This chapter begins by discussing the impulses that motivated Schoenberg to begin composing in the twelve-tone style: his desire to circulate through all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale, and his need to make the remainder of a piece develop from its initial material or Grundgestalt. It briefly traces his path toward twelve-tone music, as well as relating that journey to Josef Matthias Hauer’s work. The main part of the chapter defines the principal feature that set Schoenberg apart as a twelve-tone composer: the ‘musical idea’, and illustrates the musical idea as an overarching framework in an analysis of the Prelude from the Suite, op. 25. It then explains how Schoenberg’s followers and successors moved away from the notion of ‘idea’ as framework toward other modes of organization.

Chapter 7 reviews the arguments presented throughout the whole book, reminding the reader that my portrayal of Schoenberg’s atonal music as connected by common frameworks such as “musical idea” and “basic image” goes against the grain of much previous Schoenberg scholarship. It argues against the idea that each piece creates its own unique organization (the concept of “contextual atonality”) and also against the notion that Schoenberg went through a phase in 1909–11 where he abandoned motives and motivic process. But if the atonal music can be understood as a logical, continuous development with its pieces linked by common frameworks, how can one justify Schoenberg’s turn to 12-tone music in the 1920s? The latter part of my chapter explains the transition as motivated by two factors (with analysis of selected pieces): the desire for regular circulation through the 12-tone aggregate, and the need for complete control over all pitch classes of the piece through transformation of the Grundgestalt.