# How did you get into Atonalism/Serialism?



## Sol Invictus (Sep 17, 2016)

Schoenberg String Quartets and Pierrot Lunaire for me.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

With some difficulty. But I suspect it adds to the appreciation of it more than without a struggle. Berg's violin concerto, although I've heard it is somewhat tonal.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Simple. _Curiosity!_ If you listen with a sense of deep curiosity, there's not the desire to change the music into something it's not and it's like breathing the air of an entirely different universe, starting with Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, whose works were very much exploring the unconscious and in some instances the abnormal (though not always), such as _Erwartung,_ which is full of anxiety and apprehension:

_A woman is in an apprehensive state as she searches for her lover. In the darkness, she comes across what she first thinks is a body, but then realizes is a tree-trunk. She is frightened and becomes more anxious as she cannot find the man she is looking for. She then finds a dead body, and sees that it is her lover. She calls out for assistance, but there is no response. She tries to revive him, and addresses him as if he were still alive, angrily charging him with being unfaithful to her. She then asks herself what she is to do with her life, as her lover is now dead. Finally, she wanders off alone into the night._

Some of these composers had their own subconscious anxieties too and it came out in their music as a necessary psychological catharsis like Sigmund Freud exploring his client's dreams as a catharsis or to explore their hidden symbolism on his analyst's couch and knowing that such dreams were not always a pretty experience but nevertheless a meaningful one.

These composers were courageous and adventuresome and they have earned their rightful place in music history. They did some of the dirty work of humanity to dig out what was beneath the surface of conventional but sometimes neurotic behavior, the kind of behavior that can make a person sick if certain urges are repressed. They helped bring it out into the open and it becomes part of the expanded vocabulary of sound that's been completely absorbed by the cinema. I believe that more effort should be made in studying them rather than condemning them for supposedly "ruining" music. They didn't-but they expanded it in what I feel was an inevitable and necessary way. If nothing else, one can hear them in small doses to understand them better as the uncompromising pioneers they were. But without a certain degree of _curiosity_, it will probably never become a priority.


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## Weird Heather (Aug 24, 2016)

For me, it happened a long time ago. Although I was already reasonably familiar with classical music, I took a music appreciation class in college to fulfill a general education requirement. The class covered a wide variety of music and introduced me to a number of new things, but serialism stood out from the crowd. Having the system explained in detail helped to make the music more interesting to me and made it more accessible. Webern's Symphony is the first serial composition that captured my attention, and it is still among my favorites.

Berg's Violin Concerto, which I discovered somewhat later, is also a favorite. It certainly sounds somewhat tonal. Leonard Bernstein explains the situation well in one of his Norton Lectures: Berg's tone row consists of alternating minor and major triads, and then a tritone. The tone row, therefore, includes a nod to tonality.

Incidentally, Scott Bradley, who composed the scores for the MGM Tom & Jerry cartoons in the 1940s and 1950s occasionally used Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique in the music for these cartoons. I just watched "Puttin' on the Dog" (1944); there is a brief passage in the music that clearly deviates from tonality. I wonder if Schoenberg was aware of Bradley's use of his technique.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Slowly and as a natural historical process. I absorbed Mahler, Schreker, Zemlinsky and then naturally went to Schoenberg. Verklarte Nacht, Gurrelieded, and best of all, Pelleas und Melisande. Then onto the piano concerto and other atonal orchestral works. The violin concerto haunted me for days. Then when I realized that wasn't so bad, actually quite effective and beautiful, onto Berg and Webern. The latter I still don't care for much, but Berg's Wozzeck was a stunner and still shocks me - so exciting and horrifying. From there, other atonalists were somewhat easy to enjoy. My favorite symphonist of that school is Humphrey Searle. Some modernists I can't stand - they didn't write music, they did math: Carter, Babbitt...junk. Ligeti is terrific and I like Xenakis, too. The absolute worst atonal work I own a copy of is the dreadful Symphony no. 2 by Arthur Schnabel.


