I think there are atonal people who impart their dissonance wherever they can find harmony.

 

There are now about as many styles and approaches to atonal writing as there are in tonal writing, past to present.

I think whatever the M.O. or harmonic language, the most expressive music comes from the most skilled of the composers who wish their music to sound overtly 'expressive,' whatever that is

All that also means I personally find all such questions re: tonal / atonal pretty irrelevant, -- beside the point -- as far as having anything to do with what is or is not 'good music.'

 

Excellently expressed, Sir !

 

We've had a lot of threads about this in recent months, but I will pipe in to answer the question in the title of your thread, ethanjamesescano.

In short, I do like atonal/serial types of music. I think "types" is the key word, because there is so much of it and composers' use of techniques that go way back - not only to Schoenberg and his crew, but also to Liszt and even those vague beginnings of pieces by Haydn and Mozart.

Today you have composers who we don't label as "atonal" or "serial" who still use those techniques, or have used them to some extent. One I can think of is John Corigliano, who has been very eclectic in terms of technique, ranging from atonal/serial to microtonal to tonal and chance-based compositions. But you go back to the neo-Romantics of the previous generation like Samuel Barber and William Walton, and they used serialism as well. They also incorporated jazz, as does Corigliano rhythms of rock. These things are like a toolbox that composers have access to, they are part of the armoury they have to express meanings in their music.

I think a lot has been said about this on this forum already. There's limits to these kinds of discussions, and it can get heated. However I see atonality and serialism as just part of the mix of things that happened in the 20th century, and they had precursors like other things that happened. I basically look at atonality/serialism as part of the mix, not "the" thing, so I don't mind what something is in terms of technique so much, moreso what I can get out of it as a listener. Composers know what they are doing with any technique, atonality is no different. Same applies to the general aesthetic directions they want to or are aiming to take.

But I really like the variety of music we got in the 20th century, it was a very diverse time for music, and not only classical for that matter.

 

While I'm preparing for the usual onslaught of "define tonality" erudition, I think abandoning common practice does lose some of the wonders of tension and release, dissonance and resolution that moves much of the music from the 1600s to the 1900s, but it may also gain something that can't be expressed with common practice conventions. Microtonal music or spectralism comes to mind. But this is why I enjoy the more recent trend of everything-including-the-kitchen-sink composing. It can embrace both common practice and more modern approaches. It can be the best of several worlds -- or an unfocussed mess (not unlike this pre-caffeine post) if someone unskilled tries to handle it.

 

Awful music!... only people in a madhouse could listen to that!...

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time of my medicine :

 

Lovely work. I'd make some recommendations myself, but thanks to the intelligent and patient explanations of my forum colleagues I no longer have any idea what atonal music is :lol:

*p.s.* Or even "music," for that matter.

 

There was a time when my answer would have been some combination of "I don't get it", "I don't enjoy it", and "It sounds like random noise". Now the question is closer to "What do you think of Baroque music?" Atonal or pan-tonal has a different sound than most music I'm familiar with, but that's all - it sounds different just like Baroque sounds different.

 

Well-crafted atonal music is like a good cup of coffee. All of the flavors blend together to create a satisfying whole.
And there is always a nice aftertaste.

 

I would have said that of wine...

 

I was listening to Schoenberg's Third String Quartet last night. I was struck by how beautiful it was, how lucid the developments, how rich in melody and harmony. I didn't once, not a single time, think in terms of tone rows or counting to 12. True, I didn't always hear all of these things. Schoenberg's music is difficult more for its sheer density and because the focus keeps shifting (it can change in the middle of a line, and the periods are persistently irregular) than for its harmony.

And then we can listen to a crystalline work like the Webern linked above, or a Takemitsu piece like the following:

I can't say "atonal" music is any one single thing. It is more flexible for the composer than traditional tonality, which is why nobody, not even the staunchest conservative of retrogressives, wants to return to 19th century Romanticism.

