoenbergs Book
and most in uential of these discussions, from the Harmonielehre, of the Hanging Gardens: the melody of the words, the melody of
identi es no examples of Klangfarbenmelodie. 10 the vocal line, and the melody of the polyphonic color of the
Because of its varying instrumentation and its title, Schoen- piano. 14 The claim that polyphony produces color is provocative;
bergs orchestral piece op. 16, no. 3 (Farben), has often been in referring to such polyphony as melody, Dick implicitly la-
nominated to ll this vacuum. The evolving chordal pitch content beled the piano part as Klangfarbenmelodie.
of the piece, however, is as noticeable as the regularly alternating
instrumentation, and thus there has been discomfort with the no-
tion that the piece exhibits Klangfarbenmelodie. Some of the is-
11 Do ein 1969a, 204, and 1969b. In Do eins view, Schoenbergs tentative
1912 title for the piece, Akkordfrbungen (Chord Colorings), is a descriptive

10 This discussion is identical in Schoenberg 1911, 470 1, and Schoenberg indication of something other than Klangfarbenmelodie. But I believe the har-
1922, 5067 (translated in Schoenberg 1978, 4212), excepting only that the monic color to which the title alludes is part of the same conceptual realm as
1911 sentence Vorlu g aber stehen wir auf dem Standpunkt, die Beurteilung Klangfarbenmelodie.
12 Dahlhaus [1970] 1987, 142.
ber die Knstlerische Wirkung dieser Verhltnisse nur mit dem Gefhl
13 Dahlhaus reading of Schoenbergs 1911 discussion has much in common
vorzunehmen (For the present, however, we take the point of view of resolv-
ing to judge the artistic effect of these relationships only by feeling) is sim- with mine, but his skepticism about the practicality of listening to actual over-
pli ed in 1922 to read Vorlu g beurteilen wir die knstlerische Wirkung tones leads him back to de ning Klangfarbenmelodie traditionally instead of
dieser Verhltnisse nur mit dem Gefhl (For the present we judge the artistic formulating Klangfarbenmelodie as harmony composed of rei ed overtones.
14 Dick [1978] 1990, 237.
effect . . .).
Schoenberg himself insisted that Klangfarbenmelodie did not My conception of Klangfarbenmelodie would have been ful lled in
entail varying instrumentation and implied that it involved har- Weberns compositions only in the slightest part. For I meant something
monic progression. His retrospective 1951 essay Anton Webern: different by Klnge, and especially, though, by Melodie. Klnge, as I
thought of them here, would have included isolated occurrences in my
Klangfarbenmelodie makes no mention of instrumentation, but
early compositions such as, for example, the tomb scene of Pelleas und
rather associates Klangfarbenmelodie with harmony. He also
Melisande, or much of the introduction to the fourth movement of my sec-
makes no suggestion that melodie referred to a succession of ond String Quartet [op. 10], or the gure from the second Piano Piece [op.
individual tones of varying timbre. Instead, he writes, it denotes 11, no. 2] that Busoni repeated so many times in his adaptation, and many
a structured quality: These I called melodies, because, like others. They are never merely individual tones of different instruments at
melodies, they would need to be given form.15 different times, but rather combinations of moving voices. However, these
Schoenbergs vision of how such form would arise is based on are still not melodies, but isolated occurrences within a form to which
his experience with harmony: The forms of Klangfarbenmelodie, they are subordinate. They would become melodies if one found the point
he says, would differ from others just as contrapuntal forms differ of view to arrange them so that they would form a constructive unity of
from those of homophony, and Klangfarbenmelodien would be absolute autonomy, an organization that connected them according to
progressions of tone-colors equaling harmonic progressions in their intrinsic values. I would never have thought to appropriate, for ex-
ample, the old forms, ternary song, Rondo, or implementations like that.
terms of inner logic. After criticizing Webern for attempting
In my conception such forms would have been something new; there is
Klangfarbenmelodien in old-fashioned ternary song forms, Schoen-
still no description for them, because they still do not exist. 16
berg states that Klangfarbenmelodien would necessitate their own
forms because they combined tone, harmony, and tone color: Here, although Schoenberg makes it clear that he never success-
fully composed a Klangfarbenmelodie, he also identi es Klnge
Progressions of tone-color s would certainly demand constructions differ-
ent from those required by progressions of tones, or of harmonies. For
from early works that could be called Klangfarbenmelodien but
they were all that, and speci c tone-colors as well. for their lack of constructive unity.
In referring to the tomb scene from Pelleas und Melisande
As if disassociating himself from the de nition that eventually de- (1902 03), Schoenberg almost certainly means the music shown
veloped for Klangfarbenmelodie, Schoenberg closes the essay by in Example 1; in notes to the 1950 Capitol Records recording of
noting that he invented the term not thinking that it could be this work, Schoenberg had copied precisely this passage illustrat-
taken so super cially. ing Pelleass entry into the tombs, describing it as a musical
A letter from Schoenberg to Josef Rufer, also written in 1951, sound . . . which is remarkable in many respects and calling at-
states even more clearly that Klangfarbenmelodie did not involve tention to the trombone glissando.17 With four lines (in addition to
successions of individual tones and that it was an organizational percussion) marked pp or ppp and several different instruments
principle for his polyphony. Schoenberg speci cally denies that playing each line, often with tremolo or utter-tongue, individual
Klangfarbenmelodie involved the succession of single tones or the timbres are not conspicuous. But neither is pitch the most promi-
use of varying instrumentation, and he af rms that it involved nent attribute. The phrase remarkable sound may refer to the
combinations of moving voices.
16 Schoenberg 1951. Reprinted with the permission of Belmont Music
Publishers. Translation mine.

15 These and the following quotations come from Schoenberg [1951] 1984, 17 Schoenbergs notes and musical example are given in Bailey 1984, 612,
485. 64.
Example 1. Schoenberg, Pelleas und Melisande, mm. 67 after rehearsal 30, adapted from Schoenbergs own reduction
changing overall sonority produced as voices in the polyphony, throughout. The striking features are quietness, a wide pitch
like rising and falling partial tones, create a changing sonorous range, and a texture in which instruments pass a thirty-second-
whole. Above this, clarinets play ffbut they are omitted from note gure back and forthsometimes accompanied by slower
Schoenbergs Capitol example, perhaps suggesting they are not elements such as the overlapping melodies of the viola and cello
part of the remarkable sound. in Example 2(a). In the contrasting middle section excerpted in
The introduction to the fourth movement of Schoenbergs Example 2(b), the viola and cello move in contrary motion.
String Quartet op. 10 (190608) also belies the traditional de ni- The reference to the gure that Busoni repeated so many
tion of Klangfarbenmelodie. The four string instruments have sim- times in his transcription of Schoenbergs Piano Piece, op. 11,
ilar timbres; all are muted and (with very few exceptions) arco no. 2 (1909), does not precisely identify Schoenbergs third
Example 2. Schoenberg, String Quartet no. 2, op. 10, fourth movement

(a) mm. 12
Example 2. [continued]
(b) mm. 1012
example, but it allows two possibilities: the polyphonic pattern of Example 3. Schoenberg, Piano Piece op. 11, no. 2
Example 3(a), repeated and developed in three additional meas- (a) mm. 3132
ures by Busoni; and the contrary-motion gure with a high half-
step simultaneity shown in Example 3(b). 18
All of these Klnge are polyphonic. None uses varying
timbres, and only the Pelleas example uses unusual instrumental
effects (chief of which is a glissandoa movement of pitch, not
timbre). Individual tones tend to be disembodied through low dy-
namic markings and extremely high or low pitch, so that the con-
tribution of each tone is somewhat indistinct. If these passages are
timbral, it is because each tone contributes through its pitch to the
timbral whole. This image of Klangfarbenmelodie is consistent (b) m. 39
with the discussion in Schoenbergs Harmonielehre.
18 Before they were published, Schoenberg sent Ferruccio Busoni the rst
two pieces of his op. 11. Busoni immediately translated the second piece to
make the piano writing more idiomatic (as he wrote to Schoenberg on July 27,
1909). Schoenberg responded with a series of letters detailing his own artistic
principles. The exchange is published in Theurich 1977, 166186 and translated
in Beaumont 1987, 381407. Busonis konzertmige Interpretation is pub-
lished as Busoni 1910. In addition to the passages noted, Busoni also extends
the rst and last measures of the piece through repetition.
KLANG AND KLANGFARBENMELODIE Schoenbergs notion that conventional melodies are created of
Klangfarben differentiated according to height and his curiously
In 1911 Schoenberg imagined Klangfarbenmelodie as a music circular remark that melodies could be made of Klangfarbe differ-
of pure sensation organized by the logic of thought. Schoenberg entiated according to Klangfarbe arise from his belief that pitch is
begins his discussion by pointing out that despite the absence of merely an aspect of timbre.
ways to measure or evaluate Klangfarbe, composers are already
The distinction between tone color and pitch [Klanghhe], as it is usually
writing progressions of Klangfarben. This leads him to imagine expressed, I cannot admit without reservations. I nd that the tone makes
what the effect of a more sophisticated grasp of Klangfarbe would itself noticeable through tone color, of which one dimension is Klang-
be. Considering this, he arrives at the statement that comes closest hhe. Klangfarbe is, thus, the main topic, Klanghhe a subdivision.
to de ning Klangfarbenmelodie. Klanghhe is nothing else but tone color measured in one direction. 20
If it is possible to create structures out of Klangfarben that are differenti - It would appear that Schoenberg alludes to a higher level of per-
ated according to height [Hhe], which we call melodies, progressions ception in which pitch variation will be heard not in terms of
whose coherence evokes an effect resembling thought, then it must also height but instead in terms of color, so that progressions of chang-
be possible to make such progressions out of the Klangfarben of the other
ing pitch will be heard purely for the coloristic effects of the
dimension, out of that which we call Klangfarbe pure and simple
pitches. Schoenberg alludes to the subtle perception that this
[schlechtweg Klangfarbe ], progressions whose relations with one another
work with a kind of logic entirely equivalent to that logic which satis es implies when at last he introduces the term Klangfarbenmelodie:
us in the melody of pitches [Klanghhen].19 Klangfarbenmelodien ! What acute senses that can distinguish things in
this realm, what a highly developed spirit that likes to nd pleasure in
Although often thought of as predicting successions of individ-
such subtle things! 21
ual tones differentiated by timbre, this statement, like Schoen-
bergs comments of 1951, does not really support such an assump- The emphasis on the senses, thought, and consciousness in the
tion. Since melody is speci cally de ned as a progression . . . discussion of Klangfarbenmelodie was intellectually typical of its
resembling thought, the term seems chosen because melody is re- time. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artists, philoso-
garded as intuitive (emanating directly from thought), not because phers, and scientists paid close attention to sensation and precon-
it involves single tones. Moreover, it is unusual to nd conven- scious thought, grappling with the empiricist hypotheses that
tional melodies described as Klangfarben that are differentiated sensations were more real than either physical objects or rational
according to height; one would expect the differentiated tones to thought and that the seeming logical organization of the world
be called Klnge. And Schoenbergs phrase Klangfarbe pure was merely a simplifying distortion of the information received by
and simple emphasizes either that this is an uncommon usage of the senses.22 Schoenberg had written to Busoni that the seeming
the term or that he is trying to differentiate between multiple
20 Schoenberg 1911, 471 (Schoenberg 1922, 506); translation after Schoen-
meanings of the term.
berg 1978, 421.
21 Schoenberg 1911, 471 (Schoenberg 1922, 507).
22 Studies of the importance of this empiricism in the arts and literature of
19 Schoenberg 1911, 471 (Schoenberg 1922: 5067); translation adapted

