Lulu (opera) - The Tone Rows

The Tone Rows

Cell z is the basic cell of Lulu and generates Trope I:

Cell z is also one of the basic cells in Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 4.

Although some of Lulu is freely composed, Berg also makes use of his teacher Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. Rather than using one tone row for the entire work, however, he gives each character his or her own tone row, meaning that the tone rows act rather like the leitmotifs in Richard Wagner's operas.

From this one tone row, Berg derives tone rows for many of the characters. For example, the tone row associated with Lulu herself is: F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D, F♯, D♯, E, A, B, C♯. This row is constructed by extracting one note (F) from the basic row's first trichord, then taking the next note (G) from the basic row's second trichord, then taking the third note (A♭) from the basic row's third trichord, and so on, cycling through the basic row three times.

The tone row associated with Alwa is arrived at by repeating the basic tone row over and over and taking every seventh note;

this results in the following tone row: B♭, F♯, E♭, G♯, F, B, E, D, A, C, C♯, G

Similarly, the tone row associated with Dr. Schön is arrived at by repeating the basic tone row (as in the previous example) and taking the first note, missing one note, taking the next, missing two, taking the next, missing three, taking the next, missing three, taking the next, missing two, taking the next, missing one, taking the next, missing one, taking the next, missing two, taking the next, and so on; This results in the following tone row: B♭, E♭, G, G♯, D, F, E, A, B, C, F♯, C♯