Lulu (opera)

Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist (1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (1903) by Berg himself.

The tone rows

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 their own tone row, meaning they act rather like the leitmotivs in Richard Wagner's operas.

Related Topics:
Arnold Schoenberg - Twelve-tone technique - Tone row - Leitmotiv - Richard Wagner

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This is the tone row associated with Lulu herself:

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From this one tone row, Berg derives tone rows for some of the other characters. The tone row associated with Alwa, for example, is arrived at by repeating Lulu's tone row over and over and taking every seventh note, like this:

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This results in the following tone row:

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Similarly, the tone row associated with Dr. Schön is arrived at by repeating Lulu's tone row and taking then 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, like this:

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This results in the following tone row:

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