Harmonic Progression in Magnus Lindberg’s Twine

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) developed a sophisticated harmonic system to organize progressions of dodecaphonic chords centering on his innovative use of chaconne. This article delves into Lindberg’s harmonic system by analyzing an early work in which it is fully developed: Twine (1988) for solo piano. I will discuss the construction of the composer’s dodecaphonic chords, show the inventive techniques by which he applies chaconne to systematically arrange these harmonies into progressions, and demonstrate how these progressions define the large-scale formal structure of Twine .