# interesting point on tonal vs. atonal music



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I don't agree with everything in this article by Greg Sandow, but this point is well-taken:



> I was amazed, last month, by a concert review in which I read that Russell Sherman played sonatas by both Schubert and Leon Kirchner with "an intensity [as the critic wrote] that rendered their differences in language beside the point." How could those differences not matter? And why on earth should we be glad to think that they didn't? Would anybody talk about painting that way? Would anybody say that-if you look at their work with enough intensity-any differences between Jackson Pollock and Delacroix are beside the point? Or that, given strong enough productions, we'd have more or less the same theatrical experience at Our Town and Ubu Roi?
> 
> I think some of us have spent too much time defending atonal music. We're defensive when we say it's just like any other music-which can't be true, since equivalent propositions would be laughable in any other form of art.


This holds true whether or not you accept a tonal/atonal distinction - if you don't, just substitute "common practice" and "high modernist" instead. Let's not have another debate about those words.


----------



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

The critic did not say that the language itself didn't matter -- just that Sherman's commitment to each piece brought out what it had to say with surprising eloquence and made at least that listener appreciate it.


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

"rendered their differences in language beside the point" would seem to imply that the _differences_ between the tonal & atonal 'languages' are irrelevant, ergo "don't matter".

In any event, I strongly disagree.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The "point" intended in the phrase "beside the point" may have been that a fine performance like Sherman's could show that Kirchner's musical style could be as expressive and meaningful to the listener as Schubert's. Maybe the critic felt that making that point overtly would seem like stating the obvious and would make him look like a naive apologist for modern music. Unfortunately he seems to have looked something like that to Greg Sandow despite his obliquity.

Sandow's article is interesting coming from someone who enjoys and composes atonal music (and uses the A-word without excuse or qualification). It may deserve a couple of readings.


----------



## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

For those unfamiliar with Kirchner's music, here's a link to his complete piano music:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSu5H43PvyElLRSBHI8u-TJ3aV0WKuAhn

Fwiw, it's easy for me to imagine it being programmed alongside Schubert--all those sentimental, highly repetitive adagios.

That said, I wouldn't have gone to this--a half hour of Schubert played by a pianist I don't know is a deal-breaker for me. An all-Kirchner recital, otot, might drag me away from my single malt to an uncomfortable seat at a local concert venue.


----------



## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

My prediction is that this thread will turn into the semantic debate again.....


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> My prediction is that this thread will turn into the semantic debate again.....


I sincerely beg everyone not to do that. That's all I can do.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

They're of course different, but the differences can sound much greater at first than they seem after one has listened to a lot more of the atonal idiom.

I don't think it's possible to say what you enjoy before you've put in the necessary effort to learn the language, so to speak. It's only then that you can say whether it's the kind of different that you like. Using first impressions to judge a new music is like trying to judge Shakespeare when you only have experience in internet slang.


----------



## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Dim7 said:


> My prediction is that this thread will turn into the semantic debate again.....


I've long advocated that we stop using the word "Schubert," which reminds me of a frozen dessert.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I've never heard any atonal music, as other people describe the term.

There is no opposition between common practice and subsequent continuations of the tradition any more than there is an opposition between common practice and the music that preceded it.

Obviously, in both cases there are noticeable differences, and these can be articulated, but they have nothing to do with the idiotic pseudo-concept of atonality.

I do disagree with the even more untenable idea that there is some innate difference between "atonal" music and all other music in the whole history of the world. That's on the level of Flat Earth Society nonsense.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

An 18th century Gainsborough portrait is totally, and I stress totally different to a Pablo Picasso. The same analogy holds with 18th Classicism and 20th century atonal-serial music development. There is nothing more the truth than this simple comparison.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> An 18th century Gainsborough portrait is totally, and I stress totally different to a Pablo Picasso. The same analogy holds with 18th Classicism and 20th century atonal-serial music development. There is nothing more the truth than this simple comparison.


I happen to have recently read the wikipedia article on atonality. There's a quote from Schoenberg that goes "The word 'atonal' could only signify something entirely inconsistent with the nature of tone... to call any relation of tones atonal is just as farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or acomplementary. There is no such antithesis"

I'm not positive if this really addresses your point, but it is Schoenberg himself comparing the word to art in some way, which is what made me think of it. I don't have a point here, just throwing that out there as food for thought.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

to reiterate....



isorhythm said:


> This holds true whether or not you accept a tonal/atonal distinction - if you don't, just substitute "common practice" and "high modernist" instead. Let's not have another debate about those words.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> I've never heard any atonal music, as other people describe the term.
> 
> There is no opposition between common practice and subsequent continuations of the tradition any more than there is an opposition between common practice and the music that preceded it.
> 
> ...


and about the example of Pollock and Delacroix? That is acceptable?
Because I don't know if you realize it, but your post is exactly a demonstration of that defensive approach mentioned in the article. It's like when vegans call a dish "tofu hamburger" or something like that. They can say it's a hamburger but it's not, it's something different and one should embrace the differences instead of trying of saying that it's all the same.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> and about the example of Pollock and Delacroix? That is acceptable?
> Because I don't know if you realize it, but your post is exactly a demonstration of that defensive approach mentioned in the article. It's like when vegans call a dish "tofu hamburger" or something like that. They can say it's a hamburger but it's not, it's something different and one should embrace the differences instead of trying of saying that it's all the same.


But I *didn't* say it was the same. I said that the differences have nothing to do with the distinction people try to make between tonality and atonality.


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

". . . that rendered their differences in language beside the point" still acknowledges the differences, the "point" probably being one's ability to absorb the piece transcending musical syntax. Evidently musical syntax may be transcended if not idiomatic English syntax. 

I say _vive la différence_.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> But I *didn't* say it was the same. I said that the differences have nothing to do with the distinction people try to make between tonality and atonality.


People like important musical theorists like Allen Forte as you know.
Anyway what are the differences for you?


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> People like important musical theorists like Allen Forte as you know.
> Anyway what are the differences for you?


The differences between tonal music (common practice tonality from 1600s through early 1900s) and post-tonal music are:

- Lack of or lack of focus on functional harmony
- Concurrently with and resulting from the above, less emphasis on keys and the hierarchical relationships between them

To which is usually added in the music called "atonal":

- Use of the chromatic scale as a basis
- Emphasis on non-triadic harmonies


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> This holds true whether or not you accept a tonal/atonal distinction - if you don't, just substitute "common practice" and "high modernist" instead. Let's not have another debate about those words.


Like having a pit bull with his maw around your ankle, isn't it!  Aaaarrrgghhhh!

I'd question the critic's wording: "an intensity that rendered their differences in language beside the point." Beside what point? This is just bad, obscurantist writing by someone unwilling to say what they really mean.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> The differences between tonal music (common practice tonality from 1600s through early 1900s) and post-tonal music are:
> 
> - Lack of or lack of focus on functional harmony
> - Concurrently with and resulting from the above, less emphasis on keys and the hierarchical relationships between them
> ...


non triadic in what sense? That you don't see three sounds together? That there's harmony not based on thirds, like quartal harmony?


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> non triadic in what sense? That you don't see three sounds together? That there's harmony not based on thirds, like quartal harmony?


The latter. In classical music theory, a triad generally means a major or minor triad.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> The latter. In classical music theory, a triad generally means a major or minor triad.


but you find quartal harmony in a lot of other genres, even pop music.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> but you find quartal harmony in a lot of other genres, even pop music.


Yes, of course. But it's not a defining feature, nor is it usually used in lieu of triads, the way Schoenberg, Hindemith, Debussy, Scriabin, or Bartok will use it.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, of course. But it's not a defining feature, nor is it usually used in lieu of triads, the way Schoenberg, Hindemith, Debussy, Scriabin, or Bartok will use it.


are you familiar with McCoy Tyner? It's difficult to say that quartal harmony is not a defining feature of him and many other similar musicians.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> are you familiar with McCoy Tyner? It's difficult to say that quartal harmony is not a defining feature of him and many other similar musicians.


No I am not, though I know a few jazz pieces that use quartal chords frequently or exclusively. But I wouldn't call any music that replaces triads with quartal harmony tonal in the sense we're talking about.

Edit: I should say, rather, any music that treats quartal chords as stable and consonant.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

The point that I thought was important actually has nothing to do with atonality, though Sandow, like many, many highly educated musicians, composers and critics, has no problem using the word.

The point was that in other art forms (literature, painting) no one denies that there was a kind of seismic shift or rupture in the early 20th century - they embrace it! You will not find anyone claiming that Woolf and Joyce were just continuing the Victorian novel, for example. That would be weird and wrong. Their radicalism is what made them important.

For some reason some people don't like to say the same about musical modernism. So either music alone among art forms was unaffected by the modernist spirit, or, as Sandow says, these people are motivated by defensiveness.

By the way, the whole article has plenty of interesting stuff aside from the point I highlighted, and is worth reading.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> The point that I thought was important actually has nothing to do with atonality, though Sandow, like many, many highly educated musicians, composers and critics, has no problem using the word.
> 
> The point was that in other art forms (literature, painting) no one denies that there was a kind of seismic shift or rupture in the early 20th century - they embrace it! You will not find anyone claiming that Woolf and Joyce were just continuing the Victorian novel, for example. That would be weird and wrong. Their radicalism is what made them important.
> 
> For some reason some people don't like to say the same about musical modernism. So either music alone among art forms was unaffected by the modernist spirit, or, as Sandow says, these people are motivated by defensiveness.


Of course music changed significantly at that time. I would never deny that and never have.

Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok, and Debussy were all breaking with the common practice system which had defined coherence in music for centuries! How could that not be a significant change?


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> No I am not, though I know a few jazz pieces that use quartal chords frequently or exclusively. But I wouldn't call any music that replaces triads with quartal harmony tonal in the sense we're talking about.
> 
> Edit: I should say, rather, any music that treats quartal chords as stable and consonant.


but modal jazz isn't certainly atonal, there's a huge difference between this





and this




and by the way, I really doubt that the mature Hindemith who said that it was possible to find the Urlinie in his works would accept that difference to categorize his music as "atonal" just because he used quartal harmony in his music.


