Classical Music Forum banner

atonal music and harmony

5K views 25 replies 10 participants last post by  millionrainbows 
#1 ·
I have been listening to some atonal music, more specifically Weberns' Fünf Sätze op5.

I understand the concept of serial music as "invented" by Schoenberg with his 12 tone technique. When I hear Webern's Fünf Sätze, knowing that he was a strict practiser of the 12 tone technique, I can indeed hear that the melodies are constructed without any "tonal" relation, as in not belonging to any scale. But what about the harmony? What's the "serial" filosophy behind harmony. To my ears there's also a lot of "conventional" or "tonal" harmonies in Fünf Sätze.
 
#3 ·
Well, according to millionrainbows one of Schoenberg's goals with the 12-tone system was to extinguish harmony. However, at times the harmonies used by members of the Second Viennese School sound quite striking and effective to me. Berg's Lyric Suite certainly comes to mind as an example.
 
#4 · (Edited)
"Harmony" can have a specific meaning, and one that's more general.

Generally speaking, any simultaneous sounding of more than one note is 'harmony' in a literal sense.

We have to look at how the 'harmony' is conceived and created before we can consider it to be 'harmony' in the specific tonal sense.

Just because Webern or Schoenberg can create harmonic effects by using the 12-tone method, this does not mean it is 'harmony' in any traditional tonal sense.

Usually, I listen to Webern as isolated events of singularity, not as 'harmony.'

Ligeti has more than one note sounding, but I don't listen to his music as "harmony.'

Usually, the music produced by this method is linear (melodic) in nature.

That's like trying to listen to early Renaissance polyphony as 'harmony' instead of as linear.

There comes a time to 'get real' about 'harmony. It's like trying to stuff a horse into a suitcase.

Since Webern came from the Late-Romantic world of tonal harmony, it is tempting to conclude that it is 'traditionally tonal', but the world of chromaticism is already so tonally ambiguous that using this period as a starting point to debate its tonality is going to end up creating more confusion than clarity.

The aesthetic of late-Romantic 'drama' is there in early-opus Webern, so the net effect of much of his early music is a dramatic tension which can be easily construed as being 'tonal,' and early on may have started that way, but the 'free atonal' and 12-tone music is not. The tonal 'gestures' are there, and there is harmonic color and tensions which come into play, but this is no reason to try to convince listeners that they are listening to traditional tonality, because it is not. It is free-atonal or 12-tone music, not tonality.

From WIK: In 1949 Schoenberg still remembered being "intoxicated by the enthusiasm of having freed music from the shackles of tonality" and believing with his pupils "that now music could renounce motivic features and remain coherent and comprehensible nonetheless".

So, yes, the music is comprehensible and coherent. But it is not tonal or based on harmony as we define it.
 
#11 · (Edited)
Per the OP, 12-tone music has harmonic tensions which can be "resolved" into lesser tensions, thus creating the perception of a music which ebbs and flows, and moves forward or cadences. Schoenberg did this very effectively.

As far as creating a "system" of harmony from 12-tone and serial principles, we can turn to Milton Babbitt and George Perle.

A "system," as opposed to Schoenberg's "method" (of composing with 12 tones) is more far-reaching and consistent in its principles, and is more structurally imbedded in the row materials, like the tonal "system."

As a caveat, a "system" might be more constraining than the wacky, freewheeling styles of Schoenberg and Webern.

They're back! And wackier than ever! It's Arnie and Anton!







 
#13 ·
In one of Frank Zappa's piano arrangements (by Ian Underwood), there is an indication which reads "both buttocks."
 
#14 ·
I have been listening to some atonal music, more specifically Weberns' Fünf Sätze op5.

I understand the concept of serial music as "invented" by Schoenberg with his 12 tone technique. When I hear Webern's Fünf Sätze, knowing that he was a strict practiser of the 12 tone technique, I can indeed hear that the melodies are constructed without any "tonal" relation, as in not belonging to any scale.
The melodies are constructed from the 12et-chromatic scale, so they belong to a scale.
You can still hear tonal relations and this is the failure of the system. They are trying to hide it with all the tempo, tone colour and similar changes.
Just because someone is using 12 tones, it doesn't mean that it is atonal. The first tone, the most repeated tone, the highest tone, the lowest tone, the thickest and the most dense voicings still grab the ear destroying the illusion of atonality.
 
#15 ·
No, a 12-note row is not a "scale." The thinking here is a bit simplistic.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Razumovskymas
#18 · (Edited)
As seen in the following chart, tonality gets "ruled out" as more notes are added.