the time include Ryan 1991, Argelles 1972, and Kittler 1990, part 2. I have in-
from Schoenberg 1978, 421. Carter translates Hhe as pitch. My reasons for a vestigated the relevance of this empiricism to the Second Viennese School in
more literal translation will become apparent. Cramer 1997, Chapters 3 and 7.
irrationality of his atonal music resulted from such a sensory says), a fundamental or tonic is effective only when subsidiary
orientation: sounds threaten its centrality. Schoenberg takes these political and
acoustic principles to be natural laws but insists that they lose
This variegation, this multifariousness, this illogicality which our senses
demonstrate, the illogicality presented by their interactions, set forth by their relevance if the political or musical system changes, as when
some mounting rush of blood, by some reaction of the senses or the tyranny is replaced by some other system or when chords are no
nerves, this I should like to have in my music. It should be an expression longer ruled by their fundamentals.27 Of course, this is apparently
of feeling, as our feelings, which bring us in contact with our subcon- the situation in Schoenbergs own atonal music, which subverts
scious, really are, and no false child of feelings and conscious logic.23 the fundamental bass to the point that it no longer governs chordal
makeup or harmonic organization. 28
In Harmonielehre, the path to modern music may be under-
Schoenbergs understanding of these power dynamics seems
stood as a transition from Klang as objective sound to Klang as
informed by contemporaneous understandings of acoustics. The
internal sensation. Near the beginning of the book, Schoenberg
science of the time held that the fundamental gave a Klang its
presents the partial-tone series as the progenitor of harmony, ob-
pitch and that the strengths of upper partialswhich the funda-
serving that he is starting with the object, the material of music
mental controlledcontributed color. It is now better understood
and that any contribution he makes to understanding the hearing
that the auditory system can extrapolate a perceived fundamental
of music is just a happy accident. He notes that he is starting with
pitch using information supplied by higher partials.29 But in 1911,
the partial-tone theory, even though it is possibly false, because
freeing the partial tones from the tyranny of the fundamental
such conjectures . . . will satisfy our formal necessity for sense
and coherence.24 This theoretical Klang serves as the basis for the
27 Schoenberg 1911, 1702, also 1334, 145 (Schoenberg 1922, 1835, also
diatonic scale, the major triad, the logic of harmonic progression,
1412, and compare 156; translated in Schoenberg 1978, 1512, also 1167,
and the concepts of consonance and dissonance.25 Tonality, a state
1279).
in which everything emanates from the tone,26 is thus objective 28 Schoenberg 1922 makes it implicit that he is describing his own music.
and rational. When the relationship to the fundamental is not treated as basic, he says,
Later in the Harmonielehre, Schoenberg seems to see his mod- tonality is kept uctuating . . . hint[ed] at . . . blurr[ed] [verwischt] (Schoen-
ern music not so much as abandoning Klang-based tonality as berg 1922: 157; translated in Schoenberg 1978, 1289, where Carters transla-
tion of verwischt as erases seems too strong). In light of this weakening of
reversing the power relations present within it. He develops the
tonality, he acknowledges the use of the word atonal to describe such ultra-
metaphor of political tyranny to explain the dynamics of relation- modern music, although here and in a 1922 footnote to another passage he
ships between the fundamental and the partial tones, between the af rms his dislike for the term atonal, claiming that tonal relations have not
root and the secondary pitches of a chord, and between the tonic disappeared, merely changed (Schoenberg 1978, n. 407, 432; Schoenberg 1922,
and the other chords of a key. Just as a tyrant is satis ed only with n. 4878). His belief that such music still follows tonal principles is even
stronger in the corresponding 1911 discussion, where it is the relationship to
the challenge of controlling ambitious subjects (so Schoenberg
the fundamental that may be uctuating, hinted at, or blurrednot tonality
(Schoenberg 1911: 146).
29 When several tones are heard belonging to a single overtone series, the au-
23 Schoenberg to Busoni, August 1909, in Beaumont 1987, 389.
24 Schoenberg 1978, 19 (Schoenberg 1911, 1617; Schoenberg 1922, 1516). ditory system more or less automatically assigns to the percept a pitch that is
25 Schoenberg 1911, 1736 (approximately the same as Schoenberg 1922, the fundamental of the series, even if no signal is present at the fundamental
1637, translated in Schoenberg 1978, 1933). frequency. See Pierce 1999, 15 and Rasch & Plomp 1999, 958 for discussions
26 Schoenberg 1978, 128 (Schoenberg 1911, 146; Schoenberg 1922, 157). of pitch recognition and the history of its understanding.
meant making Klangfarbe perceptible apart from pitch. This is the Both of Schoenbergs attempts at explaining modern multiple-
outlook that Schoenberg develops over the course of the Harmo- tone chords place great importance on sensation. First, Schoen-
nielehre. Early on, when arguing that all the partial tones should berg notes, such chords are sometimes arranged to contain groups
be considered suitable for art, he says that the higher partial of tones referring to previously known forms. He illustrates this
tones are perceived only as Klangfarbe, while the lowest partials with Example 4, a chord from Erwartung consisting of several
are more familiar to the analyzing earin other words, per- groups of tones introduced in succession. Schoenberg parses the
ceived as pitch.30 At the end of the book, however, Schoenberg uppermost six tones as a diminished-seventh chord with an added
imagines music in which all tones are perceived as Klangfarbe. minor third (CE ) that could resolve to B D (or A C ) and
Schoenbergs discussion of Klangfarbenmelodie, then, is no thereby become part of the diminished-seventh chord. But by em-
speculation about timbral composition appended tangentially to phasizing that such a resolution is not necessary, Schoenberg de-
the end of a book about harmony; it continues a thread woven nies the conventional harmonic logic that treats dissonances as re-
throughout the Harmonielehre. As a discussion of harmony, it is quiring resolution, instead insisting that the sensation of the sound
only the last and furthest-reaching of several aesthetic and philo- itself is paramount. Calling such chords Klangemp ndungen
sophical sidetracks explored during the making of the nal chap- (sound- or Klang-sensations), Schoenberg notes that the chord-
ters general point that chords of six or more tones are too new for building capacity of dissonances does not depend on possibilities
their laws to have been discerned. Schoenberg advocates close of or tendencies toward resolution.32
examination of sensations rather than rational understanding of Schoenbergs second explanation involves the instinctive
harmonic logic as a guide for the use of such chords, arguing that negation of traditional tonal progression and voice-leading.
the newest possibilities of composition have always been prac-
The chords [Akkorde] generally stand in a relationship such that the sec-
ticed intuitively with their theoretical codi cation coming later. ond contains as many tones as possible whose chromatic [upper] neigh-
The few composers who become known to history for developing bors appear in the preceding chord. But they seldom come in the same
new possibilities, Schoenberg says, succeed not by knowing laws voice as before. Then, I have noticed that tone doublings, octaves, seldom
of music but through an introspective ability to express the nature appear. The explanation for that is, perhaps, that the tone doubled would
of mankind. What really matters, the ability to listen to oneself, to acquire a predominance over the others and would thereby turn into a kind
look deep into oneself, that can hardly be acquired; certainly it of root, which it should scarcely be. There is perhaps also an instinctive
cannot be taught.31 (possibly exaggerated) aversion to recalling even remotely the traditional
chords. 33
Schoenberg 1978, 201 (Schoenberg 1911, 1819; Schoenberg 1922, 1718).
30
Schoenberg 1978, 41213 (Schoenberg 1911, 460; Schoenberg 1922,

