Wallingford Riegger - Musical Style

Musical Style

Riegger was known for his use of a twelve-tone system, related to that of Schoenberg. He became familiar with the technique through Schoenberg's American student Adolph Weiss. However, he did not use it in all of his compositions and his usage varied from that of Schoenberg, for example in not always using rows with twelve tone and not using transposed forms of the rows. Riegger's Dance Rhythms, for example, did not use these techniques. Aside from Schoenberg, Riegger was also significantly influenced by his friends Henry Cowell and Charles Ives. Along with Cowell, Ives, Carl Ruggles, and John J. Becker, Riegger was a member of the group of American modernist composers known as the "American Five".