----------



## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

norman bates said:


> but modal jazz isn't certainly atonal, there's a huge difference between this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


As Mahlerian said, "atonality" usually implies *both* chromaticism and harmony not based around major and minor triads....



Mahlerian said:


> The differences between tonal music (common practice tonality from 1600s through early 1900s) and post-tonal music are:
> 
> - Lack of or lack of focus on functional harmony
> - Concurrently with and resulting from the above, less emphasis on keys and the hierarchical relationships between them
> ...


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> but modal jazz isn't certainly atonal, there's a huge difference between this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nor does "atonal" imply "anything that isn't tonal." It never has meant that in the serious literature, and any attempt to make it mean that will result in inconsistencies.

Hindemith was inconsistent, and although he attempted to draw a distinction between himself and Schoenberg, his own music was just as idiosyncratic and just as distant from traditional tonality as Schoenberg's.

Schoenberg also objected to the term atonal as applied to his music. If Hindemith can object, why can't he? Similarly, Schoenberg said "I am confident that later generations will discover the tonality in this music today called atonal."


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> Of course music changed significantly at that time.


Right, but what was the significance?

What Sandow is saying is that this music came from wrenching social upheaval, even dissolution, and reflects that - contributing to its difficulty for many listeners.

In literature and painting, no one disputes this - they embrace it. It's the point.

Why can't we do the same in music?


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Nor does "atonal" imply "anything that isn't tonal." It never has meant that in the serious literature, and any attempt to make it mean that will result in inconsistencies.
> 
> Hindemith was inconsistent, and although he attempted to draw a distinction between himself and Schoenberg, his own music was just as idiosyncratic and just as distant from traditional tonality as Schoenberg's.
> 
> Schoenberg also objected to the term atonal as applied to his music. If Hindemith can object, why can't he? Similarly, Schoenberg said "I am confident that later generations will discover the tonality in this music today called atonal."


The difference is that Hindemith saw his music (I'm not talking of his early expressionist works) as tonal, while I suspect that Schoenberg meant the sentence above in a complete different sense. Could you imagine him passing his scores to Schenker and saying that he would find the Urlinie in it?


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> Right, but what was the significance?
> 
> What Sandow is saying is that *this music came from wrenching social upheaval, even dissolution*, and reflects that - contributing to its difficulty for many listeners.
> 
> ...


But did it, though?

All of the modernist movements, whether in art, literature (poetry was already emphasizing the sound of words over literal meaning), or music, were fully underway before World War I, and with it the string of horrors that characterized much of the 20th century, began.

I think it is much better to connect them as a whole to the contemporary advances in science, philosophy, and our view of the universe.

Naturally, there were many individual pieces or composers whose art was shaped by the horrors of the 20th century, including works by Schoenberg (Die Jakobsleiter, A Survivor from Warsaw, Piano Concerto), Nono, Shostakovich, Berg (Three Orchstral Pieces, Wozzeck), and others, but modernism as a whole cannot be said to be a reaction to them.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> The difference is that Hindemith saw his music (I'm not talking of his early expressionist works) as tonal, *while I suspect that Schoenberg meant the sentence above in a complete different sense*. Could you imagine him passing his scores to Schenker and saying that he would find the Urlinie in it?


On what basis? Schoenberg was something of a stickler for what he considered correct terminology, even when it went against the grain. When he said tonal, you can be sure he meant tonal.

Actually, he was very aware of and interested in Schenker's theories and methods, though they had significant points of disagreement, chief among them that Schenker believed that the usable overtone series stopped with the major third (thus making the major triad the only chord that aligns with the overtone series).

There have in fact been Schenkerian analyses of later Schoenberg works, if you care to look for them.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> All of the modernist movements, whether in art, literature (poetry was already emphasizing the sound of words over literal meaning), or music, were fully underway before World War I, and with it the string of horrors that characterized much of the 20th century, began.
> 
> I think it is much better to connect them as a whole to the contemporary advances in science, philosophy, and our view of the universe.


I think this is ahistorical. The late 19th century was a period of almost continuous smaller-scale war in Europe and its colonies, explosive population grown and urbanization and the rise of the capitalist bourgeoisie over the old aristocracy. The Enlightenment faith in progress was already weakening.

To be really glib, Kant:Mozart::Freud:Wagner.

People felt it crumbling around them already.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> I think this is ahistorical. The late 19th century was a period of almost continuous smaller-scale war in Europe and its colonies, explosive population grown and urbanization and the rise of the capitalist bourgeoisie over the old aristocracy. The Enlightenment faith in progress was already weakening.
> 
> To be really glib, Kant:Mozart::Freud:Wagner.
> 
> People felt it crumbling around them already.


Would you connect the Ars Nova to the devastation wrought by the black plague? Or the High Renaissance to the upheavals of the reformation?

Plus, now you've shifted it from the upheavals of the 20th century to the upheavals of the 19th, continued into the 20th century. You want to classify Wagner as a modernist now?

I am not meaning to say that modernism was disconnected from the society around it--far from it! I am meaning to say that calling modernism primarily a reaction to the horrors around it is overly simplistic and fails to capture either the range of modernist art or the nuances of the social climate of the 20th century.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The debate over whether atonal music - generally taken to mean music using the chromatic scale without hierarchical function of its tones in relation to a tonal center - is more of a development of, or a departure from, tonal music really comes down to what aspects of the music are most meaningful to us and to how we prefer to use words. We can all see that such music has resemblances to what came before it as well as differences from it. But what matters to people is neither theory nor semantics, but the sounds they actually hear and what those sounds say to them. Millions of people experience this music as different in an important way from even highly chromatic music of the late 19th century - different-sounding, and different in what it makes them feel - and they experience this however they judge the experience, and whether they like the music or not.

Sandow, who has studied atonal music, enjoys it, and composes it himself, hears these differences and thinks them significant, and questions attempts to downplay them. He also seems to question (without elaborating) the traditional narrative that portrays the harmony of Wagner and Liszt as genetically preordained to evolve into the atonality of Schoenberg and Webern. That's a discussion in itself. I only want here to affirm the perception - not the theory, but the _perception_, as music is primarily meant to be heard, not thought about - that when Sandow, I, and many others speak of atonality, they are indeed speaking of something distinctive in the world of music, and something to be taken on its own unique terms.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> On what basis? Schoenberg was something of a stickler for what he considered correct terminology, even when it went against the grain. When he said tonal, you can be sure he meant tonal.


Based on the fact that he was trying to develop a way writing music avoiding systematically tonality.
And that he said something like "Sometime even the postman will whistle my melodies." that seems very similar in spirit to the other sentence. I guess that he meant just that even if his music was different with time once people had developed a familiarity with it it would be considered simple and memorable as a air of Puccini (and the history has shown that his forecast was a bit optimistic and naive).



Mahlerian said:


> Actually, he was very aware of and interested in Schenker's theories and methods, though they had significant points of disagreement, chief among them that Schenker believed that the usable overtone series stopped with the major third (thus making the major triad the only chord that aligns with the overtone series).
> 
> There have in fact been Schenkerian analyses of later Schoenberg works, if you care to look for them.


Schenkerian analyses based on the ideas of Schenker or Schenkerian analysis developed by someone else to analyze non tonal music?


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Based on the fact that he was trying to develop a way writing music avoiding systematically tonality.


No, he wasn't.

He was avoiding some of the hallmarks of traditional tonality, including keys and functional harmony, and expanding to use the entire chromatic scale, but he was not systematically avoiding tonality at all. If you include mature Debussy, Stravinsky, and Hindemith as tonal, there's no reason whatsoever not to include later Schoenberg.

It's a shame that people think statements like the above are obviously true when if you actually read anything Schoenberg wrote, you'll see that he says the opposite.



norman bates said:


> And that he said something like "Sometime even the postman will whistle my melodies." that seems very similar in spirit to the other sentence. I guess that he meant just that even if his music was different with time once people had developed a familiarity with it it would be considered simple and memorable as a air of Puccini (and the history has shown that his forecast was a bit optimistic and naive).


Many of Schoenberg's melodies *are* as simple and memorable as Puccini, but people find them difficult to remember because of the harmonic context and lack of exposure, and also because of the constant density of texture in his works.



norman bates said:


> Schenkerian analyses based on the ideas of Schenker or Schenkerian analysis developed by someone else to analyze non tonal music?


Based on Schenker's ideas or urlinie, as you stated. You know, analyzing the fundamental progression of tonal centers throughout a piece. There's nothing anti-tonal about Schoenberg's music, it just uses an expanded harmonic palette. It's only non-tonal in the sense that it's not common practice.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> No, he wasn't.
> 
> He was avoiding some of the hallmarks of traditional tonality, including keys and functional harmony, and expanding to use the entire chromatic scale, but he was not systematically avoiding tonality at all. If you include mature Debussy, Stravinsky, and Hindemith as tonal, there's no reason whatsoever not to include later Schoenberg.


so you can say in every point of his music if a work is in C major or F minor?



Mahlerian said:


> Many of Schoenberg's melodies *are* as simple and memorable as Puccini, but people find them difficult to remember because of the harmonic context and lack of exposure, and also because of the constant density of texture in his works.


like the harmonic context is a little detail. To me it's probably one if not the most important aspect to determine the memorability of a line.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> The debate over whether atonal music - generally taken to mean music using the chromatic scale without hierarchical function of its tones in relation to a tonal center - is more of a development of, or a departure from, tonal music really comes down to what aspects of the music are most meaningful to us and to how we prefer to use words. We can all see that such music has resemblances to what came before it as well as differences from it. But what matters to people is neither theory nor semantics, but the sounds they actually hear and what those sounds say to them. Millions of people experience this music as different in an important way from even highly chromatic music of the late 19th century - different-sounding, and different in what it makes them feel - and they experience this however they judge the experience, and whether they like the music or not.
> 
> Sandow, who has studied atonal music, enjoys it, and composes it himself, hears these differences and thinks them significant, and questions attempts to downplay them. He also seems to question (without elaborating) the traditional narrative that portrays the harmony of Wagner and Liszt as genetically preordained to evolve into the atonality of Schoenberg and Webern. That's a discussion in itself. I only want here to affirm the perception - not the theory, but the _perception_, as music is primarily meant to be heard, not thought about - that when Sandow, I, and many others speak of atonality, they are indeed speaking of something distinctive in the world of music, and something to be taken on its own unique terms.