31 These observations actually favor the same types of chords
4956). For turn-of-the-century empiricism, the expression of the nature of that analysts . . . have found to be of paramount importance in his
mankind was a matter more of capturing something essential about the most music. John Roeder makes a strong case that these voice-leading
inner, perhaps mundane, human sensations than of engaging with weighty per-
and doubling considerations, taken together with the aversion to
sonal or existential issues. In an in uential manifesto, Die neue Psychologie
(1890), the writer Hermann Bahr proposed a literature of the nerves presenting
mental states in their sensory form, before they have been shaped by con- 32 Schoenberg 1978, 419 (Schoenberg 1911, 468; Schoenberg 1922, 504).
sciousness (paraphrase in Ryan 1991, 20). For thoughts on Schoenbergs 33 Schoenberg, 1911, 469; translation adapted from Schoenberg 1978. The
Bahrian turn to the internal, see Brinkmann 1997, esp. 1968, and Brinkmann rst two sentences were revised in the 1922 edition, 5045. See Roeder 1989,
1999, esp. 1568. 302, for consideration of the differences.
Example 4. Schoenberg, Harmonielehre, example 340 naturalistic than reproducing actual proportions of such objects.36
In the same spirit, Schoenberg proceeds to reject the simple
chords [Akkorde] of the earlier harmony as imperfect imitations
of nature, and he notes that in a modern chord, it would not be
possible to omit a tone . . . or to add one . . . Even the spacing is
obligatory.37 Schoenberg seems to be comparing such chords to
traditional chords, which can have numerous identity-preserving
voicings because the functions of the chordal elements derive
from a fundamental bass, not from psychological sensation. In
contrast, the unique sensations of modern chords are indistin-
guishable from their logic: As soon as a tone is changed, the
sound [Klang] is changed; it may perhaps be good in another
traditional chords, account to a remarkable degree for the chord place, in another connection.38
types that appear in Schoenbergs works.34 Schoenbergs text, in Immediately after this topic, Schoenberg moves on to a discus-
turn, gives aesthetic and sensory reasons for this avoidance of oc- sion of Klangfarbe and Klangfarbenmelodie. Although he calls it
tave doublings and traditional chords. One reason for such avoid- another idea, this is not a new topic. Around 1900, Farbe often
ance is already clear: in the new chords, all tones are equal and no gured as an example of Emp ndung (sensation) in philosophical
tones exert dominance. A less metaphorical reason becomes clear discussions, 39 allowing us to relate Schoenbergs use of the term
as Schoenberg continues discussing non-traditional chords. Put
most simply, traditional chords sound out of place in modern
music: 36 In addition, attending to objects as sensed was considered a way to look
into oneself. To illustrate this, Ernst Mach included a portrait of his study,
The simple chords of the earlier harmony do not appear successfully in drawn in perspective, in Mach [1906] 1959, 1820 and note, 20 (Mach 1911,
this environment [of modern chords] . . . I believe they would sound too 14 16). The illustration is reprinted and discussed in Ryan 1991, frontispiece
cold, too dry, expressionless . . . Perspective and depth of sound could be and 9. For further empiricist thoughts on perspective and its use in the arts, see
what we nd wanting in the simple three and four-part harmonies [Drei- James [1890] 1983, 2746.
37 Schoenberg 1978, 421 (Schoenberg 1911, 470; Schoenberg 1922, 505).
und Vierklngen] . . . These somewhat empty sounds [Klnge] cannot ap-
38 Schoenberg 1911, 470: Der Klang ist, sowie ein Ton gendert wird, an-
pear alongside those full, sumptuous sounds; whereas the exclusive use of
ders; er mag vielleicht an einer anderen Stelle gut sein, in einem anderen
the one or the other assures coherence, hence the right effect. 35
Zusammenhang. This passage is revised in Schoenberg 1922, 505: Sowie ein
Ton versetzt wird, wechselt die Bedeutung, hrt die Logik und Brauchbarkeit
Schoenbergs mention of perspective is suggestive; perspec- auf, scheint der Zusammenhang zerrissen (Schoenberg 1978, 421: As soon as
tive in drawing was a triumph of empiricism, for it demonstrated a tone is misplaced the meaning changes, the logic and utility is lost, coherence
that representing objects as perceived could be more convincingly seems destroyed).
39 For instance, Mach uses Zusatzfrbung (supplementary coloring) and
Zusatzemp ndung (supplementary sensation) synonymously. In Mach 1911,

34Roeder 1989. The quotation is from p. 54. 23942 (Mach [1906] 1959, 2937), Zusatzfrbung in the text refers to pre-
35Schoenberg 1978, 4201 (Schoenberg 1911, 46970; Schoenberg 1922, cisely the same aspect of sound denoted by Zusatzemp ndung in the accompa-
505). Schoenbergs emphasis. nying table.
Klangfarbe to the idea of Klangemp ndung, which, as I have sound, leading Schoenberg to conclude his book by exhorting,
shown, he used earlier in the chapter to denote modern harmonies. Here, who dares advance theory! 42
The current discussion seems prompted by Schoenbergs immedi- In the end, it is dif cult to assert that any of Schoenbergs
ately preceding thoughts on the uniqueness of modern harmonies music satis es his vision for Klangfarbenmelodie in the way he
and their logic, in which the word Klang consistently refers to had written about it; his letter to Rufer implies as much. We seem
the emergent sound of a chord. Schoenberg begins by dividing led to the conclusion that the concept of Klangfarbenmelodie is
the properties of a Klang into Hhe, Farbe, und Strke (height, more theoretical than practical, especially considering that there is
color, and volume) before focusing on the inability of the existing still ambiguity about precisely what Klangfarbenmelodie is. The
account of sound to deal meaningfully with Klangfarbe, the sec- discussion at the end of the Harmonielehre does not make clear
ond dimension of tone [Ton]. Schoenberg rst hints at this weak- whether it refers to a kind of harmonic progression or to a succes-
ness by observing that the Klang is typically measured in only sion of individual pitches heard coloristically within such a pro-
. . . the [dimension] we call pitch [Tonhhe].40 This, the only in- gression. On one hand, the use of Klang earlier in Schoenbergs
stance of the common word Tonhhe in the discussion, seems to nal chapter refers speci cally to the sound quality emanating
mean that pitch location is paramount. In contrast, when Schoen- from a chord as a whole. Tonhhe, in this context, refers to one
berg later rejects the distinction between Klangfarbe and pitch, he dimension of such an emergent qualitythe chordal root, referred
coins the term Klanghhe. The latter word, as discussed above, to as a pitch name; and Klangfarbe arises by analogy to Tonhhe,
seems to denote pitch heard for its sensuous effectthat is, as one as another emergent property of the chord. On the other hand, in
of the attributes that make up a Klangs quality or color. the discussion of Klangfarbe, Schoenberg does not seem to use
Klangfarbe involves the inner sensation of pitch here much as Klang in as narrow a sense as earlier in the chapter. Twice
it does in Schoenbergs discussion of remote partial tones near the Klangfarbe is called an aspect of tone [Ton], as though it could be
beginning of Harmonielehre. There, when he notes that the higher a property of an individual sound.
partial tones are perceived as Klangfarbe, he also says that even Even if it is not possible to identify speci c examples of
if they are not yet apparent to the analyzing ear, they are Klangfarbenmelodie, Schoenbergs discussion of the concept re-
recorded by the subconscious and present in the world of veals much about his musical thought. The fact that the discussion
feeling. 41 Klangfarbenmelodie has a similar connection to the arises in connection with modern chords, some created by
senses and the subconscious. As music for acute senses, it will Schoenberg and his students, suggests that the idea behind
heighten in an unprecedented manner the sensory, intellectual, Klangfarbenmelodie is related to Schoenbergs early atonal music.
and spiritual pleasures offered by art and bring us closer to what Without making the claim that the music exhibits Klangfarben-
dreams show us [was Trume uns vorspiegeln]. Such music heard melodie, it seems proper to explore the general relevance of the
as pure sensation will have a mental image no different from its ideas embodied in the concept of Klangfarbenmelodie to works
composed around the time that concept was introduced. Since
Schoenberg 1978, 421 (Schoenberg 1911, 470; Schoenberg 1922, 506).

