Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

After the Second World War, prodigiously complex systems of organizing music spread to all corners of the globe: twelve-tone composition, its serialist variants, chance operations, and so on.

From The New Yorker • Aug. 20, 2018

For better or worse, Babbitt, who died in 2011 at 94, is best known as an avowed serialist whose ingeniously organized pieces strike many listeners as impenetrably complex.

From New York Times • Jan. 25, 2016

Michael’s first stop is in Cologne, where Stockhausen, with a touch of self-kidding, evokes the modern-music scene of that German city through complex, jagged contrapuntal writing and spiraling serialist riffs.

From New York Times • Jul. 19, 2013

These spare, serialist miniatures are so enigmatic that Holliger took the unusual step of playing the whole sequence twice.

From The Guardian • Mar. 18, 2010

‘Elitist’ is an overused word, tinged with resentment, but in describing serialist self-justification of the twentieth century it is spot on.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall