Fragmentation (music)

In music composition, fragmentation is the use of fragments or the "division of a musical idea (gesture, motive, theme, etc.) into segments". It is used in tonal and atonal music, and is a common method of localized development and closure.

Fragmentation is related to Arnold Schoenberg's concept of liquidation,[1] a common compositional technique that describes the reduction of a large-scale musical idea to its essential form (such as a contour line, a specific harmonic motion, or the like).[2] Liquidation shapes much thematically-driven music, such as that by Béla Bartók,[3] Stravinsky, and Schoenberg himself. It is important to understand that, although they are related, fragmentation and liquidation are separate processes and concepts.

Further reading
  • Caplin, William. Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions, p. 10-11.
gollark: And how do you actually know that this is "exactly as they intend"?
gollark: Yeees, it doesn't actually seem like support to mention their existence a bit.
gollark: Okay, I'll go skim that.
gollark: It would probably help to use less awful voting systems.
gollark: Well, I'm waiting for their explanation on 1, 2 sounds like the thing I said would be bad, 3... maybe?, 4 doesn't seem like a problem, and 5 might be something dislikeable but not right wing extremism.

References
  1. Schoenberg, Arnold. Fundamentals of Musical Composition. London, 1967. p. 58.
  2. After Michael Friedmann, course lectures and materials for MUSI 305: Analysis and Composition of Twentieth Century Music, Yale College, Yale University, fall 2008.
  3. Stein, Deborah. Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis, "Introduction to Musical Ambiguity". New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-19-517010-5. p. 87.
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