40
42 Schoenberg 1911, 471 (Schoenberg 1922, 507); translation adapted from

Schoenberg 1911, 1819 (Schoenberg 1922, 1718); translation adapted
41
from Schoenberg 1978, 201. Schoenberg 1978, 422.
Klangfarbenmelodie seems an attempt to relate modern harmony ity, much as the visual system evaluates light in terms not of fre-
to the nature of sound, one might expect such an exploration to re- quency but of perceived qualitythat is, color.43 Thus, Riemann
veal suggestive aspects of the sound-world Schoenberg imagined posits an identi cation of tone color and pitch,44 implying that
in his music. the listener deduces pitch by means of tone color.
Riemanns eleven-and-a-half-octave spectrum of Klangfarbe
KLANGFARBENMELODIE AND SCHOENBERGS MUSIC ranges from lower tones that are broad, blunt, massive, and dark to
higher tones that are thin, sharp, acute, lively, and bright. 45 Rie-
Forming a sound-image of early atonal music responsive to the mann acknowledges that this may appear to contradict the com-
concept of Klangfarbenmelodie involves understanding early mon de nition of tone color, according to which two tones at the
twentieth-century beliefs that tones could be heard as colors and same pitch may have different colors (as when a cello and a violin
that distinct tones could audibly combine into single sonorities. A play the same pitch or when the cellist bows the same pitch in dif-
number of contemporary sources are helpful in reaching such an ferent fashions). But in these cases, he explains, the preponder-
understanding: The work of Hugo Riemann, Ernst Mach, and the ance of high or low partial tones accounts for the difference in
phonetician Richard Paget can help esh out Schoenbergs state- color.
ment that pitch is merely a dimension of Klangfarbe. Riemann Under this con ation of pitch with tone color, the large
illustrates how individual tones could be heard as colors; the melodic trajectories in Example 2(a), cited in Schoenbergs letter
Viennese scientist Ernst Mach, whose attention to sensation was to Rufer, are heard as sweeping coloristic gestures. It is conceiv-
perhaps as deeply in uential as Helmholtzs account of sound, able that the motion from low to extremely high tones, especially
elaborates on the timbral functioning of pitches in chords; and when played ppp, could be heard (to borrow Riemanns terms)
Paget (as well as other phoneticians) demonstrates how tones primarily as motion from massive and dark to clear and bright.
heard as colors contribute to speci c vowel qualities. In order to Example 5, from the ninth song of The Book of the Hanging
make the leap from these sources to musical analysis, I draw on Gardens (19089), offers a somewhat more complex example.
Albert S. Bregmans recent work on auditory scene analysis, During the words Eines Regentropfens Gu (of a raindrops
which engages issues quite similar to those raised by Mach and downpour), the piano accompaniment moves simultaneously in
suggests moreover a useful music-analytic symbology, which I different directions across Riemanns tone-color spectrum. Pitch
will introduce below (p. 20).
43 Riemann 1895, 612; also Riemann 1900b, Chapter 5 (Klangfarbe), es-
pitch as tone-color
pecially 548. How the auditory system represents pitch remains a dif cult
Schoenbergs distinction between Tonhhe (pitch measured as problem, but it is now clear that neural mechanisms can encode the speci c
a value) and Klanghhe (pitch perceived as a color) resonates with quality known as pitch. Around 1900 these mechanisms were not conceiv-
discussions of Klangfarbe found in Riemanns Catechism of able, so listening for the secondary coloristic qualities resulting from frequen-
Musical Aesthetics and Elemente der musikalischen Aesthetik. cies was the hypothesized method. On recent theories of pitch representation in
perception, see New Grove 2, s.v. Hearing and psychoacoustics 2 and 6, by
Riemann approaches Klangfarbe as a fundamental element of
Brian C. J. Moore, and Bharucha 1999, 4168.
pitch perception. Like visual color, pitch is determined by 44 Riemann 1895, 12.
frequency; but the mind, unable to count the waves, identi es a 45 Riemann 1895, 810. The speci c adjectives, gathered from various
tones pitch not by evaluating frequency but by judging tone qual- places with the page range, are all his.
Example 5. Schoenberg, The Book of the Hanging Gardens, op. 15, phonetics and KLANGFARBE
song 9, mm. 1113 Around the turn of the twentieth century, perhaps the best
known instance of pitches functioning as timbres in this fashion
involved vowel sounds. Riemanns dictionary de nition of Klang-
farbe noted the importance of vowels in the study of timbre.
The various Klangfarben of human voices depend partly on the formation
of the vocal chords, partly on the resonant proportions of mouth and nasal
cavities. The countless vowel gradations are so many varieties of
Klangfarben. 47
Helmholtz had made it known that vowels are characterized by

emphases among the upper partials of spoken tone, the result of
resonating oral and nasal passages. As he showed, the frequencies
of resonant partial tones, or formants, are independent of the
fundamental; a set of formants at particular frequencies is always
heard as a particular vowel quality, no matter the perceived pitch
of the sound. 48
class rises chromatically, punctuated every two or three notes by Helmholtz began a tradition of identifying formants by pitch
a fall of a major seventh. The chromatic motion gradually bright- names. Scientists did not agree on these pitches, as can be seen in
ens the color while the periodic drops in register result in a much Example 7(a).49 Some linked phonetics to the familiar structures
darker sound at the end than at the beginning. of common-practice tonality, seen in the alignments of vowels to
In Example 6(a), from the Piano Piece op. 11, no. 1, held keys degrees of a dominant seventh chord and to diatonic scales shown
produce changes in timbre directly related to changes in pitch. in Examples 7(b) and (c).50 The pitches of Edward Wheeler
When the pitches of the high melodic statement (x) are repeated Scriptures vowels at (d), however, are not tied to tonality.51
an octave lower (y), a difference in partial tone mixture results One scientist saw in such analyses the potential for a new kind
from the harmonics of the held keys. These harmonics have their of music. Richard Paget suggested that instrumental effects of
peak density in the range between 1000 and 4000 Hz. The tones of high emotional value may be produced in the future by importing
the lower statement have a number of partials in this range that ex- into music some of the sounds of human speech and song.52 Such
cite the held-key harmonics, resulting in a rich, sustained ringing. music would replicate whispered, not vocalized speech, because
But the tones of the higher statement produce little of this kind of only in whispering are the formant pitches of vowels obvious. By
interaction with the harmonics, with the result that in spite of
being higher, they sound duller. The difference between x and y is 47 Riemann 1900a; translation adapted from Riemann 1908.
visible in Example 6(b), a spectrograph of Edward Steuermanns 48 Helmholtz [1863] 1954, 10319.
49 Seiler 1875, 33.
recording. 46 50 Soames 1899, 83; Aikin 1900, 56.
51 Scripture 1902, 23.
52 Paget 1930, 188.

46 Steuermann 1958.
Example 6. Schoenberg, Piano Piece op. 11, no. 1, mm. 1418
(a)
a
1 1 1 1
e t n o s n ie e d r e n
e o h n e P e d .
(b) as performed by Edward Steuermann
x y
G 5 G5 F 5 D5 G 4 4
1924, Paget was attempting performances of such music on slide- likely as not to be dissonant and the treatment of intervals is not
whistles.53 Example 8(a) is Pagets representation of an all-vowel tonal. This example resembles the viola-cello duet of Example
sentence for two instruments. 54 Each instrument represents one of 2(b) in general shape and rhythm.
the two principal formants. The intervals between them are as A more complex situation is shown in Example 8(b), a phrase
from Shakespeares Loves Labours Lost.55 In order to represent
53 Paget 1930, 47. Whistles have relatively sinusoidal tones, so they resemble
consonants such as s and v, Paget includes a third instrument,
overtones. Paget was attempting what has recently been called sine-wave
speech synthesis, which is described in Remez 1994, 13840, and demonstrated which sometimes also plays a vowels third formant. This example
at http://www.haskins.yale.edu/haskins/MISC/SWS/SWS.html.
54 Paget 1930, 46. 55 Paget 1930, 1867.
Example 7 Example 7
(a) Vowel formant frequencies according to three scientists, tabulated (b) The main vowel formants according to Trautmann
by Emma Seiler
speech formants; for another, while Pagets melodic voices move

simultaneously, atonal polyphonic voices move separately, creat-
ing a stream of color that varies with greater complexity. Despite
these obvious differences, Pagets examples, with their wide
melodic intervals, busy dynamics, syncopations, and (of course)
non-tonal harmony, are reminiscent of much atonal music. Note
the similarities between Example 8 and the instrumental parts of
Example 9 (Madonna from Pierrot lunaire, 1912). Note also
Example 10, from the fourteenth song of The Book of the Hanging
Gardens, in which the piano paints both the sound and the mean-
ing of the word Sprich with grace-notes imitating the high fre-
quencies of the sound s. (This is the only instance of such high
grace notes in the song.)
Further exploring this line of association, note that Klangfar-
also employs a variety of articulations and dynamics to imitate benmelodie can join Schoenbergs Sprechstimme (itself a type of
resonant swells of vowels and bursts of consonants. Rhythms and Klangfarbenmelodie ) as an attempted merging of music with lan-
dynamics re ect that vowels, comparatively loud and held for rel- guage. In his 1912 essay The Relationship to the Text, Schoen-
atively long durations, tend to occur in the middles of syllables. berg places the sounds of language at the heart of his musical
While Pagets work was not known to the developers of atonal- practice. In attempting to discuss the purely musical, he argues
ity, it suggests a musical use to which early twentieth-century that one ought to be able to grasp a Lied, including the real con-
phonetics could be put. Such music would be Klangfarbenmelodie tent of the poem, without knowing the words. As Schoenberg de-
in the sense that sounds would contribute to a perceived timbre scribes how inspiration comes from the sounds of a poems open-
and pitch would not be regarded as a primary attribute. To be sure, ing words, he reveals a belief that the sound of a word has some
there are important differences between atonal polyphony and ac- link to the purely musical. Schoenberg says he has composed
tual speech as transcribed by Paget. For one thing, the music of many of his songs in a stream of consciousness evoked by the rst
the Second Viennese School never replicates actual pitches of sounds of the poem.
Example 7. [continued]
(c) Aikins alignment of the vowel formants to the diatonic scale
(d) Scriptures estimate of the vowel formants
I had never done greater justice to the poet than when, guided by my rst
direct contact with the sound of the beginning [Anfangsklang ], I divined
everything that obviously had to follow this rst sound with inevitability.56
In this connection, Schoenberg quotes the Viennese essayist