Atonal music is nearly or completely chromatic. Scales, and the idea of scales, become irrelevant.

We seem to veering from the fact that we are talking about atonal music, which is music that is highly and continuously chromatic, and thus creates no sense of definite, sustained tonality.

Howard Hanson's Harmonic Materials of Modern Music shows:


If we begin with one note, and begin adding notes by fifths, we get the following:

2 notes (C-G): 1 fifth

3 notes (C-G-D): 2 fifths, 1 major second
4 notes (C-G-D-A): 3 fifths, 1 minor third, 2 major seconds
5 notes (C-G-D-A-E): 4 fifths, 1 major third, 2 minor thirds, 3 major seconds
6 notes (C-G-D-A-E-B): 5 fifths, 2 major thirds, 3 minor thirds, 4 major seconds, 1 minor second
7 notes (C-G-D-A-E-B-F#): 6 fifths, 3 major thirds, 4 minor thirds, 5 major seconds, 2 minor seconds, 1 tritone
8 notes (C-G-D-A-E-B-F#-C#): 7 fifths, 4 major thirds, 5 minor thirds, 6 major seconds, 4 minor seconds, 2 tritones
9 notes (C-G-D-A-E-B-F#-C#-G#): 8 fifths, 6 major thirds, 6 minor thirds, 7 major seconds, 6 minor seconds, 3 tritones
10 notes (C-G-D-A-E-B-F#-C#-G#-D#): 9 fifths, 8 major thirds, 8 minor thirds,8 major seconds, 8 minor seconds, 4 tritones
11 notes (C-G-D-A-E-B-F#-C#-G#-D#-A#): 10 fifths, 10 major thirds, 10 minor thirds, 10 major seconds, 10 minor seconds, 5 tritones
12 notes (C-G-D-A-E-B-F#-C#-G#-D#-A#-E#): 12 fifths, 12 major thirds, 12 minor thirds, 12 major seconds, 12 minor seconds, 6 tritones

Each new note adds one new interval, plus adding one more to those already present; but beyond seven tones, no new intervals can be added. In addition to this loss of new material, there is also a gradual decrease in the difference of the quantitative formation; i. e., redundancy begins to set in.

The sound of a sonority, whether it be harmony or melody, depends on what is present, but also on what is not present. The pentatonic sounds as it does because it contains mainly perfect fifths, and also maj seconds, minor thirds, and one major third, but also because it does not contain the minor second or tritone.

As sonorities get projected beyond the six-range, they tend to lose their individuality.

In other words, a sustained sense of tonality cannot be maintained.
This does not mean that atonal, 12-tone, or serial music cannot have sonorities and harmonic meaning and color. It simply means that, when using all 12 notes continuously, no overall "gestalt" of harmony or sonority will be dominant. There will be no sustained harmonic consistency which will be continuously exerting influence and gravity towards one note, or even a larger tonal area. The effect is "spread out" evenly among the 12 notes, and any sense of tonality which one thinks one perceives is fleeting, and must be grasped from moment-to-moment, which is not really the way real Western tonality was intended to function. Here, with atonality, we have entered a world of "moment time" which is instantaneous, and is really more "Eastern" and vertical by nature.

That is, if you are looking for tonality. If you're not, tonality does not matter. It doesn't matter if it is fleeting or not.

I have the feeling that a lot of listeners are pre-conditioned by listening to tonal music, and to be fair, I can't blame them, because tonality is music based on principles which are sensual, harmonic, and ear-based. This is only natural for the ear to search out a central note.

My point is, if you are listening to Webern and are habitually hearing snatches of "tonality," or are consciously trying to hear it in tonal terms, you are not really accepting the music on its own terms, with a more severe, objective, intellect-based stance.

Serial and modern music is quite different, in that it is generated from
mathematical and geometric principles of symmetry. This is not to say that it cannot sound good, at the same time.
 
#19 ·
The 12-tone method can be used in different ways. Schoenberg's first use of it was polyphonic, creating separate lines which intersect. Later on, he began to form "chords" out of the row, such as four 3-note chords. This created a "harmony" of sorts, but it must be emphasized that this is not tonal harmony.

The 12-tone row needs to be seen as a pervasive, unifying presence which is not "imposed" on the material, but actually "is" the material in a literal way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bettina
#20 ·
I agree with you about the versatility of the 12-tone method. The method is highly flexible: it can even be used to generate tonal harmonies.

For instance, Berg sometimes used 12-tone techniques in a tonal fashion, such as in his Violin Concerto which uses a tone row based on broken triads. This demonstrates that 12-tone music can come in many shapes and forms, not all of which are necessarily atonal.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top