 

I was listening to Schoenberg's Third String Quartet last night. I was struck by how beautiful it was, how lucid the developments, how rich in melody and harmony. I didn't once, not a single time, think in terms of tone rows or counting to 12. True, I didn't always hear all of these things. Schoenberg's music is difficult more for its sheer density and because the focus keeps shifting (it can change in the middle of a line, and the periods are persistently irregular) than for its harmony....

What you're saying brings to my mind another point about all this, that even though not many people would think it, Schoenberg had an aesthetic viewpoint that wasn't far from people like Rachmaninov. He was a Romantic. He saw expression of emotion as being quite important. So, atonality or serialism or whatever is a means to an end for him, not an end in itself.

I've also seen what you're suggesting about tone rows - usually they are not meant to be heard. There are works that I can think of when the tone row is stated at the start, quite emphatically. One is Schoenberg's piano concerto, I'm correct about that, aren't I? I had a LP with the tone row's notes on the back cover, with a detailed explanation of what Schoenberg did with it in that work. But the point is that even that is not strictly speaking a tone row - its also a theme, as with any type of theme, serial or not.

I think a lot of people don't give Schoenberg a chance. Or many other types of music for that matter (doesn't have to be atonal, serial or modern era music of course). What I think is useful is to look at the aesthetic as well as the technical issues. Its not just about the one or the other, but both, and also other things like the reasons why they changed their style or adopt various techniques, that's also something that can inform listeners about what a composer does, and why.

Of course if a person's gut reaction to a composer is negative, that can be a big factor. There is nothing wrong with disliking something. I think that there is a dividing line between things like knowing something, understanding it and liking it or not. But the line, or lines, are blurry at best. Its also an issue of personal taste. This is interesting issue, and I have found reading various opinions on this forum confirms how different people will ultimately develop their knowledge and understanding of music in unique ways.

...

I can't say "atonal" music is any one single thing. It is more flexible for the composer than traditional tonality, which is why nobody, not even the staunchest conservative of retrogressives, wants to return to 19th century Romanticism.

Well we can't turn back the clock, and its obvious that some knowledge of or understanding of atonal and serial music is desirable. Its a part of Western classical music like anything else, its actually history now, so knowing it is a part of knowing classical or modern music as a whole.

 

what's your opinion to it?

exactly this one

I think atonal music is less flexible in expressing than tonal music, but atonal music is good for expressing tension, stress, suspense, etc...

 

This ongoing atonality debate is beginning to make less and less sense. What does it even mean? Is the music 100% a collage of random noises? I've begun to hear many points of harmony and rhythm. It's simply not as linear as most peoples' standard definition of what tonality is. That's all.

 

My first serious exposure to classical music was atonal (and other 20th century music). It just made sense to me, but I was already listening to other avant-garde forms of non-classical music, so it didn't sound out of place to me.

As far as its ability to express wider emotions than tension, stress, suspense, etc, while that may be true (although it may be arguable), it doesn't bother me.

My problem is, that when I listen to pre-20th century, tonal music, I can't help but perceive the emotional content as being kind of contrived and naive. I understand that the composer was being sincere when they wrote their music, but my perspective has been skewed from my experiences.

I cant help but think things like, "Oh, this movement of symphony that is supposed to make me feel elated, sad, melancholy, awe etc", but I don't actually feel the emotions.

It's not unlike when I see an old silent movie and watch the actors, with their exaggerated, and contrived hand gestures, expressions, movements, etc. It's easy to understand the emotions they were portraying, but I don't feel them.

 

My problem is, that when I listen to pre-20th century, tonal music, I can't help but perceive the emotional content as being kind of contrived and naive. I understand that the composer was being sincere when they wrote their music, but my perspective has been skewed from my experiences.

And what about all the tonal music in the 20th century? I mean, certainly in the twentieth century there's a lot of modern music that isn't atonal and that is very far from the music of romantic/classical/baroque composers.

 

The opening post reveals many things about the listener. This listener thinks that music should be 'expressive' and should express or induce emotional states of being, such as the negative, fear-based ones of tension, stress, or suspense, which most people pick up from cinema soundtracks, or, the implied positive love-based emotions of love, tenderness, sentimentality, etc.