Karl Kraus calling language the mother of thought. The empha-
sis here is on the inner nature of the word, not its outward mean-
ing. Like artists improvisations in colors and forms, this kind of
attention to language leads closer to the true nature of art.57
Webern seems to clarify this point at the beginning of The Path to
the New Music, praising Kraus for setting great store by the
shapes of words and saying that the musical idea is analogous to
the shape of a word.58
56 Schoenberg [1912] 1984, 144.
57 Schoenberg [1912] 1984, 144.
58 Webern 1963, 910, 13.
Example 8. Phonetic music for whistles by Richard Paget

(a)
(b)
Example 9. Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire, op. 21, no. 6 (Madonna), The deep power of phonetic sounds was commonly accepted
mm. 1517 around 1900. The psychologist William James described phonetic
suggestion as a powerful emotional trigger and gave one view of
how progressions of phonetically evocative Klangfarben could
bring us closer to what dreams show us, to use Schoenbergs
words about Klangfarbenmelodie. 59
Suppose we try to recall a forgotten name . . . The rhythm of a lost word
may be there without a sound to clothe it; or the evanescent sense of
something which is the initial vowel or consonant may mock us tfully,
without growing more distinct. Everyone must know the tantalizing effect
of the blank rhythm of some forgotten verse, restlessly dancing in ones
mind, striving to be lled out with words . . . A tune, an odor, a avor
sometimes carry this inarticulate feeling of their familiarity so deep into
our consciousness that we are fairly shaken by its mysterious emotional
power. 60
chord as color
Phonetics uncovers some aesthetic implications of the belief
Example 10. Schoenberg, The Book of the Hanging Gardens, op. 15,
held by Riemann and others that tones contribute color to sonori-
song 14, mm. 13
ties through pitch. But this does little to elucidate the hearing
of sonorities as a whole; such elucidation comes instead from
Machs Analyse der Emp ndungen. Mach compared the percep-
tion of color-change resulting from a transition in frequency not
simply to movement on a spectrum but to a changing mixture of
primary colors.61 Perhaps it was his awareness of color theory that
led him to consider the combination of tones in sonorities quite
closely.
59 Schoenberg 1978, 422.

60 James [1890] 1983, 2434. Jamess ideas were highly in uential in
Vienna, at least among psychologists. See Ryan 1989.
61 Mach [1906] 1959, 2767, 184, and 2919 (Mach 1911: 2246, 232, 237
44) speculated that a few sensory organs might do all the work of perceiving
pitch. Each organ would be tuned so that its response peaked at a particular
frequency, but it would also respond more weakly to other frequencies. The
mixture of responses at different intensities by different auditory sensors would
account for Klangfarbe.
Mach paraphrased the psychologist Carl Stumpf in de ning Example 11. Machs illustration of the principle of supplementary
fusionand the consonance it impliedas the perception of sev- colorings
eral tones approximating, sometimes more, sometimes less, the
( )
impression of a single tone.62 According to this version of the
Klang theory, consonant harmonic structures actually fused to-
gether in the hearing processor, at least, their origin lay in the
perceptual fusion of the partial tones that had come to be repre-
sented by musical tones. Stumpf and others imputed this to the
simple numerical ratios between fusing frequencies. Mach, how-
ever, held that such fusion resulted when partials of one tone were
perceived as partials of a second tone.63 But to Mach, the coloris- gives the perceived pitch. 65 Thus, when listeners focus on the bass
tic result of such coincidences between partial-tone frequencies of dropping from E to A in Example 11(a), the entire acoustic mass
two tones was more important than fusion. Partial tones of the will seem to sink in depth, and when listeners focus on the E
second tone were heard as supplementary colorings or sensations moving to F at (b), the entire sonority will appear to rise. Since
[Zusatzfrbungen or Zusatzemp ndungen] belonging to the rst, tones not at the center of attention merely affect the perceived
producing a characteristic quality, a color not present in the timbre, a listener focusing on the held E5 of (a) or the C5 of (b)
individual tones.64 will, according to Mach, sense only changes in timbre as sur-
In Machs view, the perceived pitch of perceptually grouped rounding tones move.66
tones is not necessarily that of the fundamental. The individual el- Relationships in which one tone is colored by others can often
ements of mixed sonorities may be perceptually isolated, and the be heard in Schoenbergs early atonal music. In mm. 34 of the
listener can direct attention to different tones (or partial tones) of a Little Piano Piece, op. 19, no. 6 (1911), shown in Example 12, a
Klang. Whichever tone is at the center of the listeners attention high D ED melody is a supplementary coloring of a lower D .
The high tones should be sensed but not noticed, judging by
62 Mach 1911, 223; translation modernized from Mach [1906] 1959, 274. Schoenbergs dynamic markings (pppp against p of the central
63 Mach [1906] 1959, 2989 (Mach 1911, 2434). tone), which direct the listeners attention to the held lower tone.
64 Mach 1911, 23942 (Mach [1906] 1959, 2937). Mach epitomizes the
Such structural relationships can be illustrated using diagrams
contradictions in thought about sound around 1900. Despite placing great im- such as those in Example 13, suggested by Bregmans work on
portance on interactions between tones partial tones, he nevertheless asserted
that chords act the part of Klnge, saying nothing about the fact that indi-
65 Machs opinion that pitch is not fully determined by the nature of the
vidual tones own partial tones complicate the Klang analogy (Mach 1911, 231,
translated after Mach [1906] 1959, 283). Although he suggested that the sound but is partly the listeners responsibility probably re ects the skill devel-
acoustic experiments he described were better and more convincingly carried oped in late nineteenth-century laboratories of hearing out individual overtones
out upon a physharmonica [an instrument designed to generate tones for scien- within a tone. Mach [1906] 1959, 282 (Mach 1911, 2301) alludes to this skill.
ti c work] . . . than on a piano, this was simply because the physharmonica Bregman 1990, 220, 2223 discusses Helmholtzs methods for hearing individ-
could play sustained tones (Mach [1906] 1959, 282). The problem with a chord ual harmonics. Scientists such as Mach might not have believed that a hearer
played on the piano was not that its complex tones would generate a false repre- could choose a sonoritys pitch from among its partials had they not believed
sentation of the Klang, but that the chord would be percussive and thus dif cult that a fundamental must be present to give a conventional perception of pitch.
66 Mach [1906] 1959, 283 (Mach 1911, 231).
to hear.
Example 12. Schoenberg, Little Piano Piece, op. 19, no. 6, mm. 24 Mach: How does it happen that so many tones simultaneously
sounded are distinguished and are not fused into a single sensa-
a t n e
tion?68 To be sure, Bregmans answers involve an understanding
of psychological mechanisms different from Machs concept of
attention. But they may make it possible to describe real hear-
ings of the music at hand in terms that would have been conceiv-
able at the start of the twentieth century. In Bregmans formula-
tion, depending on the nature of a particular complex sonority and
the context in which it appears, a group of simultaneous tones
may be heard in a variety of ways: as separate tones, as a few dis-
tinct sonorities, or as one sonority. When several tones are inte-
p le e n ta r c o lo r n s grated as one perceived sonority, the qualities of individual tones
(such as timbre and pitch) will not be perceived; if one of the
tones is perceptually separated from the others, the remaining
auditory scene analysis (which is the perceptual process of parsing sonority will have a different emergent timbre. In real-world hear-
the many sounds in an environment into a few complex sounding and especially in abstract experimental stimuli, tones are often
objects). With pitch on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal, fused together as a result of their relationships and contexts so that
tones are represented as horizontal lines as at (a). In Example their integration is an unambiguous perceptual fact. The strongest
13(b), a relatively loud tone is shown by a relatively thick line. musical example of this is the fusion of the various partial tones of
Color-forming fusion is depicted using vertical lines to connect an instrument into a single percept. A musical chord, in Breg-
the elements of fused sonorities. (For reasons that will become ap- mans view, is perceived at least partly as a single timbral unit, but
parent, fusion of tones forming interval-class 1 is represented by a its fusion is incompleteits tones are perceptually separate.69 In
dotted line.) Arrowheads point from colorings to central tones. this respect, Bregmans view is probably not unlike that of the late
The remaining parts of Example 13 will be explained on a nineteenth-century Klang theorists.
case-by-case basis in connection with analyses of musical pas- Example 14 (from Weberns Quartet Movement op. 5, no. 2,
sages. For now, however, I want to concentrate upon the basic idea 1909) provides a simple application of the diagramming technique
that the graphs express visual analogs of the relationships that cre- introduced in Example 13. Webern often speci es that one instru-
ate groupings in sounds. 67 The basic concerns of auditory scene ments dynamic level rise while anothers falls, producing pro-
analysis, as described by Bregman and others in recent decades, gressions in which central tones fall off in volume to become
have much in common with a fundamental question asked by colorings while colorings increase in volume to become new cen-
tral tones. In Example 14, crescendos and diminuendos create an
67 Bregman states his graphic principles in Bregman 1990, 173. My analyti-
cal approach also owes an intellectual debt, albeit obliquely, to the insight of
Klumpenhouwer and Lewin that atonal sounds can be understood in hier- Mach [1906] 1959, 2778, 297 (Mach 1911: 2267, 242).
68
archical networks of differentiated types of dyadic relationships, and that such Bregman 1990, 5089. On timbre as the result of fusion, see Bregman
69
networks are a matter of interpretation. See Klumpenhouwer 1994 and Lewin 1990, 4889. Bregmans discussion of music is in Chapter 5, Auditory Organi-
1994. zation in Music.
Example 13. Key to the graphs
overlapping chain of central tones and colorings. The seemingly that stand out are not the most loudly played. Consider three differ-
simple occurrence of D4 in the viola against E 2 in the cello (m. 4) ent ways of playing this opening illustrated in Example 16. 70
passes through three coloristic states resulting from relationships At (a), G5 is played most quietly, but, surprisingly, it is the
between louder and quieter tones. Example 14(b) interprets this most easily heard pitch. The C5, although second quietest, seems
analytically, showing rst that the cellos E is colored by the more identi able as a pitch than A 4 or B5. Major sevenths are
violas D; this is followed by an ambiguous clash between E and prominent coloristic elements; the depth of A 4 seems to envelop
D when the viola and the cello reach comparable volumes; and the G5, and the B5 adds a piquancy to the sonority probably be-
nally, the D ends up colored by the E . cause of its clash with the C5. Even though this interpretation is
formed by rst rehearsing each third individually until the balance
emergent KLANGFARBE in larger sonorities of the two tones produces a ringing blend, as in 16(b), when play-
Machs central versus supplementary hearing of chordal tones ing all four tones using the same balance, it is dif cult to hear a
can be tested using Schoenbergs atonal chords. Example 15, the ringing blend of A 4 and C5 at all.
opening of the thirteenth song from the Book of the Hanging
Gardens, is a case in point. As Schoenberg says atonal chords often
70 Like many experimental observations of the turn of the twentieth century,
do, this sonority suggests previously known forms: two pairs of
my observations about this chord are introspective and subjective. I played on a
major thirds separated by a major seventh. The F forms traditional
well-tuned Steinway B piano and made reports on my own perceptions as I
chords with both of these pairs (F minor and an incomplete G7). tried to identify central pitches. I estimated the loudness of each tone by remov-
But when hearing the whole sonority, it is dif cult to pick out ei- ing all ngers but one from the keyboard after each trial and aurally rating the
ther the thirds or the chords. And in this chord, the individual tones volume of the remaining tone.
Example 14. Webern, Quartet Movement op. 5, no. 2, m. 4 Example 15. Schoenberg, The Book of the Hanging Gardens, song
(a) 13, m. 1
a
a
e e e i - n e
S e h r la n g s a m ( = 3 8 )
V l
(b) the A dif cult to hear apart from the G. Thus, the lower major
third is heard only weakly.
The entrance of F6 alters these subtle relationships. In 16(a),
when F is introduced, no matter its volume, B seems less closely
associated with the three lower tones; it can be heard as a coloring
of the F. Meanwhile, C becomes more prominent. Similarly, at (c),
upon the entrance of F, A and C become less obscured by G and
B, and consequently more audible as a major third.
The third performance-voicing, shown in Example 16(d), is
meant to highlight the dissonant clashes of the major sevenths as
much as possible. Even though C is the most easily heard central
tone from the beginning, its pitch is dif cult to discern because of
the strength of B above it; but with the entrance of F, C becomes
more recognizable.
Example 16(c) shows a second performance-voicing, one that These hearings may be explained in terms of interactions be-
emphasizes the B and G while the C and A sound more quietly. tween partial tones. Because the auditory system extrapolates a
The major-third quality of the upper tones is prominent, re ecting fundamental pitch from an overtone series, it may be that a lis-
that fusion is stronga strength that is graphed with a thick verti- tener can subconsciously assign the shared partial tones of C5 and
cal line between these two tones, as in Example 13(c). C and A G5 to one or the other of these two pitches, accounting for the
are mere colorings; the C is dif cult to distinguish from the B, and prominence and clarity of one or the other of these two tones in all
Example 16. Ex. 15 in different balances

