Symmetry, the twelve-tone scale, and tonality

My earliest composition in the harmonic language I call “twelve-tone tonality” was published fifty years ago. The brief explication of this language which follows was written in response to some queries by David Zinman when he conducted the premiere performance of my Sinfonietta with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Several excerpts from this letter which previously appeared in my article, “The First Four Notes of Lulu,” in The Beng Companion, ed. Douglas Jarman (London: Macmillan, 1989) are reprinted here with the kind permission of Mr. Jarman and the publisher.