serialism

[seer-ee-uh-liz-uhm]

noun

1. twelve-tone technique.

serialism

/ ˈsɪərɪəˌlɪzəm /

noun

1. (in 20th-century music) the use of a sequence of notes in a definite order as a thematic basis for a composition and a source from which the musical material is derived See also twelve-tone

Other Word Forms

• serialist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of serialism¹

First recorded in 1960–65; serial + -ism

Example Sentences

Messiaen’s first batch of students, in the 1940s, included Pierre Boulez, who would become the de facto face of French serialism and modernist thought.

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Later pieces like “Canto” saw ten Holt abandoning serialism, in a move he called “tonality after the death of tonality.”

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An essay by Young in the accompanying booklet, though, lays out his thoughts on the limitations of serialism.

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With its nods to Brahms’s voluptuous writing for clarinet, Schoenbergian serialism and Steve Reich’s jagged strings, the music reveled in Sorey’s classical influences.

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It is both “an example of rampant serialism and a commentary on the phenomenon,” A.O.

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