The fact is, things are more complicated than that.

There is no requirement for music to be expressive of emotion or states of being. To take matters even further into the fog, when we get into more modern music, I think "emotion" as a descriptive term begins to fail us. For example, in Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, the "emotional gestures" expressed are so complex that we begin to experience them as "states of being," like anxiety, foreboding, fear, tension, awe, etc., creating in our minds, empathetically, a reflection of our own, and the artist's, "inner state of being."

Concerning modernism, it's true that in many instances the "evoking" of dramatic emotion, and dramatic gesture is absent (but certainly not always). Stockhausen evokes, for me, a sort of "Platonic classicism" in his Klavierstücke; with modernism, we must put aside our need for drama and overt emotion, and listen on the level of "pure abstraction," an enjoyment of color, sound, and timbre itself. In this sense, modern music is not "modern" at all; music has always been "abstract expressionism" when divorced from drama and opera.

So, in a sense, this is an "internal narrative" we share with the composer, but indefinable in literal narrative terms, because these are transitory, fleeting states by nature; simply "gestures of meanings."

 

Stockhausen evokes, for me, a sort of "Platonic classicism" in his Klavierstücke; with modernism, we must put aside our need for drama and overt emotion, and listen on the level of "pure abstraction," an enjoyment of color, sound, and timbre itself.

I'm not sure that Pollini's relationship with him is quite so platonic :

Whew, I need a cigarette.

 

I don't know anything about music, but I like a good 12-tone row when I hear one.

 

I like a good 12-pitch tune, myself. Hummable, that's what they are... hummable.

 

Well, Million, I did say I don't know anything about music.

 

I tend to agree broadly speaking. The harmonic expression in tonal pieces (or largely so) fars exceeds that of atonal - it is inherent to the ear for the majority, which is why tonal works better. Music is a "pragmatic" art. It needs to work for it to survive - small pockets of developments usually "die off" in the long run, unfortunately.

 

The majority are most used to the tonal music and associate that as being expressive. Atonal music is not "inherently" less expressive simply because the listener is not more familiar with the atonal vocabulary any more than the work of a writer is inherently less expressive because the reader has not or is not familiar with the vocabulary.

 

I thought, atonal music is just awful and then one day I hear Prokofiev - Toccata op.11. So wonderful!

Now I think, atonal music is a difficult category to find good music in, but in no way better or worse than tonal music.

 

I thought, atonal music is just awful and then one day I hear Prokofiev - Toccata op.11. So wonderful!

If you like the Op. 11 Toccata (and who doesn't?) you should give a listen to the last movement of Prokofiev's Piano Sonata #7 -- a rip-roaring toccata in 7/8 time. Though I'm not sure either of these works are "atonal."

 

Also, if you check the comments in, e.g., this, Ligeti's Requiem ("I'm actually afraid"; "This is the sound of billions of souls begging, wretching, and screaming for mercy on the day of judgement"; "This makes me shiver!"; "That's ******* terrifying"; "I suddenly see...dante's inferno"), the music seems to be extremely expressive. In fact, I have rarely seen such strong reactions to any music (tonal included).

So, "less expressive" is certainly not the correct term... and the fact that it has been used in this thread only exemplifies how people will call something "less expressive" when doesn't fulfill their expectations for something tonal...

The argument about tonal being more "diverse" in terms of expression is equally bland, since I could easily say that atonal is equally diverse in emotions not covered by tonal. So, it all goes to "that's atonal and I was expecting tonal!".

 

The argument about tonal being more "diverse" in terms of expression is equally bland, since I could easily say that atonal is equally diverse in emotions not covered by tonal. So, it all goes to "that's atonal and I was expecting tonal!".

You could say so, but that would be simply wrong!
Seriously, even considering that I agree with the argument that musical emotion is a more complex affair than just "happy" "sad" "despair" "nostalgic" etc, in my esperience atonality exactly for his limits (a suspension of tonality) has a narrower scope.
It's like the black among a lot of colors. That is not to say that a painting made using just black and white is less expressive, but only that it could not express the other possibilities offered by the yellow, red, blue, green, brown etc

 

Interesting comments so far.

