Klangfarbenmelodie (tone-color melody)
Distribution of a line across changing timbres, so that the timbre itself acts melodically (Schoenberg).
What it means
Klangfarbenmelodie, or tone-color melody, denotes a compositional procedure in which a musical line, often a sustained note or chord, is distributed across several instruments of differing timbre. The pitch contour remains slight or unchanged; instead the timbre itself migrates from instrument to instrument, taking on a melody-like, form-building function.
Musical use
The term was coined by Arnold Schoenberg, who described it theoretically in his Harmonielehre of 1911 and realized it practically in the third of his Five Orchestral Pieces op. 16 (1909), often called “Colors”: an almost unchanging chord continuously shifts its timbre through different instrumentations. Later composers of new music, such as Anton Webern, took up the principle and developed it further in serial music, where timbre too, like other parameters, was organized systematically.
The Klangfarbenmelodie should be distinguished from an ordinary melody, defined by a contour of differing pitches, and from the mere orchestration of an existing theme, which changes the timbre without that change itself becoming the structuring principle.
Performance practice
In a Klangfarbenmelodie, listen specifically for how the sound of a held note or chord changes through the shift of instruments, even though the pitch stays the same. Follow which instrument takes over at each point, to perceive the tonal “melody” as an independent musical motion.