Very well put.

"The sounds they actually hear and what those sounds say to them." I believe this is a very important statement because it identifies the core issue. Music is about sound, not vocabulary. No matter what we call something in music, (i.e. triad, polychord, inversion, scale, mode, etc) the important thing is not the word but the sound. And the sounds are only important because they communicate something to us. The sounds say something. Not communication as specific as a vocabulary word, but a feeling.

Just as important is the recognition that the traditional narrative that Wagner leads inevitably to Berg is false. But as you say, that is for another discussion.

So why do those who have embraced atonal (or substitute your own vocabulary word) music seem to deny the difference? That is the question, and I posit that the answer is money.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> so you can say in every point of his music if a work is in C major or F minor?


Of course not. Like I said, it's not common practice. This piece can't be meaningfully said to be in a key either:






(And, as a matter of fact, some who wish to be more consistent in their application of the term call pieces such as this by Debussy "atonal.")



norman bates said:


> like the harmonic context is a little detail. To me it's probably one if not the most important aspect to determine the memorability of a line.


I never meant to imply it was a little detail. The richness of Schoenberg's harmony is an integral part of his music. I agree that it impedes memorability for those who have not become accustomed to it, and I think that Schoenberg underestimated the extent to which his music would be opposed simply because it was clearly understandable for him, and he had a hard time understanding how difficult it would be for others.

There's an anecdote he relates regarding rehearsals for his Second String Quartet in F# minor, wherein he asked one of the players to bring out the melody a bit more at one point in the last movement and one person, who had been attending the rehearsals from the beginning, exclaimed that he didn't hear any melody at all at that point.


----------



## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)




----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Truckload said:


> So why do those who have embraced atonal (or substitute your own vocabulary word) music seem to deny the difference? That is the question, and I posit that the answer is money.


Interesting. How so?


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Of course not. Like I said, it's not common practice. This piece can't be meaningfully said to be in a key either:
> 
> (And, as a matter of fact, some who wish to be more consistent in their application of the term call pieces such as this by Debussy "atonal.")


and what woud the problem in calling it atonal?
Is it better to say that it uses "non functional harmony"? Does it seem more meaningful?



Mahlerian said:


> I never meant to imply it was a little detail. The richness of Schoenberg's harmony is an integral part of his music. I agree that it impedes memorability for those who have not become accustomed to it, and I think that Schoenberg underestimated the extent to which his music would be opposed simply because it was clearly understandable for him, and he had a hard time understanding how difficult it would be for others.


let's say this. I've listened to atonal music for decades now. I really like some of it. My favorite classical music is almost all been composed in the twentieth century so I don't have lack of exposure to it at all. I think that to compare Webern in terms of memorability to Puccini (and I've listene a lot more to Webern) is just ridiculous. And that's exactly what the thread is about. If I listen to Webern is because I like his music but to pretend that his music is just as memorable does not have any sense. It has other qualities. It's different. It's not memorable in the way that Nessun dorma can be, even if I prefer to listen to Webern. 
Have you ever think why all national anthems are so harmonically simple? And why the most simple pop music is the most popular and if you add harmonic sophistication it becames less and less popular? My answer is that harmonic complexity and memorability are inversely proportional.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> Interesting. How so?


Money, or more specifically government money, funds atonal (or whatever you want to call it) music. University composition teachers, government funded orchestras, government grants to composer in residence, government grants to commission new works, all fund atonal (or whatever you want to call it) music. Without government funding it would die a natural death quickly, instead of the lingering painful death currently in progress.

Atonal (or whatever you want to call it) music has in recent years been slowly giving ground to a growing focus at Universities on "music for media" and "music business". So the government funding monopoly for atonal (or whatever you want to call it) music is slowly being eroded.


----------



## Guest (Jan 4, 2016)

Does 'tonal/atonal' make the same sort of sense (?) as saying that Gainsborough and Pollock were 'pictorial/apictorial'?


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> and what woud the problem in calling it atonal?
> Is it better to say that it uses "non functional harmony"? Does it seems more meaningful?


Because the term atonal is misleading in that the music isn't what the term might imply it is (in opposition to tonality).

Of course saying it uses non-functional harmony would be better and more meaningful; it actually describes something about the music. My main problem with the term atonal is that it offers no descriptive or explanatory power.



norman bates said:


> let's say this. I've listened to atonal music for decades now. I really like some of it . I think that to compare Webern in terms of memorability to Puccini (and I've listene a lot more to Webern) is just ridiculous. And that's exactly what the thread is about. If I listen to Webern is because I like his music but to pretend that his music is just as memorable does not have any sense. It has other qualities. It's different. It's not memorable in the way that Nessun dorma can be.
> Have you ever think why all national anthems are so harmonically simple? And why the most simple pop music is the most popular and if you add harmonic sophistication it becames less and less popular? My answer is that harmonic complexity and memorability are inversely proportional.


Webern and Schoenberg are quite different, and I'll agree that while the former does use some memorable motifs in his pieces, his works are not filled with the kind of longer-breathed melodies that Schoenberg's music is.

But here's the thing: 100 years ago, critics were saying the same things about Mahler's music, in that it was considered too complicated to be enjoyable, that the harmony and motivic fragmentation were too extreme to allow anyone to follow them. Before him it was Brahms. They all had the same "problem" as Schoenberg, in that they eschewed literal repetition almost as a rule.

So-called atonality is not and has never been the issue.

Those of us who do listen to Schoenberg and other post-Schoenbergian music on a regular basis do generally find much that is memorable about it, speaking from personal experience as well as second-hand anecdotes related by others.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Those of us like me? So considering that I've listened a lot of so called atonal music why I can easily memorize tonal stuff even when I don't like it and I can't memorize atonal music that I like and that I have listened much more? Because even considering the possibility that I am very limited and stupid it still means that one kind is much more memorable than the other.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Those of us like me? So considering that I've listened a lot of so called atonal music why I can easily memorize tonal stuff even when I don't like it and I can't memorize atonal music that I like and that I have listened much more? Because even considering the possibility that I am very limited and stupid it still means that one kind is much more memorable than the other.


I couldn't say why. I can memorize post-tonal music that I listen to, recalling melodies, themes, whole passages, etc. I have far more trouble memorizing pre-tonal music, but I chalk that up to less familiarity with the style.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

This conversation, almost word for word, has been had many times on this forum already. I have no further interest in it whatsoever, which is why I wrote



> This holds true whether or not you accept a tonal/atonal distinction - if you don't, just substitute "common practice" and "high modernist" instead. Let's not have another debate about those words.


The thread is about how fans of modernist music - unlike fans of modernist painting, literature and drama - sometimes emphasize the music's continuity with tradition and downplay its radical disruptions and their relationship to disruptive and alienating social conditions.

I'm interested in this because, as a fan of the music myself, I don't think this approach does it any favors.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> This conversation, almost word for word, has been had many times on this forum already. I have no further interest in it whatsoever, which is why I wrote
> 
> The thread is about how fans of modernist music - unlike fans of modernist painting, literature and drama - sometimes emphasize the music's continuity with tradition and downplay its radical disruptions and their relationship to disruptive and alienating social conditions.
> 
> I'm interested in this because, as a fan of the music myself, I don't think this approach does it any favors.


Perhaps because in other disciplines, people are far more aware of the continuities with the past, whereas with music, there's this idea that suddenly people were doing something that had nothing to do with anything that had come before.

It gives those who hate modernist music an excuse to call it unnatural and atonal and all sorts of other things without actually confronting the music itself and talking about it.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> But here's the thing: 100 years ago, critics were saying the same things about Mahler's music, in that it was considered too complicated to be enjoyable, that the harmony and motivic fragmentation were too extreme to allow anyone to follow them. Before him it was Brahms. They all had the same "problem" as Schoenberg, in that they eschewed literal repetition almost as a rule.


Not every composer whose music was poorly received eventually became famous. In fact, for every composer who was eventually recognized as being significant, there must be dozens, or even hundreds, who wrote music, were poorly received, and have since been forgotten. There have also been many composers famous in their time whose music has since receded to obscurity.

Schoenberg has enjoyed a lot of attention in Universities and in music literature. He has been praised by many critics. Yet the general public is just as alienated by his music today as they were 100 years ago. Perhaps more so since it seems the percentage of people interested in art music seems to be shrinking.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> It gives those who hate modernist music an excuse to call it unnatural and atonal and all sorts of other things without actually confronting the music itself and talking about it.


I don't understand what this has to do with anything. An argument or analysis stands or falls on its own merits, not on whether some other people somewhere might misinterpret it for their own ends.


----------



## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> The thread is about how fans of modernist music - unlike fans of modernist painting, literature and drama - sometimes emphasize the music's continuity with tradition and downplay its radical disruptions and their relationship to disruptive and alienating social conditions.
> 
> I'm interested in this because, as a fan of the music myself, I don't think this approach does it any favors.


I agree, it would make me really disinclined to listen to music for it to be prefaced with something about pandemic-scale isolation. That's like not having had anything to eat in a week and watching a play about people who starve.

I've heard what could be called modernist music that I like and ones that I don't like......putting aside that the ones that I don't like seem to make it into musical education curricula more often, one of the things that I generally don't like is the idea of progress in music or viewing music that uses WCM forces as being part of a lineage and needing to reflect its place within the chronology of the tradition.....which is another way that I think the phenomenon of modernist music is framed sometimes but really shouldn't be. Maybe the label 'classical music' is stupid if it functions as a straight jacket for what music that's being written should or shouldn't sound like in order to have greatness or relevance?


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> I don't understand what this has to do with anything. An argument or analysis stands or falls on its own merits, not on whether some other people somewhere might misinterpret it for their own ends.


Which is why I've actually attempted to counter the points you've presented directly.

I was just saying that the idea that modernism is disconnected from the past allows others to prevent a serious and meaningful discussion from occurring at all.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

^I actually meant the opposite ... I don't think pretending modernism was just same old, same old does it favors. You have to be honest about it. Some of it really is grim. In a lot of it there is a sense of dislocation, detachment, irony or nostalgia, also related to the modern condition.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Truckload said:


> Not every composer whose music was poorly received eventually became famous. In fact, for every composer who was eventually recognized as being significant, there must be dozens, or even hundreds, who wrote music, were poorly received, and have since been forgotten. There have also been many composers famous in their time whose music has since receded to obscurity.


Of course. This has nothing to do with my point, which is not that everyone who has been attacked becomes renowned, but rather that many who are now renowned have been attacked in the same way that Schoenberg is today, so the fact that he is today attacked in that way does not indicate that he will never be renowned.



Truckload said:


> Schoenberg has enjoyed a lot of attention in Universities and in music literature. He has been praised by many critics. Yet the general public is just as alienated by his music today as they were 100 years ago. Perhaps more so since it seems the percentage of people interested in art music seems to be shrinking.


Actually, the general public is far more receptive than critics to Schoenberg's music, and always has been. Critics such as those who appear on classical forums are far more opinionated than the average music-lover.

If the public is just as alienated by Schoenberg's music as it was 100 years ago (which it never was to the degree some believe, as is evidenced by the popularly successful early performances of Pierrot lunaire and Five Pieces for Orchestra, among others), explain how dozens of performances of it occur, year in and year out, and how there have been multiple runs of his opera Moses und Aron (nearly a full two hours of Schoenberg!) in several locations over the past few years.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

norman bates: [Schoenberg] was trying to develop a way writing music avoiding systematically tonality.

Mahlerian: No, he wasn't. He was avoiding some of the hallmarks of traditional tonality, including keys and functional harmony, and expanding to use the entire chromatic scale, but he was not systematically avoiding tonality at all.

norman bates: And that he said something like "Sometime even the postman will whistle my melodies." I guess that he meant just that even if his music was different with time once people had developed a familiarity with it it would be considered simple and memorable as a air of Puccini (and the history has shown that his forecast was a bit optimistic and naive).

Mahlerian: Many of Schoenberg's melodies are as simple and memorable as Puccini, but people find them difficult to remember because of the harmonic context and lack of exposure, and also because of the constant density of texture in his works.

Lewis Carroll: 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

Don't be afraid, Alice. We haven't really gone through the looking glass. We're just talking classical. That is a special way of saying things that only we can understand. Try it! It's fun!

OK. On this side of the looking glass, I'll be as succinct as possible:

1.) Keys and functional harmony are not "some of the hallmarks of traditional tonality." In Western music, they _are_ traditional tonality. And for those who haven't noticed, Wagner and other composers were not shy about using "the entire chromatic scale." So Schoenberg wasn't "systematically avoiding tonality," but _only the things that make tonality tonal?_ Right.

2.) For a listener (taking into consideration the sophistication of his musical "ear"), melodies tend to be remembered if: A. they contain _intervallic and rhythmic patterns_ which are easily perceived and which stick in the mind; B. they trace or imply _harmonic sequences_ which are similarly comprehensible; and C. they are easily isolated by the ear and distinguishable - figure from ground - in the context in which they're presented. These factors are _intrinsic_ to melody's memorability, not optional and accidental. They may all be present in varying degrees. It's nonsense to say that Schoenberg's melodies are as memorable as Puccini's _except for_ the absence of some or all of these factors.

How does it aid our understanding of atonal music to be told that it has all the characteristics of tonal music except the ones that make it tonal, and that its melodies are just as memorable as Puccini's except for lacking the qualities that make Puccini's melodies memorable?

Lewis Carroll: How is a raven like a writing desk?


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> ^I actually meant the opposite ... I don't think pretending modernism was just same old, same old does it favors. You have to be honest about it. *Some of it* really is grim. *In a lot of it* there is a sense of dislocation, detachment, irony or nostalgia, also related to the modern condition.


But what about the sense of serene rapture in much of the finale of Schoenberg's Second Quartet?
The playful dancelike rhythms and nostalgic Viennese quality of his Serenade?
The precise, multihued prism of Boulez's Marteau?
The joy found throughout much of Messiaen?

Where are these things captured in your description?

As I said before, I don't mean to deny that there is much darkness and violence in modernism, but we do it a disservice by saying that that's all there is, just as one would do the Classical era a disservice to ignore the darkness and violence in Don Giovanni, in the Strum und Drang movement, and so forth.


----------



## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> I don't agree with everything in this article by Greg Sandow, but this point is well-taken:
> 
> This holds true whether or not you accept a tonal/atonal distinction - if you don't, just substitute "common practice" and "high modernist" instead. Let's not have another debate about those words.


If I see a Beethoven piano piece with an F minor triad quarter note played fortissimo, a Stravinsky piano piece with a F minor/B minor polychord quarter note played fortissimo, a Hindemith piano piece with a quartal chord quarter note played fortissimo, and a Stockhausen piano piece with a chromatic cluster quarter note played fortissimo, it is not far-fetched at all in my opinion to say the differences are beside the point. The musical usage and context of each I can see as functionally similar. And I believe it to be a fallacy to suggest just because something seems true for art, it must be true for music.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> But what about the sense of serene rapture in much of the finale of Schoenberg's Second Quartet?
> The playful dancelike rhythms and nostalgic Viennese quality of his Serenade?
> The precise, multihued prism of Boulez's Marteau?
> The joy found throughout much of Messiaen?


There are multiple ways to be serenely enraptured. Would you say there's no essential difference between the Schoenberg movement (which is a favorite of mine, btw) and the Agnus dei of Bach's B minor mass? Look at the texts, for starters! Dislocation and detachment are definitely part of what Schoenberg, and Stefan George, were about.

What about Boulez's "precise, multihued prism"? That's a good description. There is not much, if any, pre-20th century music I would describe that way. You don't think that's significant?

Messiaen was almost alone in that generation in being deeply, sincerely religious and writing music about it, wasn't he? That's significant too.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> There are multiple ways to be serenely enraptured. Would you say there's no essential difference between the Schoenberg movement (which is a favorite of mine, btw) and the Agnus dei of Bach's B minor mass? Look at the texts, for starters! Dislocation and detachment are definitely part of what Schoenberg, and Stefan George, were about.
> 
> What about Boulez's "precise, multihued prism"? That's a good description. There is not much, if any, pre-20th century music I would describe that way. You don't think that's significant?
> 
> Messiaen was almost alone in that generation in being deeply, sincerely religious and writing music about it, wasn't he? That's significant too.


The only one who's saying that the music of the 20th century was not different from that of preceding eras is the person your responses are directed towards, who is certainly not me.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Torkelburger said:


> If I see a Beethoven piano piece with an F minor triad quarter note played fortissimo, a Stravinsky piano piece with a F minor/B minor polychord quarter note played fortissimo, a Hindemith piano piece with a quartal chord quarter note played fortissimo, and a Stockhausen piano piece with a chromatic cluster quarter note played fortissimo, it is not far-fetched at all in my opinion to say the differences are beside the point. The musical usage and context of each I can see as functionally similar. And I believe it to be a fallacy to suggest just because something seems true for art, it must be true for music.


In Beethoven, Stravinsky and Hindemith, sure.

In Stockhausen I'm not so sure. I don't think the fortissimo at the beginning of Klavierstuck IX is functioning the same way as a fortissimo in those other composers at all, for example.

Edit: I just looked at the score and the repeated chords in the Stockhausen piece are actually eighth notes. But I think the point still holds - Stockhausen's treatment of dynamics, as of all musical elements, is really different from Beethoven and the two much more traditional modernists.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> The only one who's saying that the music of the 20th century was not different from that of preceding eras is the person your responses are directed towards, who is certainly not me.


You disagree with _something_ - what is it?

If it's just the word "atonal," never mind. But I thought it was more than that.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Of course. This has nothing to do with my point, which is not that everyone who has been attacked becomes renowned, but rather that many who are now renowned have been attacked in the same way that Schoenberg is today, so the fact that he is today attacked in that way does not indicate that he will never be renowned.


And my point is that not everyone who is attacked will become renowned. You presented the objections of critics as if it was a point in his favor. It is not.



Mahlerian said:


> If the public is just as alienated by Schoenberg's music as it was 100 years ago (which it never was to the degree some believe, as is evidenced by the popularly successful early performances of Pierrot lunaire and Five Pieces for Orchestra, among others), explain how dozens of performances of it occur, year in and year out, and how there have been multiple runs of his opera Moses und Aron (nearly a full two hours of Schoenberg!) in several locations over the past few years.


My explanation is government funding. The performances occur because they are funded with government money. And I do not agree with your contention that the general public would not object to listening to Schoenberg. Even Joe Sixpack can engage with Mozart, Beethoven, etc., but to think that the average man on the street would enjoy Schoenberg is just absurd.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> You disagree with _something_ - what is it?
> 
> If it's just the word "atonal," never mind. But I thought it was more than that.


I also disagree with the idea that the changes in musical language in the 20th century are primarily characterized by destruction of tradition, rather than new syntheses and new perspectives that move away from tradition but are based on it.


----------



## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Truckload said:


> Even Joe Sixpack can engage with Mozart, Beethoven, etc.


Some of the Joe Sixpacks might like some of the more famous (and relatively short) movements of Mozart and Beethoven, but beyond that, I don't think so. Classical music has never been intended for "Joe Sixpack".


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Truckload said:


> *And my point is that not everyone who is attacked will become renowned.*


http://www.fallacyfiles.org/imptrans.html



Truckload said:


> You presented the objections of critics as if it was a point in his favor. It is not.