(a) (b) preparation for Example 16(a) (c) (d)
the hearings. Similarly, when F enters, it provides partial tones each other.72 Exploitation of this interference may explain the
that also belong to C5 (namely C8, C9, and G9), allowing the C to prominence in atonality of major sevenths and minor ninths.
be perceived more strongly. (The natural af nity between pitches
close together may also draw C5 away from B5 when F6 enters.) analyzing chords in context
Pitch within the A G and CB pairs is dif cult to discern be- The foregoing example challenges Machs view that a single
cause of critical-bandwidth interference: in a major seventh, each pitch stands out by virtue of the listeners attention, for both com-
partial of the upper tone is a half-step from a partial of the lower positional design and performance collude to in uence which
tone.71 If the tones are balanced so that interfering partial tones pitches stand out. But Schoenbergs own discussion gives little
have similar intensity, the two tones are likely to interfere with support to the notion that a pitch must stand out at all, and, as
Example 16(d) shows, it is possible for atonal sonorities to come
71 Similar interference would be involved in minor seconds, minor ninths,
close to having no distinguishable pitch. Schoenberg the theorist
major fourteenths, minor sixteenths, and so on. But the strength of such inter-
ference varies. With minor seconds, every partial of the lower tone would be ad- 72 Parncutt & Strasburger 1994 have developed a calculus for predicting tim-
jacent to an overtone of the upper, making interference strong and pitch unclear. bral characteristics such as these in atonal chords. They evaluate the dissonance
With major fourteenths and minor sixteenths, three in four of the lower tones (roughness) produced by partials close to one another, estimating what complex
partials would be free of such interference; the lower pitch would be easily rec- tones the listener will hear as a result of these partials (these may sometimes be
ognized. The major seventh and minor ninth each strikes a balance: with half its virtual tones, tones not played by any of the instruments), and describing their
overtones free of interference, the lower pitch is still recognizable but critical- perceived spectra. As I do, they take the volume of each tone to be crucial to the
band roughness is strong and pitch recognition a challenge. I suspect that for timbre that emerges. Also as I do, they note that the content of a single chord is
this reason these intervals are the most common representative of interval-class not enough to determine which pitches are noticed, and they suggest the study
1 in atonality. Introductions to the critical-band theory of dissonance are found of auditory scene analysis as a way of exploring the contextual factors that im-
in Pierce 1999, 12 and Rasch & Plomp 1999, 1024, 1067. pinge on the hearing of a chord (107).
may have imagined that any sound could be heard as pitchless common in early atonality. Major thirds may have struck Schoen-
Klangfarbe, but as a composer he would have had to work with berg as fusing intervals because of the common use of parallel
standard musical sound-sources, whose pitches are often quite thirds as somewhat uni ed sonorities in common-practice music.
dif cult to ignore. When trying to produce chordal Klangfarben, The fusion of these traditional consonances is represented in my
Schoenberg would have had to choose particular combinations analytic diagrams by solid vertical lines, as in Example 13(d)
produced by such sound-sources that would make pitch content (p. 22). Fusion in altered octaves is a somewhat different effect.
obscure. Traditional major chords are likely to fuse, but they do so Because the partial tones present in a perceived altered-octave unit
with a strongly perceived fundamental pitch. Schoenberg would do not map to a single harmonic series, discrete pitch perception is
have had to create other strongly fusing chords whose individual dif cult; altered octaves are heard more as coloristic units than as
tones were overshadowed by their emergent colors, creating struc- pairs of pitches.75 I believe this effect is strong enough that the al-
tures exhibiting what I term unpitched fusion. 73 tered octave can form a single sonority whenever it is used, de-
In Schoenbergs early atonal chords, I consider conjunctions pending only on the balance given the tones by the performer.
of major thirds with what I call altered octavesinstances of Thus, my analyses indicate fusion of nearly all simultaneous al-
interval-class 1 expressed as pitch-intervals 11 or 13to be pri- tered octaves, using the broken vertical lines shown in Example
mary in creating the effect of unpitched fusion.74 Combinations 13(d). By comparison, major thirds, whose individual tones are
of these intervals (as already seen in Example 15) are extremely normally easily perceptible, are somewhat less likely to fuse un-
73 According to Bregman, membership in a single harmonic series is only
less aided by a factor such as parallel motion, indicated as in
one of several factors that can strengthen the perceptual grouping-together of
Example 13(e).
discrete tones. Parallel contrapuntal motion is another. Other factors strengthen- In Schoenbergs Little Piano Pieces, op. 19, a number of
ing fusion include simultaneous crescendi or diminuendi and simultaneous be- chords composed of thirds and altered octaves seem meant to be
ginnings of tones. Bregman 1990 discusses common fate (sound components heard as fused sonorities. In Example 17(a), from op. 19, no. 3,
undergoing the same change at the same time) as a factor promoting integra- the slur is conventionally read to indicate a melody moving from
tion (24892) and summarizes the causes of integration of simultaneous com-
ponents (3934, 65462). In a passage of polyphony, these tendencies towards
C4 up to B4 and back down to E 4, with A 2 and G3 constituting a
alliances and partitions between tones are not complete, but they are consider- brief chord of accompaniment. This hearing is represented at (b).76
ably more obvious and objective than the hearings of the static chord described But a more suggestive interpretation is at (c), where the melody is
in Example 16. a four-note sonority at this point, perhaps an embellishment of the
74 Compare Dahlhauss more sociological explanation of this phenomenon:
sustained C4 contained in it. The altered octaves (A 2G3 and
Dahlhaus has said that added half-steps are used to alienate major thirds in
Schoenbergs music. Dahlhaus 1989, 387. 75 On the weakness of pitch in inharmonic sounds, see Bregman 1990,
I do not mean to suggest that other intervals may not be just as important. 23745. This view of altered octaves is mine, not Bregmans, but in a sense I
But here I limit myself to two intervals whose effects are easily demonstrated am adopting Bregmans view that dissonance is just another form of timbre
by voice leading and frequency of use. I refer to these intervals by their (Bregman 1990, 511).
common-practice namesnot by the modulo-12 integers most often used in 76 This and the analyses that follow are not concerned with balances between
post-tonal analysisto emphasize the qualitatively different fusion produced tones or the centrality of pitches, but with possible perceived relationships be-
by each interval, and also because integers make inversional and octave- tween the notes of the score. Hence the graphic convention shown in Example
equivalence a bit too transparent. The fusion of a major tenth or of a minor sixth 13(b) is not used. The strength of integration is still evaluated, as in Example
is closely related to that of a major third, but for present purposes the differ- 13(c), based only on compositional criteria. The graphs at present represent per-
ences in color and structural implication need to be noticed. ceptions that could be brought out, but not the performative means of doing so.
Example 17. Schoenberg, Little Piano Piece, op. 19, no. 3, mm. 79, Example 18. Schoenberg, Little Piano Piece, op. 19, no. 4, mm. 12
in two performances
a e c h
(a)
a e
Example 19. Schoenberg, Little Piano Piece, op. 19, no. 5, mm. 810
(a)
a s
. c .
(b)
C4B4) can fuse, as can the major compound thirds (A 2C4 and 9
G3B4). This interpretation, of course, depends on a performers

