Alphabet Class Sets in the Music of Anton Webern

TIPPER, Helen Rose

Abstract 

This article draws on extensive studies of Anton Webern’s Sketchbooks at the Paul Sacher Foundation, Basel. It seeks to demonstrate a cipher-system identified in Webern’s music; to date in Opp. 6, 18 and 31. The cipher-system is explained by way of ‘mapping’ Fortean Pitch Class Set Theory onto the alphabet, whereby each pitch class integer represents a pitch of the chromatic scale whilst simultaneously corresponding to each letter of the alphabet, resulting in what has been coined ‘Alphabet Class Set Theory’. 

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