No, I didn't. I presented the past objections of critics, as I said, to counter the idea that something which has those qualities of complexity and difficulty can be said, by that reason alone, to be intrinsically unmemorable. It is neither a point in his favor nor one against him that he was criticized in his lifetime.



Truckload said:


> My explanation is government funding. The performances occur because they are funded with government money. And I do not agree with your contention that the general public would not object to listening to Schoenberg. Even Joe Sixpack can engage with Mozart, Beethoven, etc., but to think that the average man on the street would enjoy Schoenberg is just absurd.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argum...gument_from_incredulity.2FLack_of_imagination

The fact that government funding is allotted to institutions that play Schoenberg doesn't mean that people play Schoenberg because government money is allotted to them. Yuja Wang has taken a piece of Schoenberg's (the Suite op. 25, I think?) into her repertory, and let me tell you, when you have as much popularity and clout as she has, you can pretty much choose to play what you want without anyone else dictating to you.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

Dim7 said:


> Some of the Joe Sixpacks might like some of the more famous (and relatively short) movements of Mozart and Beethoven, but beyond that, I don't think so. Classical music has never been intended for "Joe Sixpack".


I understand your perspective. I used to think the same. Books like "The Classical Style" by Rosen opened my eyes to a different perspective. During the time of Mozart and Beethoven, the classical style was almost universal. I can not make his point as well as Rosen, but his studies reveal that the majority of people of all societal levels seemed to be engaged with the art music of that time.

Today, I agree that art music has lost a lot of popularity. When I was a boy in the 1950's there were 3 classical radio stations in my home city. Today there is one.

But most people will still respond to "Nessum Dorma" or the "Ode to Joy" even if they do not know why it touches them.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

_Nessum Dorma_ is one of my favorite 20th century arias and it touches the soul, the same reason why it is so popular today. This makes greatness in art music. The opera _Turandot_ has both atonal and tonal elements fused together that impacts the drama and is harmonically rich. It is one of the few 20th century operas that uses a strong mix of atonal and tonal qualities.


----------



## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> In Beethoven, Stravinsky and Hindemith, sure.
> 
> In Stockhausen I'm not so sure. I don't think the fortissimo at the beginning of Klavierstuck IX is functioning the same way as a fortissimo in those other composers at all, for example.
> 
> Edit: I just looked at the score and the repeated chords in the Stockhausen piece are actually eighth notes. But I think the point still holds - Stockhausen's treatment of dynamics, as of all musical elements, is really different from Beethoven and the two much more traditional modernists.


Maybe I shouldn't have used composer's names as they don't matter. Still though in regards to the chromatic cluster, abstractly speaking, my example of composer X writing a chromatic cluster played a quarter note fortissimo is functionally similar to the other examples. The usage and context is musically similar.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> http://www.fallacyfiles.org/imptrans.htmlYuja Wang has taken a piece of Schoenberg's (the Suite op. 25, I think?) into her repertory, and let me tell you, when you have as much popularity and clout as she has, you can pretty much choose to play what you want without anyone else dictating to you.


You like Schoenberg. Yuja Wang might like Schoenberg. Or she may just be trying to differentiate herself from other performers by including something in her repertoire that is unusual. I think it is very likely that any solo artist who wants to have a successful career is considering money (future bookings) when picking repertoire. Sadly there is a certain snob appeal involved with some people claiming to enjoy atonal (or whatever you want to call it) music. So music directors often feel pressure to include at least some atonal (or whatever you want to call it) music in their seasonal programs. They know they can not include too much or they will lose audience, but having the music presented by an attractive and famous soloist would certainly help.

The point of the OP is that atonal music (or whatever you want to call it) represents a break with previous musical history yet those who champion that form of music seem to deny the break.

By the way, I find your inclusion of "links" in this case questionable. I don't think you are trying to be insulting, but it certainly could be construed that way. More importantly doing so did not make me more open to your point of view. Having read many of your previous posts over the years I know that you are intelligent and enthusiastic and you often make very interesting points. So I will choose not to be offended.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Truckload - if you like Rosen's _The Classical Style_, you might check out his short book on Schoenberg, or watch this lecture from the piano on modernist music: 



 Rosen was a great champion of modernism.

In any case I can absolutely promise you that no one is programming atonal music because of "snob appeal" or for the sake of being unusual. Musicians play it because they love it - the commercial forces are against them.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> Truckload - if you like Rosen's _The Classical Style_, you might check out his short book on Schoenberg, or watch this lecture from the piano on modernist music:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the book recommendation. I very much appreciate Rosen's work.

My first college degree was a B.A. in Music Composition in 1976. At that time I listened to, and wrote, a lot of atonal music. Perhaps rationality has finally returned, but at that time if you wanted to be accepted as a "serious" composer and win contests and earn a University degree, you wrote atonal music. There was no alternative. I can't tell you how many hours of atonal music I have listened to over the years. But I am now 62 and I refuse to punish myself any longer. Like President Bush (the elder) told his wife "darn it, I am the President, and I am not going to eat any more broccoli". Well, at 62 I am not going to listen to any more atonal music.

The best thing about writing atonal music is that no one can criticize your efforts. You can not be compared to the masters. You can dash off anything and have people perform it and as long as you don't accidentally include anything tonal, all is good. Everything is equally meaningful and how dare anyone call your music garbage.

Anyway, I know you are correct about commercial practicality. I used to have a friend, now passed away, who was a programming director for a classical FM station. He would get phone calls and letters from people who wanted Schoenberg or Berg, etc to be included. There have always been, and continue to be people who truly appreciate atonal music. Since the FM station needed listeners, he would occasionally try to include something atonal. But immediately he would get angry calls from listeners who demanded the station NOT play atonal music. Quite a problem. But of course he had to include at least some, to prove to the FCC that the station was trying to "serve the entire community."


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Truckload said:


> The best thing about writing atonal music is that no one can criticize your efforts. You can not be compared to the masters. You can dash off anything and have people perform it and as long as you don't accidentally include anything tonal, all is good. Everything is equally meaningful and how dare anyone call your music garbage.


That's complete bull.

I've heard plenty of mediocre and bad music in post-tonal styles just as I have in other styles. Of course the best of it can be compared to the masters in quality, craftsmanship, and meaning.



Truckload said:


> By the way, I find your inclusion of "links" in this case questionable. I don't think you are trying to be insulting, but it certainly could be construed that way. More importantly doing so did not make me more open to your point of view. Having read many of your previous posts over the years I know that you are intelligent and enthusiastic and you often make very interesting points. So I will choose not to be offended.


But your logic was flawed at the most basic level. Instead of seeing it as an insult, why not take it as an opportunity to improve your arguments by finding some relevant objection to replace these ones?


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> That's complete bull.
> 
> I've heard plenty of mediocre and bad music in post-tonal styles just as I have in other styles. Of course the best of it can be compared to the masters in quality and meaning.


Wow, so you are calling my life experience complete bull. Amazing. I didn't even know you were there.

Which atonal works would you consider to be garbage and why? Please be specific. Include links to performances on YouTube please.



Mahlerian said:


> But your logic was flawed at the most basic level. Instead of seeing it as an insult, why not take it as an opportunity to improve your arguments by finding some relevant objection to replace these ones?


I do not agree that any argument I have made is flawed at any level. And you certainly have not demonstrated any flaw in my logic.

However, I will now choose to be insulted.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Most of the new pieces I hear in concerts are mediocre to bad, unfortunately. But I think that's been true for hundreds of years.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> Most of the new pieces I hear in concerts are mediocre to bad, unfortunately. But I think that's been true for hundreds of years.


Sadly yes, I agree. And Music does not have to be atonal to be bad or boring. I am not saying that at all.

I am frequently on the hunt for music "new to me" and usually disappointed. And many composers with talent and a lot of promise write one or two awesome things then nothing but the dull and mediocre or bad music. I recently discovered the Fantastic Scherzo by Suk. Yes I know, unfortunate name. Here is a link.






This piece is awesome. Great melodies, outstanding orchestration, rich harmonies, and great structure. So I started listening to his other compositions. Very blah. I will eventually work my way through everything I can find, but all of his other pieces I can find are simply dull and lifeless.

So I agree. Most music written is not very good. But that is probably true of painting and sculpture and novels and poetry and every other form of art don't you think?


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Truckload said:


> Wow, so you are calling my life experience complete bull. Amazing. I didn't even know you were there.


I am calling the idea that there is no way to tell good music from bad just because it fits under the broad category of "atonal" bull, not your own personal experiences.



Truckload said:


> Which atonal works would you consider to be garbage and why? Please be specific. Include links to performances on YouTube please.


I don't consider any music to be atonal. It's not a meaningful category.

The worst stuff never gets recorded, naturally, but if you dig around under second tier composers you'll find a lot of subpar works with the occasional gem.

Marc Neikrug's Bassoon Concerto, which the Boston Symphony premiered a few years ago, was exceedingly underwhelming and dull. Couldn't find any Youtube links, though.

Higdon's entire career seems to be built on mediocrity:






There are plenty of lesser pieces and composers that came out of the Schoenberg school, too:








Truckload said:


> I do not agree that any argument I have made is flawed at any level. And you certainly have not demonstrated any flaw in my logic.


Your agreement is immaterial. Your responses were completely irrelevant, and I attempted to tell you why, but you have responded by taking offense.

To reiterate:

Norman Bates: These pieces have these qualities, therefore they are not memorable
If A then not-B

I disagreed, saying...
Mahlerian: Other pieces were thought to have those qualities, but have been since deemed memorable
Some A are B

You took issue with this, and said
Truckload: Just because something is criticized does not mean that it's good
Not all A are C

This is completely irrelevant. Even if you had been responding to the same second term, it would still not be logically contradictory to my statement.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Torkelburger said:


> If I see a Beethoven piano piece with an F minor triad quarter note played fortissimo, a Stravinsky piano piece with a F minor/B minor polychord quarter note played fortissimo, a Hindemith piano piece with a quartal chord quarter note played fortissimo, and a Stockhausen piano piece with a chromatic cluster quarter note played fortissimo, it is not far-fetched at all in my opinion to say the differences are beside the point. *The musical usage and context of each I can see as functionally similar.* And I believe it to be a fallacy to suggest just because something seems true for art, it must be true for music.


