George Amadee Tremblay was born in Ottowa, Canada on January 14, 1911.  In 1920 he migrated with his family to the United States arriving in Los Angeles, California, where he lived with his wife, Patricia, until his death at age 71.  He studied with his father, Amadee Tremblay, composer and organist at the Basilica in Ottowa.  A young composer of serial music before the arrival of Arnold Schoenberg in America, it was only natural that he would seek out Schoenberg, whose approach to serial composition had turned the musical world completely around and headed it in new directions.

As both pupil and associate of Schoenberg, Tremblay worked closely with him until the time of the master's death in 1951.  During these years, Tremblay felt that there existed a higher order of organization  for the twelve tone row.  He embarked on a thirty year search for a logical expansion of the twelve tone series that would free it from inversion, retrograde inversion, and transposition.  This search led Tremblay through one blind alley after another until 1965 when he achieved a monumental breakthrough.

Using the twelve tone row in its simplest form, the chromatic scale, Tremblay established a definitive cycle that yielded two hundred and eighty-eight related rows out of the original.  In this cycle, the retrograde is created by logic and order rather than as a device.  In this expanded cycle, there is no inversion, no retrograde inversion, and no transposition.

Since 1965, Tremblay pursued this definitive cycle in his own exhaustive works.  In addition, his pupils have proven over and over again the validity of the expanded cycle in every form of musical endeavor.

To the composer who takes a row of his own creation and expands it inot the definitive cycle, the amount of related material revealed is astounding.  He is presented with a never-ending vista of open doors and distant horizons.  It becomes impossible to tell when the systemic process ceases and the serenity and strength of its order adds influences beyond the composer's instinct.

The world's music has changed drastically since the impact of Schoenberg's twelve-tone concept starting with Opus 25.  Tremblay's "Definitive Cycle of the Twelve Tone Row," will similarly affect the musical expressions of the future.

Excerpted from: The Definitive Cycle of the Twelve Tone Row; George Tremblay; E.D.J. Music, Criterion Music Corp; New York; 1974
 

Primarily excerpted from the foreword by Earle H. Hagen, Los Angeles, California