artistry.
One might likewise read the F5B5 in m. 2 of Example 18,
from op. 19, no. 4, as a timbral detail rather than an interruptive
accompanimental chord, even with its f marking. Similarly, the
melody in Example 19, from op. 19, no. 5, ends with two sonori-
ties, not two single tones supported by accompaniment, as the B4
and the F4 fuse with lower tones through altered octaves. In this
hearing, shown in Example 19(b), the juxtaposed properties of al-
tered octaves (which fuse merely by sounding simultaneously)
and major thirds (which fuse when connected by parallel motion Example 20. Schoenberg, The Book of the Hanging Gardens, song
to previous chords) provide contrapuntal and textural richness. 13, mm. 67
The upper voice unites the two lower objects, fusing rst with the (a)
middle voice through a C4B4 altered octave and then through its
altered octave with the F 3 of the lower pair of voices. The F 3 in
turn is integrated with D3 through a major third that is strength-
ened by parallel motion from G3E 3. Thus, through harmony and e
c h i
temporal progression, all four voices are joined.

Schoenberg tends to introduce the tones of altered octaves at
separate times. This may be a device for equalizing the promi-
nence of the two intervals, since by virtue of its clash, the al-
tered octave might stand out much more than the major third. In
Examples 17 and 18, altered octaves are added to sonorities al-
ready begun. Measure 39 of Example 3(b), perhaps one of the
Klnge mentioned in Schoenbergs letter to Rufer, is another such
case. The repeated D5s may be intended as colorings an altered
c h o rd c h o rd
octave away from the E 6 and then the D 6, helping these tones to
grow after they have been struck.
Schoenbergs tendency to weaken altered octaves in this way is
(b) varying strengths of fusion
akin to his frequent use of parallel motion and homophony to
strengthen the fusion of major thirds. A compositional means of
bringing major thirds into perceptual equality with altered octaves
is seen in Example 20(a), where further possibilities of the open-
ing chord of Song 13 from The Book of the Hanging Gardens are
developed. At (b), thicker vertical lines indicate stronger fusion,
according to the scheme shown in Example 13(c). In chord 1, each
major third is distinctly heard by virtue of its separate entrance,
while the altered octaves are weakened because their tones do not
begin together. In chord 2, the altered octaves are stronger because
their tones begin together, but the thirds are also strengthened be-
cause they are approached in parallel motion from already estab-
lished thirds. By the same principles, chord 3 has weak altered-
octave fusion, but the thirds are more strongly integrated.
Both Mach and Bregman describe fusion as a variable phe-
nomenon. If several factors favor integration, it will be strong and
the listener may not be aware at all of the constituent tones; but if
some factors favor integration and others detract from it, the re- Example 21. Schoenberg, Seraphita, op. 22, no. 1, mm. 13
sulting weakly integrated sonority may be easily decomposed. 77
ie e e 0
The complex interaction of such factors is illustrated by the
divided-cello accompaniment to the opening clarinet solo of
Schoenbergs orchestral song Seraphita, op. 22, no. 1 (1913),
shown as Example 21 and analyzed in Example 22. Chord 1, con- o
sisting of an altered octave and a major third, fuses fairly strongly.

In chord 2, the higher altered octave G4F 3 is approached by par-
allel motion. This and the altered octave C 4D3 might dominate
the chord, but because the C 4 and the D3 arrive in contrary mo-
tion, the effect of the lower altered octave is weakened; and be-
cause neither of these voices moves parallel to the upper parallel
altered octaves, the C 4 and D3 are heard as relatively indepen-
dent. Thus, as Example 22(a) shows, the uni ed sonority of chord
1 is broken apart in chord 2. l.
In chords 35, strong units are created by parallel thirds in the

middle voices, as is seen at (b). The top voice is independent of
these voices, except that it adds color to chord 4 by being an al-
tered octave above the D 3. Similarly, the lowest voice adds color
beneath chord 5. The bottom voice is not quite as independent
from the parallel thirds as is the top voice; because the three low-
est voices follow the same rhythm, they are somewhat integrated
throughout event 2.
In chords 68, the opening diminished fourth in the inner
voices expands to a perfect fourth and nally a tritone, potentially
creating an evolving Klangfarbe. Their simultaneity promotes per- eter, they will be captured by the inner voices, as at (d), and will
ceptual integration, but the fact that they move only in similar and enhance the evolving Klangfarbe. The inner voices of chord 6 will
not parallel motion detracts from such integration. Whether the ef- be heard simply as a major third (with the outer voices forming
fect of evolving Klangfarbe is achieved depends on how the al- their own, separate sonority). As the inner voices move to chord 7,
tered octaves in the outer voices are performed. If played loudly a new color will emerge not only because the inner voices now
enough to capture the inner voices of chord 8, as in Example form a perfect fourth, but also because this pair of tones is now
22(c), the altered octaves will overcome the factors promoting the colored by the altered octave of the lowest voice. Finally, the color
evolving Klangfarbe of the inner voices. Chord 8 will then consist of the augmented fourth of chord 8 will be enhanced by the contri-
of two sonorities. On the other hand, if the outer voices are qui- bution of a second altered octave by the highest voice. Such ten-
sion between competing groupings is a constant issue in the sonic
77 On competition between possible groupings, see Bregman 1990, 16571. realization of early atonality.
Example 22. Analysis of Ex. 21
CONCLUSION can produce pure sine-wave tones. The second, suggested by