Huh? You haven't mentioned any musical usage, context, or function. All you've done is to mention isolated fortissimo chords. And since the only other thing you've said about any of them shows them to be different, what does it mean to say that their differences are beside the point? What "functional similarity" are you talking about? You seem to be demonstrating difference rather than similarity.


----------



## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> You haven't mentioned any musical usage, context, or function.


Then let's say it functions as a big climactic chord in the context at the end of a long pedal in the left hand, and rapid scale-like passages in the right hand, in crescendo.


> All you've done is to mention isolated fortissimo chords.


Which, of course, with a little imagination, hints at musical usage...unless one were being purposely obtuse.


> And since the only other thing you've said about any of them shows them to be different, what does it mean to say that their differences are beside the point?


It means the harmonic difference is beside the point of the greater musical argument being made. A big climactic chord as described in Hindemith and one as described in Beethoven can serve the same musical purpose.


> What "functional similarity" are you talking about? You seem to be demonstrating difference rather than similarity.


See above.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm not being obtuse, purposely or otherwise. I'm merely pointing out that the information you offer doesn't prove your point, which is, I believe, that the differences between these examples are less significant than their similarity. "Isolated fortissimo chords" is a large category, and a wide range of musical contexts and functions is possible for them. Unless we can see or hear those contexts or functions, "a little imagination" won't tell us anything of importance.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

isorhythm;994778[I said:


> This holds true whether or not you accept a tonal/atonal distinction - if you don't, just substitute "common practice" and "high modernist" instead. Let's not have another debate about those words. [That][/I] conversation, almost word for word, has been had many times on this forum already. I have no further interest in it whatsoever...
> 
> The thread is about how fans of modernist music - unlike fans of modernist painting, literature and drama - sometimes emphasize the music's continuity with tradition and downplay its radical disruptions and their relationship to disruptive and alienating social conditions.
> 
> ...


I've gathered together several of your posts because I want to see clearly what an effort you're making to talk about a subject which most of us find difficult: music as a product and an expression of culture. I think we find it difficult because we lack, or don't care to acquire, the sort of knowledge required to have such a conversation, or perhaps because we feel a need to protect our own conceptions of the music we like from contamination by ideas that such knowledge might suggest to us. But even above and beyond this impediment, I think that your hope that the discussion of tonality vs. atonality could be avoided is a vain hope, for two reasons: because Sandow's statement refers specifically to atonal music and its apologists, thus focusing the discussion on the problems people have with that particular kind of music; and because, when that sort of music is the focus, it's easier and safer to talk about how the music is put together than about why it exists and what it means.

Defensiveness on behalf of "modern music" is hardly seen nowadays with reference to most music of the early twentieth century. Just as no one argues that impressionism or cubism in painting, or stream-of-consciousness in the novel, are merely natural and inevitable developments of earlier art and literature which have little relation to broader cultural change, the plea that "modern music" represents just an "evolution" from earlier music and is of mainly technical significance is never heard in defense of other musical styles which emerged concurrently with atonality. Stravinsky's neoclassicism, Vaughan Williams's neomodalism, Copland's polytonal harmony, Satie's astringent post-impressionism, Szymanowski's idiosyncratic synthesis of styles - these don't have anyone arguing about their similarity or difference to late Romanticism or common practice harmony, or feeling the need to downplay their impact as new modes of expression. Those arguments arise mainly with reference to what some call atonal music, beginning with the music of its inventor and his disciples.

Those who regard atonal music as a logical extension of past practice seem to be in a perpetual defensive posture against those who consider it a radical innovation, and so long as they are, they are not likely to have much to say about its cultural significance, and what it has to say that no music ever said before. But I suspect that the relationship between these two things goes just as often in the opposite direction, and that it's often the resistance to acknowledging - or fully experiencing - the expressive, cultural dimension of Schoenberg's musical innovation that leads people to want to minimize the radicalness of its technical aspects. I don't accept for a minute that Schoenberg was merely an instrument of aesthetic evolution, idealistically picking up harmony where Wagner had left it and showing us its "logical" conclusion and inevitable destiny. He didn't live in some ivory tower, insulated from the culture that eventually drove him into exile, and his music arose in the context of a complex, volatile and problematic civilization, a culture at once intellectually fecund and spiritually decadent, bereft of old certainties and susceptible to the promise of radical solutions, and on the verge of some of the most terrible days in its history. And, having just said that, I realize that it is not a bad description of Schoenberg's music. Certainly the other arts reveal clearly enough the fractured, anxious spirit of the age, and are acknowledged as doing so: the dark, turbulent, and often morbid vocabulary of Expressionism in painting is not discussed as if it were just a new method of picture-making which somebody was bound to stumble upon sooner or later and which we should just enjoy for its use of form and color. Such an approach would be recognized by any historian as ridiculously superficial and unaware. Yet we seen quite willing to accept having the music of that time and place discussed as if it were just old wine in a new bottle - or, for that matter, having the bottle discussed as if it were merely a variant of the old one.

But it's the wine, not the bottle, that matters, and whatever the shape of the bottle, there's no escaping the fact that the wine doesn't taste the same. If those who enjoy it want others to appreciate its flavor and bouquet, they won't get far by downplaying the qualities that make it unique and saying supposedly comforting things like "this music is tonal except for its lack of key and functional harmony." Even if such a statement escapes being entirely self-contradictory by some semantic legerdemain, it conveys nothing of what makes the music in question interesting or worth anyone's while. It seems only to say "you shouldn't be afraid of this music which sounds so intimidating to you," and thus confirms your suspicion that there must be something wrong either with the music or with you that you can't appreciate it without such unconvincing pleas for its underlying ordinariness.

If I were inexperienced in listening to modern music, I would much rather test my ear and mind on the bold concept of atonality than try to convince myself that the music I hear sounds weird and unpleasant only because I can't appreciate how much it's really like Brahms and Wagner and how once I "get it" my old familiar view of what music is will remain unshaken.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

Woodduck - what a beautifully written short essay. And you express the issue posed by the OP in a very diplomatic and thoughtful way. I can't imagine anyone presenting the issue any better than you have. It is a pleasure to read your posts. Even when I don't agree with you, I have to admire your writing skills, and your intellect. Using the wine and the shape of the bottle thing was brilliant. Is that a simile or an allusion? Whatever is was it was inspired. Anyway, in this particular case I agree with your view, but if I was not predisposed to agree, I would be compelled to do so by the power of your argument.

The only thing remaining to be said is to answer the question, why?


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Random thoughts on Where We Are:

Abstract art (painting, sculpture, etc.) vs. atonal & aleatoric music: Art that you look at is a one-shot, quick experience; you take it in, in a few moments, in a museum or pictured in a book. Maybe if you own the original, you can sit before it for the length of time that one spends listening to even a short piece of music. But aside from that instance (exceedingly rare), one can easily move on, with little expenditure of time or deep involvement. But original art is also a moveable, bankable commodity. It can be easily bought and sold, often for insane prices fueled by wealthy institutions, speculators, and What's Happening Now trend-setters, who can hang it on a wall someplace, and then walk past it without seeing that it's there, even while wondering if its value has grown enough to sell it. It can become an item of celebrity; it can be forged, stolen, talked about.

Atonal and aleatoric music, in contrast, requires a serious expenditure of time and focus that must be repaid for the vast majority of potential auditors by some kind of pleasure in the music itself. However, atonal and aleatoric music shatters the necessary balance between musical expectations confirmed and thwarted that is the root of both melody and of the sensation of musical pleasure (read Leonard Meyer on this) and thus drains away any musical reason for many listeners to adhere to these musics. As in all things, though, there are those enthusiasts who do seem to derive genuine enjoyment from these musics; much of it I suspect the pride in being _avant garde_, knowledgeable, progressive, and linked in a brotherhood/sisterhood of shared tastes. But since the economics of atonal/aleatoric music, and also the degree of personal temporal involvement differ so completely from those of quickly-experienced, quickly-bought-and-sold, quickly ignored abstract art, it behooves the proponents of atonal/aleatoric music to coax new audiences in with arguments that we are dealing with inexorable evolution rather than with (bloody) revolution.

In any case, though, abstract art and atonal/aleatoric music, and so many other trends that now define the current state of cultural stasis, are the fruits of a wholesale shattering and particularization of almost all elements of contemporary life and civilization. I certainly have no idea how it is all going to work out, but I'll likely turn to Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Bartok for solace while I wait.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> However, atonal and aleatoric music shatters the necessary balance between musical expectations confirmed and thwarted that is the root of both melody and of the sensation of musical pleasure


No, it doesn't.

Chance music maybe (why would you bracket these two things to begin with?), but certainly not everything lumped under the exceedingly broad category of atonal.



Strange Magic said:


> As in all things, though, there are those enthusiasts who do seem to derive genuine enjoyment from these musics; much of it I suspect the pride in being avant garde, knowledgeable, progressive, and linked in a brotherhood/sisterhood of shared tastes.


Or maybe it's just _*because we enjoy it*_?



Strange Magic said:


> it behooves the proponents of atonal/aleatoric music to coax new audiences in with arguments that we are dealing with inexorable evolution rather than with (bloody) revolution.


The only things I'm a proponent of are great music and truth.

All of my opposition to the idiotic statements about Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Debussy, and others who composed "atonal" music stems from those commitments.



Strange Magic said:


> I certainly have no idea how it is all going to work out, but I'll likely turn to Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and *Bartok* for solace while I wait.


