The imaginary of serial dodecaphony. From Doctor Faustus to the beginning of the 21st century
In his Doktor Faustus novel, Thomas Mann associates the devil with the invention of serial twelve-tone music through a fictional composer, Adrian Leverkühn. Arnold Schönberg, the real inventor of this compositional technique, feared that this fiction would take precedence over reality. Though nowadays the paternity of the latter is not in doubt, some discussions still suggest that the association between the devil and serial twelve-tone music extends beyond the fictional realm.