I remember the first time I heard Farben from Schoenberg's Five Pieces, it was in a college music history class. I was blown away. And it has no real themes, no real tension, just sound. So that type of thing can be done and still be interesting.

I'm reminded of Rogers Sessions' quote: Just remember, the music is God, and the 12-tone technique is just a parish priest.

 

None of atonal is atonal, really. The use of this term is dependent on the intellect of the listener. All the tones are willfully arranged.

 

Getting technical, the term Atonal is badly chosen, and was not at all liked by Schoenberg and the others of the second Viennese school.

A = without:: Tonal in the usage of making the new word is meant as Tonic.
It is then music which does not rely upon a Tonic center or home-note, ergo also avoiding the IV and V which so sets listeners up to expect a Tonic.

Atonal music is still then, "Tonal," in a very real sense of the word, but not reliant upon a Tonic or home key, which is quite different from an arbitrary or 'senseless' use or assignment of pitches. The music still deals with themes, counter-themes, old and new forms, bass-lines, melodies, etc.

The big difference for many listeners, and it is not the lack of a Tonic, is that it is highly chromatic music. The earlier "second Viennese School," Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, is some of the most highly organized music written up until that time.

Many people have as much 'trouble' with Atonal Music as they do with the more highly chromatic still Tonal music of Prokofiev or Richard Strauss. Ergo, it is not the atonality which is 'the problem' for those listeners who have 'difficulty' with it, but a greatly expanded chromaticism which includes a more chromatic use of harmony and chord function outside the limits of earlier common practice harmony.

 

One should listen to more contemporary/modern works. Let's leave Baroque and Romantic music alone for the next hundred years.

 

If this bill becomes a law, I'll seek grandfather status for my sons and I. I don't want to have to explain to my youngest son that he can't listen to Schubert's 9th until he turns 104 :lol:

 

I agree with Norman Bates. We're not saying it's less expressive, but we're just saying that atonal music is less flexible in terms of expressing themes. You may say that you don't consider music as a tool for expressing emotion, but at least music is a tool for showing you pictures in your mind.

Schoenberg may give me a picture of a psychopathic clown raping a minotaur, he may give me a picture of a flying leg-less cow eating clouds as if those were cotton candies, or a non-surreal situation like a man simply killing someone. But he can't give us a picture of a man loving his family, appreciating his life, or a picture of a soldier missing his family.

You may say that I'm still into romantic music, but I'm not romantic in this situation. I mean, a piece doesn't need to be romantic to express love, joy, nostalgia, etc..., there are Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical pieces that express those pictures, but they are not romantic (although some pieces show some early signs of romanticism).

and by the way, tension, suspense, etc... are also romantic materials right?

 

I agree with Norman Bates. We're not saying it's less expressive, but we're just saying that atonal music is less flexible in terms of expressing themes.

If you fellas had it your way, classical music would be trapped in the 1800s. What's so terrible about artistic progress and innovation? Art cannot / will not be contained--it's in opposition to its very nature. The Bolsheviks and Fascists attempted to smother it and did they succeed? Only in creating empty, superficial trash. This so called 'inflexibility' of atonality is mere fiction.

 

I'm really not sure what you are arguing about here given your original comment rages against "traditional functional tonality being played out" - and I think you're actually agreeing with Mahlerian's point about the diatonic schools that came through being informed by/cognisant of modernism. While the thread is atonality (although of course never defined to specifically mean "no tonal centres" - a definition problematic in itself!) your comment was about something different

Extensions to functional tonality and non-functional tonality in the C20 - it's all go, bub! But, y'know, just to keep disagreeing I'll say I find your reading of the Allen Forte situation - tonal songs that sound like never before! - a bit dubious. Wouldn't they be pretty strongly rooted in functional tonality - circles of fifths, piling up 7s, 9s, 11s and more, dominant substitutes etc? I dunno - I know next to nothing about tin pan alley

