Fritz Heinrich Klein (2 February 1892 – 12 July 1977) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

Life and music

Klein was born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. He was a student of

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...

and the inventor of the

all-interval twelve-tone row In music, an all-interval twelve-tone row, series, or chord, is a twelve-tone technique, twelve-tone tone row arranged so that it contains one instance of each interval (music), interval within the octave, 1 through 11 (an ordering of every int ...

.Arnold Whittall: ''The Cambridge Introduction to Serialism'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), (hardback) (pbk), p. 68. He studied with Schoenberg from 1917 to 1918, with Berg from 1918 to 1924, and prepared the piano-vocal score for Berg's ''

Wozzeck ''Wozzeck'' () is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. Composed between 1914 and 1922, it premiered in 1925. It is based on the drama '' Woyzeck'', which German playwright Georg Büchner left incomplete at his death. Berg attende ...

'' and the piano score of Berg's '' Chamber Concerto''. Klein's

twelve-tone The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...

theories, which he refers to as "extonal", appear to originate independently of Schoenberg's as with

Josef Matthias Hauer Josef Matthias Hauer (March 19, 1883 – September 22, 1959) was an Austrian composer and music theorist. He is best known for developing, independent of and a year or two before Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 Septembe ...

's, and these claims as well as frequent stylistic changes helped to exclude him from the

Second Viennese School The Second Viennese School () was the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, particularly Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and close associates in early 20th-century Vienna. Their music was initially characterized by late ...

, though Klein's theories where highly influential on Alban Berg. Klein considered his piece for two pianos, ''Die Maschine: Eine extonale Selbstsatire'' 'The Machine: An Extonal Satire'' Op. 1 (1921) the first in which a twelve-

tone row In music, a tone row or note row ( or '), also series or set, is a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets are sometime ...

appears along with its retrograde, inversion, and transposed forms. This piece was printed in 1923 before Schoenberg's Op. 25 or writings on the twelve-tone technique. "The most interesting of the Berg students heard here is unquestionably Fritz Heinrich Klein." An all-interval row is a tone row arranged so that it contains one instance of each interval within the octave, 0 through 11. For example, the first all-interval row, by Klein: F, E, C, A, G, D, A, D, E, G, B, C. In integers this row is represented as 0 e 7 4 2 9 3 8 t 1 5 6 with the interval between each note being e 8 9 t 7 6 5 2 3 4 1 This row was also used by Berg in his '' Lyric Suite'' and in his second setting of the

Theodor Storm Hans Theodor Woldsen Storm (; 14 September 18174 July 1888), commonly known as Theodor Storm, was a German-Frisian writer and poet. He is considered to be one of the most important figures of German realism. Life Storm was born in the small t ...

's poem '' Schliesse mir die Augen beide''. Klein used the mother chord in his ''Die Maschine'', Op. 1, and derived it from the pyramid chord: 0 0 e 9 6 2 9 3 8 0 3 5 6 difference e t 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 by transposing the underlined notes (0369) down two semitones. The pyramid chord consists of every interval stacked, low to high, from 12 to 1 and while it contains all intervals, it does not contain all pitch classes and is thus not a tone row but shares properties with the all-interval tone row. For example, since the sum of numbers 1 through 11 equals 66, an all-interval row must contain a

tritone In music theory, the tritone is defined as a interval (music), musical interval spanning three adjacent Major second, whole tones (six semitones). For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it (in short, F–B) is a tritone as it can be ...

between its first and last notes (as does the Pyramid chord).Slonimsky (1975), p. iv. Klein died in

Linz Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...

, aged 85. He described his approach to the twelve-tone technique in "Die Grenze der Halbtonwelt" The Boundary of the Semitone World" ''Die Musik'' vol. 17 (1925) no. 4, pp. 281–286. His ''Die Maschine'' and ten ''Extonal Pieces'', Op. 4, appear on

Steffen Schleiermacher Steffen Schleiermacher (born Halle, 3 May 1960) is a German composer, pianist, and conductor.Homepage
of Steffen ...

's album ''The Viennese School - Teachers and Followers: Alban Berg'' ( MDG 613 1475-2), along with music by

Theodor W. Adorno Theodor W. Adorno ( ; ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, musicologist, and social theorist. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has com ...

and

Hans Erich Apostel Hans Erich Apostel (22 January 1901 – 30 November 1972) was a German-born Austrian composer of classical music. Life and career Hans Erich Apostel was born on 22 January 1901 in Karlsruhe, Germany. He studied at the Munz Conservatory in his n ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Klein, Fritz Heinrich 1892 births 1977 deaths 20th-century Austrian classical composers 20th-century Austrian musicians 20th-century Austrian male musicians Austrian male classical composers Pupils of Alban Berg Pupils of Arnold Schoenberg