Mach, treats the color of a chord as the result of the acoustic inter-
I have suggested two interpretations of the sonic intuition ex- action of its tones. This follows Schoenbergs theoretical writings
pressed in Schoenbergs discussions of Klangfarbenmelodie. The about Klang and Klangfarbenmelodie less literally, but it may bet-
rst, informed by Riemann and turn-of-the-twentieth-century pho- ter re ect his (and our) experience of sound.
netics, treats pitches as building blocks of color that work addi- Because the rst interpretation treats individual pitches like
tively, like partial tones, so that a pitch contributes color to a pure partial tones while the second requires individual tones to in-
sonority without altering the aspects of the sonority already pres- teract because of their own partial tones, the two interpretations
ent. This, however, is strictly impossible without instruments that would seem incompatible. Yet performance practice of the early
twentieth century may have minimized this opposition. This pe- tones stand out as self-contained units, was used sparsely in the
riod was not yet a time of complete standardization of instru- early twentieth century.81
ments, but, in general, instruments of the time sounded fewer high To be sure, it is unlikely that instruments could have produced
frequencies than they do now, and the top partial tones of high a partial-tone spectrum that did not rise or fall with the fundamen-
pitches were not much higher than those of low pitches. String in- tal pitch but remained xed for all fundamentals, but evidently the
struments, to take one example, were strung in gut, weaker in high older practice came closer to this than recent practice. Moreover,
frequencies but more uniform over the ranges of the instrument performers of Schoenbergs acquaintance seem to have worked to-
and ensemble than strings that incorporate metal.78 Gut strings ward it; in the 1920s, the Schoenberg circles hand-picked Vienna
also speak more gradually than do modern metal strings, which String Quartet had their instruments altered to achieve a homoge-
facilitates blending with other sounds. To my hearing, gut strings neous partial-tone structure throughout the ensemble.82 This
sound more disembodied, ethereal, and resonant than metallic would have created an audible link between the color of a tone
strings. Similarly, utes in Germany during the rst decades of the and its pitch somewhat like the held-key harmonics of Schoen-
twentieth century were likely to be made of wood, and they were bergs op. 11, no. 1 (Example 6, p. 15).
sometimes speci cally designed so that different pitches had dif- Early twentieth-century musicians, whose experience of the
ferent timbral qualitiesinstruments of the sort that Brahms and sound of partial tones was limited by the laboratory equipment of
Mahler favored because they merged into an ensemble, not of the their time, might reasonably have imagined that instrumental
sort that Karajan favored because high partial tones made them sounds such as those just described resembled the sensations of
stand out. 79 A performance practice in which the frequencies of partial tones. If pitch was thus experienced as being closely re-
the highest partial tones are relatively low and uniform preserves lated to tone color, they would have been unlikely to imagine
the interaction of these tones while simulating fusion. It may be Klangfarbenmelodie as a melody in which tone color varies but
that this is because such tones sound like excitations of particular not pitch. The coloristic contribution of a tone would have been a
spots within a xed spectrum of partial tonesnot so different a function of its pitch, as the rst interpretation requires.
phenomenon from vowel formants.80 Finally, vibrato, which makes My pursuit of this idea has suggested the possibility that atonal
harmony often evokes phonetic sounds. To interpret atonal har-
mony phonetically is to join in a grand tradition of relating music
78 At the beginning of the twentieth century, string instruments normally had
to language, but with a twist that makes a difference to the analy-
upper strings made entirely of gut. Afterwards, upper strings made partly or en- sis and interpretation of this music. The usual analogies between
tirely of metal came into use. Robin Stowell gives the impression that gut
music and language, involving rhetoric, grammar, and syntax, em-
strings were used by a few musicians until 1950 but mostly went out of use by
the 1920s (New Grove 2, s. v. Violin I, 5[i]b). That the Schoenberg circle phasize the logic and predictability in the sequential unfolding of
ordinarily composed with gut strings in mind, at least until the 1920s, is sug- music. They point to the development of ideas, the reprise of sig-
gested by Bergs speci c instruction that the onstage violins in Wozzeck should nal events, the exploitation of contrast, and the creation and ful ll-
use steel strings (Act II, Scene 4, m. 439). ment of expectation. At the same time, they provide a model for
79 New Grove 2, s. v. Flute II, 4(iii)c and d, by Jeremy Montagu, Howard
expressive performance, allowing loudness, for example, to sig-
M. Brown, Jaap Frank, and Ardal Powell.
80 Indeed, acousticians refer to xed patterns of resonance in instruments as
formant con gurations. See New Grove 2, s. v. Sound 6, by Charles Taylor 81 New Grove 2, s. v. Vibrato 3, by G. Moens-Haenen.
with Murray Campbell, 76970. 82 Keyes 1990, 69.
nify strong emotion, formal articulation, or tension similar to that tice. It views the pitch content of early atonal chords as intended
of an un nished sentence. to create coloristic variety and unpitched fusion. Progressions are
In contrast, a phonetic model suggests that the form of an integrated through the fusion of pairs of tones, the consequence of
atonal progression is analogous to the shape of a word. The for- carefully controlled interval content, and voice leading.
mal, hierarchical, and syntactic internal relations found in rhetoric The notion that chords are constructed without central pitch
and grammar are not emphasized. The internal structure of a word and with close attention to the intervals formed by pairs of tones
is primarily that of a path through a series of tones and articula- resembles the assumptions of pitch-class set analysis. Indeed,
tions. The path needs to be smoothly traversed and unique while my analyses relate only tangentially to that analytic method,
(uniqueness being useful if a word is to convey speci c meaning). my account of Klangfarbenmelodie is consistent with the picture
Structural boundaries are not obviously marked in this path but of atonality that has been generated by it, and I hope that it might
emerge through a process of engagement between the listener and ll a prominent un nished section of that picture: the issue of how
the sound. Musicians who valued sensation might well have seen composers thought of their pitch material.
in this process the basis of a universal music.83 As time went on, Schoenberg and his colleagues thought more
Analysis and interpretation of atonal music can respond to this and more in terms of sets, a process that culminated in the twelve-
phonetic model by jettisoning rhetorical and syntactic notions of tone system. Recent work by several scholars traces Schoenbergs
structure and instead seeking to grasp sonorous continuity in evolution between 1910 and 1914 from an ideal of placing musi-
terms of gestural pro le. Internal repetitions may be of little con- cal materials entirely in the service of the direct expression of un-
sequence. Bursts of loudness may simply contribute to internal conscious sensations to a practice of forming works around pitch-
shapings rather than articulating the boundaries of events. The class collections. But there is no evidence for his thinking in terms
musical structure may acquire meaning through an abstraction of of sets at the outset of atonality.84 If the use of proto-serial devices
the psychological process of word recognition, rather than through became more and more conscious, it would seem likely that there
the more narratological abstractions of rhetoric and grammar to was a stage when the Viennese Schools practice resulted in the
which musical interpretation has often resorted. appearance of pitch-class sets in their scores at a time when they
This rst interpretation of Schoenbergs sonic intuition, then, is were not thinking in sets, which later study of these works led
strongly suggestive about form, aesthetics, and the large-scale them to discover. In short, pitch-class set analyses of the early
goals of musical interpretation. In contrast, my second interpreta- atonal works point toward real features of the music, perhaps even
tion, which understands chords in terms of the interaction of com- features that Schoenberg himself noticed afterwards, but the pres-
plex tones, engages more with the details of compositional prac- ence of these structures is not due to Schoenbergs thinking in sets
at the time of composition. In my analytic sketches I have tried to
83 At the time Schoenberg was moving toward atonality, Ferdinand de suggest possible features of his thinking.
Saussure was proposing that the boundaries between linguistic units arose pre- If the Harmonielehre is any indication, the evolution of atonal-
cisely through engagement of mind with sound (Saussure 1922, 1557). For a ity began with intuitive but conscious attention to sensation.
discussion of Saussures marginalizing of syntax and the cultural roots of this
Schoenberg and his colleagues did not reject the Klang, the sonic
move, see Sampson 1980, 546. For thoughts on Schoenbergs belief that
adherence to limited notions of syntax, grammar, and narration in music sup-
pressed the intrinsic possibilities of musical art, see Botstein 1997, especially 84 Haimo 1996, 16876, and Benjamin 2000, 611. Auner 1996 and 1997,
14. and Simms 2000 trace the beginnings of Schoenbergs set-related thinking.
basis of tonal harmony; they instead reinterpreted it. Pitches in Bernstein, David W. 1992. Schoenberg Contra Riemann: Stufen,
their compositions were meant to form elements of acoustic Regions, Verwandtschaft, and the Theory of Tonal Function.
wholes, originating not as points forming designs with one an- Theoria 6: 2353.
other in pitch-space, but as elements in progressions of coloristic Bharucha, Jamshed J. 1999. Neural Nets, Temporal Composites,
sonorities. In many cases where the interval content of sets has and Tonality. In The Psychology of Music. Second edition.
been attributed to pitch-class based coherence, the complex inter- Edited by Diana Deutsch. San Diego: Academic Press, 413 40.
val and voice-leading requirements of progressions of Klangfarbe Botstein, Leon. 1997. Music and the Critique of Culture: Arnold
may provide a better explanation. When we seek to grasp the elu- Schoenberg, Heinrich Schenker, and the Emergence of
sive logic of atonal progressions, we need to pay close attention to Modernism in Fin de Sicle Vienna. In Constructive Disso-
the sensuous possibilities written into the notes. Such attention to nance: Schoenbergs Position in Twentieth-Century Culture.
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thought to explain in terms of Klangfarbenmelodie. University of California Press, 322.
Bregman, Albert S. 1990. Auditory Scene Analysis: The Percep-
tual Organization of Sound. Cambridge: MIT Press.
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Schoenberg's Klangfarbenmelodie: A Principle of Early Atonal Harmony

INTRODUCTION De ning Klangfarbenmelodie as music in which consecutive

and spectral irregularity is comparatively recent. For an introduction to recent

7Helmholtz [1863] 1954, 10319. Schoenberg 1978, 201.

1912 title for the piece, Akkordfrbungen (Chord Colorings), is a descriptive

Publishers. Translation mine.

Example 2. Schoenberg, String Quartet no. 2, op. 10, fourth movement

22 Studies of the importance of this empiricism in the arts and literature of

19 Schoenberg 1911, 471 (Schoenberg 1922: 5067); translation adapted

Schoenberg 1978, 41213 (Schoenberg 1911, 460; Schoenberg 1922,

Zusatzemp ndung (supplementary sensation) synonymously. In Mach 1911,

Schoenberg 1978, 421 (Schoenberg 1911, 470; Schoenberg 1922, 506).

42 Schoenberg 1911, 471 (Schoenberg 1922, 507); translation adapted from

from Schoenberg 1978, 201. Schoenberg 1978, 422.

Helmholtz had made it known that vowels are characterized by

51 Scripture 1902, 23.

52 Paget 1930, 188.

Example 6. Schoenberg, Piano Piece op. 11, no. 1, mm. 1418

(b) as performed by Edward Steuermann

speech formants; for another, while Pagets melodic voices move

(d) Scriptures estimate of the vowel formants

In this connection, Schoenberg quotes the Viennese essayist

Example 8. Phonetic music for whistles by Richard Paget

59 Schoenberg 1978, 422.

Example 13. Key to the graphs

Example 16. Ex. 15 in different balances

G3B4). This interpretation, of course, depends on a performers

temporal progression, all four voices are joined.

sisting of an altered octave and a major third, fuses fairly strongly.

In chords 35, strong units are created by parallel thirds in the

Example 22. Analysis of Ex. 21

CONCLUSION can produce pure sine-wave tones. The second, suggested by

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