I'm waiting for your explanation of how Bartok does not fit the definition of atonal, while his contemporaries' music does.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> Higdon's entire career seems to be built on mediocrity:


While you may legitimately feel that her music is mediocre, that is both a valid personal opinion and when expressed as you have, demeaning to those who feel otherwise. Why is it that composers such as Higdon, George Lloyd etc. who value a different and older esthestic, are castigated as mediocre throwbacks. Let me ask this, would you put Peter Maxwell Davies, Henri Dutilleux and others into that category because they also wrote works which use similar modes of expression? It often seems to me that many of those who value so-called modern music are in a hurry to equate popular success with being insufficiently forward looking. Isn't there room for both if it is well crafted? Remember that we are not talking about some 4 minute ditty which is designed to sell one million copies.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Becca said:


> While you may legitimately feel that her music is mediocre, that is both a valid personal opinion and when expressed as you have, demeaning to those who feel otherwise. Why is it that composers such as Higdon, George Lloyd etc. who value a different and older esthestic, are castigated as mediocre throwbacks. Let me ask this, would you put Peter Maxwell Davies, Henri Dutilleux and others into that category because they also wrote works which use similar modes of expression? It often seems to me that many of those who value so-called modern music are in a hurry to equate popular success with being insufficiently forward looking. Isn't there room for both if it is well crafted? Remember that we are not talking about some 4 minute ditty which is designed to sell one million copies.


I admire Dutilleux greatly. I also enjoy music like that of Zwilich and Adams as well as Copland and Britten (for an earlier generation).

My dislike of Higdon is not because of her lack of "progressive" tendencies (I couldn't care less about such things, really), but because of the music, which always strikes me as shallow.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Why do I always get a scent of spent Stravinsky socks with the 'popular classical'. The minimalists alone seem to live of scraping what is left on the ear after a performance of Petrushka.


----------



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> Random thoughts on Where We Are:
> 
> Abstract art (painting, sculpture, etc.) vs. atonal & aleatoric music: Art that you look at is a one-shot, quick experience; you take it in, in a few moments, in a museum or pictured in a book. Maybe if you own the original, you can sit before it for the length of time that one spends listening to even a short piece of music. But aside from that instance (exceedingly rare), one can easily move on, with little expenditure of time or deep involvement. But original art is also a moveable, bankable commodity. It can be easily bought and sold, often for insane prices fueled by wealthy institutions, speculators, and What's Happening Now trend-setters, who can hang it on a wall someplace, and then walk past it without seeing that it's there, even while wondering if its value has grown enough to sell it. It can become an item of celebrity; it can be forged, stolen, talked about.
> 
> ...


Many excellent points. The theme of a self destructive civilization (my words) is interesting as it has now been raised using other words by several people. I also appreciate your depiction of motivation and find it credible. You have been very kind and diplomatic in your choice of words.

To also try to be kind, the music community has historically placed an huge value on being an innovator, breaking new ground, having a distinctive personal "voice" and shattering expectations. Faced with that kind of pressure, was it any wonder that composers of 100 years ago were desperate?


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> norman bates: [Schoenberg] was trying to develop a way writing music avoiding systematically tonality.
> 
> Mahlerian: No, he wasn't. He was avoiding some of the hallmarks of traditional tonality, including keys and functional harmony, and expanding to use the entire chromatic scale, but he was not systematically avoiding tonality at all.
> 
> ...


Nice analysis of the logic. I wonder why it has gone unanswered?


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> I'm waiting for your explanation of how Bartok does not fit the definition of atonal, while his contemporaries' music does.


I'll be happy to affirm that "atonal" is a very broad and ill-defined term, and that therefore not all atonal music necessarily finds itself in the same boat. You know more about this than I.

I'll be happy to affirm that adherents of atonal and/or aleatoric musics may love them for their own merits.

I'll be happy to affirm that I too am for Truth and Great Music ( in that order).

Bela Bartok is a very special figure in music. He is a frontier talent, an enormous talent, standing at the exact point where traditional tonality begins to intermix with newer ideologies. He was blessed with the force of will and the genius to successfully negotiate a unique path among several difficult-to-reconcile compositional choices. The one constant that recurs in discussions of Bartok's music is this emphasis on Bartok's weaving tonality in and out of his more audience-receptive works such that they continue to enjoy broad popular acceptance. So I'll stick with the Bartok I like as "mostly tonal": Concerto for Orchestra, Divertimento, etc.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> I admire Dutilleux greatly. I also enjoy music like that of Zwilich and Adams as well as Copland and Britten (for an earlier generation).
> 
> My dislike of Higdon is not because of her lack of "progressive" tendencies (I couldn't care less about such things, really), but because of the music, which always strikes me as shallow.


Shallow in the context of lack of substance is something that I can understand as I can think of composers who have seemed that way to me on first hearing (e.g. Mahler!). That apparent lack of substance was usually because the works did not connect with me, not that there was no substance and, in many cases, I eventually came to see what I had been unable to perceive at first. Even if I have been continually unable to make any personal connection with a composer, I can intellectually recognize that there must be something there even if I often think that it is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes. I will also admit that there have been occasions when I have found a piece enjoyable but insubstantial and have consequently put it down as trivial but that is a rather arrogant and elitist attitude, pleasure need not be complex. All this is a long-winded way of saying to be careful in using words like mediocre because there is no firm scale of value, only personal opinion.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> Bela Bartok is a very special figure in music. He is a frontier talent, an enormous talent, standing at the exact point where traditional tonality begins to intermix with newer ideologies. He was blessed with the force of will and the genius to successfully negotiate a unique path among several difficult-to-reconcile compositional choices. The one constant that recurs in discussions of Bartok's music is this emphasis on Bartok's weaving tonality in and out of his more audience-receptive works such that they continue to enjoy broad popular acceptance. So I'll stick with the Bartok I like as "mostly tonal": Concerto for Orchestra, Divertimento, etc.


I agree that Bartok is one of the great composers of the 20th century, and that his music, while it sounds little like the music of the past, also sounds very little like that of his contemporaries in the Second Viennese School.

For me, if "atonal" is understood as meaning some harmonic quality rather than a style, it must also apply to other music which breaks with keys and harmonic function, including many of Bartok's mature works. Even the works you've highlighted, while more diatonic than the music commonly called atonal, differ from common practice tonality in much the same way, by allowing a range of dissonant harmonies to be treated as consonances and mitigating the effects of functional harmony with modal influence.

This is all to say, I do not hear Bartok's music as "atonal" in the sense that it would sound like Schoenberg or Xenakis (two composers who could not be further apart in every way!), but I do not hear it as tonal in the sense that I hear any common practice music as tonal, either.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Becca said:


> Shallow in the context of lack of substance is something that I can understand as I can think of composers who have seemed that way to me on first hearing (e.g. Mahler!). That apparent lack of substance was usually because the works did not connect with me, not that there was no substance and, in many cases, I eventually came to see what I had been unable to perceive at first. Even if I have been continually unable to make any personal connection with a composer, I can intellectually recognize that there must be something there even if I often think that it is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes. I will also admit that there have been occasions when I have found a piece enjoyable but insubstantial and have consequently put it down as trivial but that is a rather arrogant and elitist attitude, pleasure need not be complex. All this is a long-winded way of saying to be careful in using words like mediocre because there is no firm scale of value, only personal opinion.


In general, I prefer only to talk about the music I love. There's not much interest for me or others in my talking about the music I dislike or feel antipathy towards.

Here, I was specifically asked about things that I disliked, though, so I used Higdon as an example.


----------



## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Dim7 said:


> Some of the Joe Sixpacks might like some of the more famous (and relatively short) movements of Mozart and Beethoven, but beyond that, I don't think so. Classical music has never been intended for "Joe Sixpack".


I don't think this is what Truckload was saying...

I love absolute music (this includes the hated-by-some-termed atonal music) unfortunately in my life all the people I know do not listen to any kind of classical or 20th century music unless they happen to be visiting me and it's playing in the background (usually my clumsy underhanded way of force feeding people the music I think is vastly superior in every way to contemporary music).

Anyway my point is that these are the joe sixpacks truckload refers to, people who never listen to anything but contemporary and I must say he is right. When I put on any pre-20th century music no one protests (this doesn't mean they like it but they're in my house so what are they going to do, besides they all get me back when I'm at anyone of their houses) however if a track by Schoenberg, Webern, Xenakis, or Boulez happens to come on, invariably the response from my guests is "What is this noise?", or "Can we please skip this, it's getting on my nerves..", or the dreaded "Can't we listen to some real music?", (by which they mean the inferior contemporary).

I'm not trying to jump on the band wagon of "atonal" music isn't as substantial as non-"atonal" music but there is a clear divid. The proponents of "atonal" music are few and far between. I have no doubt Mahlerian will disagree with this statement but I just don't see any evidence to the contrary. I once was at a concert for some all 20th-century music and was surprised to hear one of the string players from the orchestra talking about the selections they played that evening, "Well I like the Stravinsky but nothing else we played especially the Xenakis, I find that music to be an elaborated scam to fill in concert room with wealthy people who can congratulate themselves on their taste in music..." To be fair I was back stage and he was unaware I was eavesdropping (so I doubt he would have spoken this way if he knew a paying audience member was listening) but still if a trained musician with a fairly renowned orchestra (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra) says this, I feel like passionate "atonal" music listeners are definitely a minority.


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

There are many really interesting posts here, to which I will respond more fully this evening.

For now - it occurs to me that the defensiveness noted by Sandow infects discussions of popularity as well.

For some reason fans of atonal/modernist/difficult music sometimes feel the need to deny that it's relatively unpopular.

No one in other fields does this. I promise you, no literature professor or critic in the world claims that William Gaddis is anywhere near as popular as Stephen King. They know he isn't, and they don't care. Why should they?


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Fugue Meister said:


> I'm not trying to jump on the band wagon of "atonal" music isn't as substantial as non-"atonal" music but there is a clear divid. The proponents of "atonal" music are few and far between. I have no doubt Mahlerian will disagree with this statement but I just don't see any evidence to the contrary. I once was at a concert for some all 20th-century music and was surprised to hear one of the string players from the orchestra talking about the selections they played that evening, "Well I like the Stravinsky but nothing else we played especially the Xenakis, I find that music to be an elaborated scam to fill in concert room with wealthy people who can congratulate themselves on their taste in music..." To be fair I was back stage and he was unaware I was eavesdropping (so I doubt he would have spoken this way if he knew a paying audience member was listening) but still if a trained musician with a fairly renowned orchestra (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra) says this, I feel like passionate "atonal" music listeners are definitely a minority.


