This is Maurice Kagel's Osten .

I read (Bjorne Heile, "Collage versus Compositional Control" in Judy Lochhead and Joseph Auner, Postmodern Music, Postmodern Thought (Routledge 2002))

The melodic line, as folk music as it may sound, is thoroughly atonal, and the root progression of the minor chords is at times serially based.

Can someone verify?

 

This is Maurice Kagel's Osten .

I read (Bjorne Heile, "Collage versus Compositional Control" in Judy Lochhead and Joseph Auner, Postmodern Music, Postmodern Thought (Routledge 2002))

Can someone verify?

Delightful work. One man's opinion: No. It's not a work of atonality though there may be some playful elements of it. Most of it has a clearly defined bass line that gives the sense of being in a key that could be easily and readily determined, though there is more than one key involved and there are other melodic lines and influences that play with keys and tonality... Not pure atonality and neither are most of the harmonies though tonality is being stretched with an element of play, unpredictability, or combined in delightful and interesting ways. I never had the sense that he was interested in anything related to pure abstract atonality because the bass lines continue to suggest certain keys and were an important foundation in the work. Kagel wrote a great deal for the theater and I believe that he wanted his music to reflect his own individuality in a more accessible way. The more I hear Osten the more I like it. It's so skillfully done.

He did something similar here that I also do not consider a work of atonality in the usual abstract sense of the word, though he sometimes suggests that the music is in an unusual combination of elements and in more than one key at a time, perhaps to the point where the sense of key is almost completely dissolved or ambiguous... Music that's perfect for the Theater of the Absurd:

But here's something different that might be described as related to the atonal universe, far more abstract and indeterminate in key centers:

I think one has to be careful of pigeonholing a composer as unique as Kagel and assigning him a strict label.

 

Thanks, Larkenfield.

-:-:+£)#(£(

 

I would not describe Kagel's "Music for Renaissance Instruments" as atonal either, since it apparently has nothing to do with key areas, harmonic relations, or pitch, but simply sound and texture.
In the other pieces, if Kagel uses a melody line which is based on a 12-note series, it could be placed in a harmonic context that is tonal, and become "chromatic." Also, if a 12-note series is used to denote root movement, this again is a "harmonic" use of a series, and is not based on 12-tone or atonal principles, but is, again, simply chromatic.

I think Bjorne Heile is demonstrating the post-modern use of 12-note sets as harmonic entities, juxtaposing two different systems.

 

Re Kagel, I think the whole thing is well worth listening to here, better than the bit I posted before

It's the voices and sections in different styles which makes it a candidate for post-modernity, serial, popular, stereotype regional styles etc. I'm not sure this comes across best in Osten, but it is there elsewhere in the cycle.

The concept makes me think of this thing that George Rochberg said in "No Center" (1969) (reprinted in William Bolcom (ed) Aesthetics of Survival (Michigan 1984))

I stand in a circle of time, not a line. 360 degrees of past, present and future. All around me. I can look in any direction I want. Bella Vista.

I haven't had time to listen to the other videos Larkenfield posted yet.

 

A quote by co-authors George Perle and Paul Lansky:

"Perhaps the most important influence of Schoenberg's method is not the 12-note idea itself, but along with it the individual concepts of permutation, inversional symmetry, invariance under transformation, etc.....Each of these ideas by itself, or in conjunction with many others, is focused upon with varying degrees...by...Bartók, Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Varèse, etc...In this sense the development of the serial idea may be viewed not as a radical break with the past but as an especially brilliant coordination of musical ideas which had developed in the course of recent history. The symmetrical divisions of the octave so often found in Liszt and Wagner, for example, are not momentary abberations in tonal music which led to its ultimate destruction, but, rather, important musical ideas which, in defying integration into a given concept of a musical language, challenged the boundaries of that language."

 

Z

A quote by co-authors George Perle and Paul Lansky:

"Perhaps the most important influence of Schoenberg's method is not the 12-note idea itself, but along with it the individual concepts of permutation, inversional symmetry, invariance under transformation, etc.....Each of these ideas by itself, or in conjunction with many others, is focused upon with varying degrees...by...Bartók, Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Varèse, etc...In this sense the development of the serial idea may be viewed not as a radical break with the past but as an especially brilliant coordination of musical ideas which had developed in the course of recent history. The symmetrical divisions of the octave so often found in Liszt and Wagner, for example, are not momentary abberations in tonal music which led to its ultimate destruction, but, rather, important musical ideas which, in defying integration into a given concept of a musical language, challenged the boundaries of that language."[/QUOTE

