[5] Remaining in Chicago, he continued his musical study in composition to the city's American Conservatory, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1964.
[8] One of Schwantner's early works, Diaphonia intervallum (1967) distinctly foreshadowed the important style traits that would later exist in his music.
Beyond its serial structure such elements as individualized style, pedal points, timbre experimentation, instrumental groupings, and the use of extreme ranges were apparent even at this formative stage of Schwantner's career.
This piece clearly illustrates his personal use of serialism, including many twelve-tone rows hidden among the texture and using a specific intervallic structure to provide cohesion.
In ...and the mountains rising nowhere (1977) the six percussionists play a total of 46 instruments in an effort to give the percussion section a more prominent role than what was typical for band works during the 1970s.
[9] From this stage he began to also concentrate on obtaining clearer tonal centers in works such as Music of Amber (1981) and New Morning for the World: 'Daybreak of Freedom' (1982).
[5] Even as he embraces tonal centers, Schwantner resists the very conventional employment of the dominant-tonic relationships and the Western music expansion of that concept.
Rather, Schwantner's tonal centers are created by pitch emphasis, perhaps like the American composer Aaron Copland in a piece like El Salón México.
His serialism roots even purvey his tonal structures; clearly defined major and minor scales are scarce in Schwantner's music.