You can't really generalise based on the opinion of one single musician. That would be horribly unreliable statistics. And maybe most of that music wasn't very good. Mahlerian would ask you exactly what those pieces were. Nobody has claimed that most of atonal music is great or even good. Most of common practice period music doesn't inspire any enthusiasm in me either.

And whatever the facts of the matter, you need to keep in mind that orchestras, like concert audiences, consist largely of people who grew up with common practice period music. Most people dont' seem to be able to transcend their early childhood influences and how they shaped their synaptic connections and whatnot. Just as they don't like dodecaphonic and avant-garde music, they also don't much appreciate Renaissance or Medieval music. I think every time people bring up any presumed lack of popularity of atonal music among musicians, they should be reminded that Renaissance music isn't exactly popular either.

The status of atonal music in conservatories in the 1970s, the pressure to compose nothing but atonal music, if it truly existed and wherever it did exist, isn't excusable. But the idea that atonal music can't be great and that people who seem to enjoy it greatly are only faking it in some manner or enjoying it due to extra-musical factors, this idea is even worse and more tyrannical. It's an idea that doesn't merely invalidate a type of music within certain temporal bounds, but seeks to invalidate it in all forms and for all time. People who try to do this, give us a break, eh? Not everyone shares your distaste for this music.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> There are many really interesting posts here, to which I will respond more fully this evening.
> 
> For now - it occurs to me that the defensiveness noted by Sandow infects discussions of popularity as well.
> 
> ...


The popularity that interests me isn't the popularity among all six billion humans. It's the popularity among trained classical musicians, and this popularity or lack of is simply something we don't have good statistics for.


----------



## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> As in all things, though, there are those enthusiasts who do seem to derive genuine enjoyment from these musics; much of it I suspect the pride in being _avant garde_, knowledgeable, progressive, and linked in a brotherhood/sisterhood of shared tastes.


This old chestnut again? Never met a modernism-liker who does it for those reasons, but plenty of classical-likers at large (just go to the opera or symphony hall - or even worse look at the taste superiority the conservative listeners show on here! Oh boy!). This can be put to bed now, I think

Or maybe people who appreciate modernism are just smarter and y'all are jealous. Yeah, I went there


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I _do_ think sometimes people take "pride in being avant garde, knowledgeable, progressive, and linked in a brotherhood/sisterhood of shared tastes," and I don't think this is admirable - but that's not their original reason for enjoying the music.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Is this a great subject or what!?!? I think the various responses show that several things can be correct at the same time.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Fugue Meister said:


> When I put on any pre-20th century music no one protests, however if a track by Schoenberg, Webern, Xenakis, or Boulez happens to come on, invariably the response from my guests is "What is this noise?", or "Can we please skip this, it's getting on my nerves..", or the dreaded "Can't we listen to some real music?", (by which they mean the inferior contemporary).


Does this prove something about all atonal music or does it prove something about the sub-section of atonal music that they perceive as "violent" or "busy chaotic" music (for lack of better words)? Because I've done some of this experimentation myself, and the pattern I've noticed is that the average pop listener finds violent music irritating but doesn't mind atonal music when it's a placid slow movement section, regardless of the complexity of the texture.

So I would say you haven't conducted your expriments properly. What they really prove is nothing at all about atonal music, but about violent and perhaps chaotic music.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> There are many really interesting posts here, to which I will respond more fully this evening.
> 
> For now - it occurs to me that the defensiveness noted by Sandow infects discussions of popularity as well.
> 
> ...


What others argue and I know for a fact is wrong is not that modernist music has a low level of popularity compared to much other classical music (which itself has a low level of popularity compared to everything else), but rather that:

A) It is *only* enjoyed by an "elite," whether comprised of fellow composers, academics, critics, or some combination of the three, to the exclusion of "average" music lovers

and/or

B) It is never or rarely performed (true in comparison to the handful of most popular composers, absolutely false in relation to the majority of music that has been written)

and/or

C) It is not "really" enjoyed by anyone at all, or if so, merely on an "intellectual level" which is clearly separate from enjoyment of other music


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Chordalrock said:


> The popularity that interests me isn't the popularity among all six billion humans. It's the popularity among trained classical musicians, and this popularity or lack of is simply something we don't have good statistics for.


This attitude interests me. Let's say we had good statistics about the popularity of atonal/modernist/difficult music among trained classical musicians. What would we then do with this information? What if one's very favorite atonal, etc. composer (or any sort of favorite composer) was held in low esteem by an accurate poll of such musicians? Does one then repudiate one's own tastes, one's own past listening history? My own position is to feel secure enough in the primacy of one's own judgment so as to render the opinions of others, including "experts", as icing on the cake if they agree, and as certain proof of idiocy--irrelevance at the least--if they fail to grasp the excellence of one's enthusiasms. This is not to say that the listening suggestions of others are to be ignored or scorned; it's just that we either believe in the principle of _De gustibus_, or we don't.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

I vote for Ztonal, who needs tonal hierarchies anyway. 

Tonal-somonal, time to move on............


----------



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> This attitude interests me. Let's say we had good statistics about the popularity of atonal/modernist/difficult music among trained classical musicians. What would we then do with this information? What if one's very favorite atonal, etc. composer (or any sort of favorite composer) was held in low esteem by an accurate poll of such musicians? Does one then repudiate one's own tastes, one's own past listening history? My own position is to feel secure enough in the primacy of one's own judgment so as to render the opinions of others, including "experts", as icing on the cake if they agree, and as certain proof of idiocy--irrelevance at the least--if they fail to grasp the excellence of one's enthusiasms. This is not to say that the listening suggestions of others are to be ignored or scorned; it's just that we either believe in the principle of _De gustibus_, or we don't.


I think the problem is that a lot of people believe in _De gustibus_ only when it suits them.
The way I understand it is:
If a composer you dislike is held in low esteem by experts, or a composer you love is held in high esteem, this confirms your excellent taste (ie, "proves you right").
If a composer you love is held in low esteem by experts, or a composer you dislike is held in high esteem, this just goes to show how wrong the experts can be.


----------



## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> I think the problem is that a lot of people believe in _De gustibus_ only when it suits them.
> The way I understand it is:
> If a composer you dislike is held in low esteem by experts, or a composer you love is held in high esteem, this confirms your excellent taste (ie, "proves you right").
> If a composer you love is held in low esteem by experts, or a composer you dislike is held in high esteem, this just goes to show how wrong the experts can be.


It is nice when I like a composer and I am also supposed to like that composer.
To like a composer and hearing that I should not like the composer is a bit disappointing.


----------



## Guest (Jan 6, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Lewis Carroll: How is a raven like a writing desk?





EdwardBast said:


> Nice analysis of the logic. I wonder why it has gone unanswered?


If the riddle is a summary of the unanswered question, note that Carroll did provide an answer - to the riddle, at any rate.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> This attitude interests me. Let's say we had good statistics about the popularity of atonal/modernist/difficult music among trained classical musicians. What would we then do with this information? What if one's very favorite atonal, etc. composer (or any sort of favorite composer) was held in low esteem by an accurate poll of such musicians? Does one then repudiate one's own tastes, one's own past listening history? My own position is to feel secure enough in the primacy of one's own judgment so as to render the opinions of others, including "experts", as icing on the cake if they agree, and as certain proof of idiocy--irrelevance at the least--if they fail to grasp the excellence of one's enthusiasms. This is not to say that the listening suggestions of others are to be ignored or scorned; it's just that we either believe in the principle of _De gustibus_, or we don't.


To some extent, I agree. If you truly love something, then you don't really need anybody's opinion on the issue, you probably don't even want it.

Things are a little different when we're talking about things one doesn't like, because there's always the possibility that one could learn to like it or learn to love it if one put in the necessary effort. I've done this many times. My life would be much poorer if I never tried to modify my initial perceptions of a piece of music. This is where experts and things like consensus come in, as potential guides.

Of course, if I only knew that the vast majority of musicians loved or hated something, that wouldn't be terribly interesting on its own. I'd also like to have some idea of what kind of music they were hearing as a baby, and what kind of music they grew up with later. I might also like to know something a little more about them, like what kind of people they are intellectually and otherwise, and in what manner they listen to music and how much they put effort into acquiring new tastes. But this civilisation isn't interested in music, on the whole, so we'll never learn this stuff.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Four composers who have been trashed by critics (one assumes a certain minimum of musical knowledge) in books specifically written in the 20th century as compendia of Who is Good/Who is Bad: Brahms, Bruch (left out entirely), Sibelius, Rachmaninoff. One lesson that could be drawn: working one's way through broadly-based popularity contest lists of "favorite works" is often far more productive than following the urgings of individuals (friends, critics) to "keep trying" composer X, especially if you have tried composer X diligently and never yet found much worth rehearing. It is often truer than not, in my case anyway, that the collective judgment of the great, sweaty, heterogeneous crowd very often corresponds with my own. This is not to overturn _De gustibus_, but merely to offer a path forward.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> I think the problem is that a lot of people believe in _De gustibus_ only when it suits them.
> The way I understand it is:
> If a composer you dislike is held in low esteem by experts, or a composer you love is held in high esteem, this confirms your excellent taste (ie, "proves you right").
> If a composer you love is held in low esteem by experts, or a composer you dislike is held in high esteem, this just goes to show how wrong the experts can be.


The first of Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws...
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
---substitute expert for elderly scientist

The unofficial 4th Clarke Law...
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert

Expert [def'n]: A portmanteau word derived from 'ex' - a has-been, and 'spurt' - a drip under pressure. Hence expert: A has-been drip under pessure.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I liked the post, but I cannot universally endorse the unofficial 4th law: in the specific cases of evolution and of anthropogenic global warming, the experts overwhelmingly outnumber the "experts".


----------