Interesting and useful to a point. But I think the authors have the cart before the horse and they are placing technique first and its variations without saying enough about what motivated them in the first place-the why. What motivated these changes was the need for expanded self-expression. It was that that came first rather than the search for new techniques. The technique was the result of a need for a new vocabulary that could express such things as unconscious drives and emotions. There was nothing previously that could really do that and the language of atonality could do that and that's what led to these experimental techniques in the freeing up of the individual notes and tonality. Interesting from the music theory standpoint, but to me, there's nothing more boring than technical explanations that are disconnected with the meaning behind them and what they express. Emotionally and psychologically the 20th century was very different from the 19th and a new language was needed more than just technical developments and explanations that seem to stand in a vacuum. These developments in theory and techniques can only be understood by experiencing their unpredictability and ambiguity in the music and the hearing of them in the music, and there are often unusual feelings and sensations connected with the expression of this new vocabulary, and that's what upset a lot of people and is still upsetting a lot of people because they do not want to experience these emotions or they are uncomfortable experiencing these emotions that are often connected with the expression of the unconscious, the undefined, the abstract, the shadow or submerged side of the personality that we all have, and to bring it to light in a positive and constructive way, or there would be no reason to explore it through the arts and music.

 

Whilst I have posted in this thread previously, I haven't just ploughed through the nearly 3,000 posts preceding this one, so I apologise if I'm just making a point that has been made already.

The question posed in the title, "What is the point of atonal music?", seems odd. It suggests that the person posing it thinks atonal music has to serve a purpose that is different from tonal music. The questions, surely, should be what is the point of music generally, and what is the point of a particular piece of music specifically. I see no reason why the answers to such questions would vary according to the degree of tonality in the music.

 

In fact, atonal music can be highly expressive and emotional as well as vividly descriptive . Just look at Berg's two great operas Wozzeck and Lulu . Audiences feel Wozzeck's terror & angst as his life collapses into madness and death . And the conflicting emotions of his girlfriend Marie as she is tempted into the arms of the pompous and lecherous Drum Major and her terrible guilt in the third act where she reads the famous story of Jesus saving a woman caught in adultery from being stones o death by an angry crowd of men . The scene where the now insane Wozzeck kills Marie with his knife is absolutely terrifying .
And the final scene of Schoenberg's Moses & Aron where Moses laments " Oh word, thou word that I lack " is as devastating to audiences as the terrible frustration and despair of Moses . The 12 tone orgy when the Israelites worship the golden calf is something else !

 

These are vocal pieces, and the voice is particularly apt at eliciting an emotional response - I guess we've evolved like that. A laugh is atonal and it can be infectious, the cry of a baby in distress is atonal and it sure gets a reaction.

Can you think of some instrumental music?

 

While not 12 tone, this atonal piece by Ruggles uses his dissonant style in a lyrical and uniquely beautiful way.

 

The point of atonal music is the same as the point of any music, tonal or otherwise.

When Stephen Sondheim began composition lessons with Milton Babbitt, he was a little apprehensive since he was familiar with Babbitt's music. However, Babbitt told him something like, "you needn't think about writing in an atonal style until you have exhausted the resources of tonal music." Which was fine with Sondheim since he never intended to write in anything but a tonal style.

Music is music is music - there are thousands of styles. I listen to the music which I enjoy without too much work.

 

Great quote, and I heard that one of the exercises Babbit did with Sondheim was analyze popular songs. Babbit loved those tunes and as a young man he performed jazz.

 

Another. Roger Sessions

 

There is also the Berg VC.

And then one last example I'd like to give:

 

Josef Matthias Hauer developed a 12 tone system independently from Schoenberg (at about the same time or a few years earlier). I have a disc of his music (cpo) and while I don't remember much about it, it sounds very different from most Schoenberg (or other 2nd Viennese School), far more "serene" and less expressionist.
Other later composers who used 12 tone in some works but sound "almost tonal" were Frank Martin (I think in Petite Symphonie Concertante) and Rolf Liebermann.

 

Yeah, what many listeners who don't have much experience with atonal music often fail to realize is that the level of atonality of atonal music is on a spectrum. It is not all just the same one level. Just as there is a spectrum for tonality in tonal music as well.

 

Oh, this one is easy, I don't recall if I said it before, the point of atonal music is to express something not found any other way.

 

I don't understand this - is it something a composer has said?