 

I'm really not sure what you are arguing about here given your original comment rages against "traditional functional tonality being played out" - and I think you're actually agreeing with Mahlerian's point about the diatonic schools that came through being informed by/cognisant of modernism.
While the thread is atonality (although of course never defined to specifically mean "no tonal centres" - a definition problematic in itself!) your comment was about something different

Extensions to functional tonality and non-functional tonality in the C20 - it's all go, bub! But, y'know, just to keep disagreeing I'll say I find your reading of the Allen Forte situation - tonal songs that sound like never before! - a bit dubious.

The harmony of the american song was influenced by the blues, and this is one of the reasons that made those songs usually so different compared to the european lieder. Now, I don't know much about theory so I don't know if it's functional harmony, but I would not call it necessarily modernism. And by the way we should also define what modernism is, because it seems that here atonality and modernism are used as synonims. Sure, tonality in the twentieth century was influenced by modernism as Mahlerian said, but what modernism? Atonality? Bitonality? Microtonality? Modality? Debussy was a big influence on the twentieth century music, is his non functional tonality considered as atonality too?

 

I don't get your point, norman... the term atonal is used for highly chromatic music that lacks a global functional structure. That can encompass from late Scriabin, to the second viennese, to Ligeti. You are narrowing atonal to a very specific thing: dodecaphonic -> second viennese. And I would say even more, dodecaphonism only in the way of Webern or Boulez...
After that, you are stretching your definition of tonal to very broad terms and saying that tonal is then more diverse than atonal. Of course, with these criteria, even Mozart pales when you compare him with your broad definition of tonality. I'm not sure what's your point. Webern or Boulez are not as expressive as all the music that existed combined?... of course, they were composing in very personal styles, like all individual composers...

 

I think the distinction needs to be made for music such as Prokofiev, Bartok, and Debussy which is not tonal, and Second Viennese and later serial music which uses ordered rows and is more properly called atonal.

My best definition of tonality is that it is based on acoustic and harmonic principles derived from the acoustic properties of small-number ratio "just" intervals, such as 3:2, 4:3, and 5:6, although from its inception, it did this imperfectly, and as music became more chromatic, deviated even further from this acoustic ideal;

...whereas modern music including Prokofiev, Bartok, and Debussy, which is more chromatic, and thus is based on geometric and numerical divisions of 12, is not tonal, since it does not use tonal, acoustic principles as its basis, but starts from the 12-note chromatic scale and its numeric, geometric divisions. For a complete explanation of this, see my thread "Complementation."

Second Viennese and later serial music, also using the 12-note scale and its symmetrical divisions as a basis, but goes further by using ordered sets, is more properly called atonal, since its ordering principle is diametrically opposed to tonality's hierarchy of 'all relating to one,' since each note of the set relates only to the preceding and proceeding note, not a central reference note, which creates an intervallic rather than a pitch-identity hierarchy derived from harmonic considerations.

 

I think the distinction needs to be made for music such as Prokofiev, Bartok, and Debussy which is not tonal, and Second Viennese and later serial music which uses ordered rows and is more properly called atonal.

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I don't know if lumping Prokofiev, Bartok and Debussy in the same category as non-tonal is quite accurate. Maybe it is, but I think it depends on the piece you are talking about.

For example, this piano sonata by Prokofiev is firmly in c minor and while it's very chromatic, it is still very clearly in the realm of what you would call functional tonality. It even starts with a V-I cadence and refers back to that cadence quite often throughout the piece.

(Piano Sonata #4 in c minor)

This piece by Debussy on the other hand, is clearly not using functional tonality as its harmonic method. Even though some parts of the piece might be heard as "landing points" (the chord at 1:01 for example) but a large portion of the music is built around stacked parallel 2nds, 4ths and 5ths, which destroys the traditional functionality of the harmony in a way that the chormaticism in the Prokofiev piece does not.

(Images Book 2 - II. (Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fût)