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## St Matthew (Aug 26, 2017)

This is the same question of "how did you get into classical music?" for me:

Loved The Rite Of Spring
Heard Xenakis, loved it even more
Heard Stockhausen, loved it also
Heard Messiaen, felt good
Heard Grisey, same as all the rest: loved it
Then got into all of the older classics like Brahms, Bach, Wagner and Haydn etc


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I did once have an LP of modern string music played by I Solisti Zagreb that had one or two Webern pieces that really blew my mind. After that I probably went safe - to Berg (a couple of the Abbado records) - before eventually coming to Schoenberg (maybe the violin concerto and the quartets). After that I was quite comfortable buying atonal music and explored it along with my more tonal explorations without making much distinction. This may sound stupid but the distinction between the two was more something that I became more "aware" of when I started viewing classical discussion boards like this one. It seemed to matter a lot to some people. I don't tend to think very much about what the music is doing technically when I listen.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Berg' violin concerto opened the gate for me. Since then I don;t have a clear preference for tonal versus atonal (or however you want to describe it), as long as the music appeals to me. I can easily switch (like this morning) from Scheidemann's organ works to Henze's chamber music.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

The Second Viennese School are a natural progression on from Mahler, so I was told, so that's how I moved on to them.

Only recently rediscovering some of these works, mainly Schoenberg. Oddly I find him more accessible in his big-scale works, love Moses und Aron especially, there are few more personal operas out there!


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

It was easier to try smaller pieces such as the soundtrack to the 1971 film "Planet Of The Apes" (or just watch and listen to the opening sequence), the Ligeti pieces in the score for "2001 A Space Odyssey" and then onto smaller compositions like Webern's Five Orchestral Works and his Symphony Op. 21 and Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra. None of these are more than 8-10 minutes' duration.

Once I had a better understanding of the idiom I could go onto lengthier works like Schoenberg's Wind Quintet and Berg's Chamber Concerto f0r Piano, Violin and 13 Instruments, which I think is probably the apex of 12 tone works. I don't consider Berg's Violin Concerto a serial work; too much tunefulness.

Under Schoenberg's ideas every note in the 12 tone scale must be played before one is repeated in serialism. Because of this, there is never melody. Melodies almost always repeat the same note every second, third or fourth beat.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I was fortunate enough to be on a classical music discussion forum with the cellist from the Artis Quartett. I asked about Anton Webern, and he had just recorded Webern's string music. That was my first real exposure, and he helped me to dive in.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I am in my early seventies and I did not get atonal music until I was in my fifties. I always was a fan of Berg but beyond that nothing.

Then I read an interesting review. The author stated that one of the problems with atonal music is that it is difficult to perform. I remember a quote by Schoenberg that his music was not modern it was just badly played. The author of the review stated that to understand atonal music one should start with string quartets. The members of such groups live with the music for weeks preparing it. A symphony orchestra may only spend a few days rehearsing a work before they perform it. So I started with the string quartets of Carter and I was hooked.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

One of the problems with discussions like this is that those of us who appreciate atonal music unintentionally come across as elitist. Most of us realize that this music is different and many may never get it no matter how much they try. It is just a matter of taste. Just because we get it does not mean that our ears are superior to others. 

And prior to participating in this forum I thought the music of Cage was junk. Listening to members grouse about Cage actually introduced me to some music of Cage that I enjoy. I now consider Cage to be a great composer.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Boulez's _Le marteau sans maître_ was my starting point. At first it was mostly the orchestration that I found (and still find) mesmerizing. The work's serial structure was of only minor interest to me until later, when I encountered some fascinating commentaries on the work connecting the music's structural features to existentialist philosophy and the general state of desolation of the postwar era. Then my interest in serialism really shot up. I'm fairly certain Boulez himself would not have sanctioned this interpretation, but I'm not bothered much about having composers' permission when it comes to interpretation. I've also been told (i.e. accused) by purists that I'm responding more to ideas about the music than the music itself, but I've come to care even less about that distinction.

From there, I worked my way backwards to the Second Viennese School. For the longest time (and in spite of my username!), Schoenberg was the hardest sell for me, and in many ways I still find his music the least interesting of the bunch. I did find, however, that his music, and in particular the works for piano, is much more compelling in live performance than in recordings.


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## Weird Heather (Aug 24, 2016)

arpeggio said:


> One of the problems with discussions like this is that those of us who appreciate atonal music unintentionally come across as elitist. Most of us realize that this music is different and many may never get it no matter how much they try. It is just a matter of taste. Just because we get it does not mean that our ears are superior to others.


You make an excellent point. Unfortunately, discussions of this sort of music sometimes devolve into nasty arguments. The music is definitely an acquired taste; some of us acquire it rapidly (as I did, thanks to Webern), while some acquire it slowly and others never acquire it. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with any of these positions. I also enjoy the contemporary tonal music that can be seen as a continuation of Romanticism or a reaction against atonality. There is a place in the world for all styles of music.

I have found much of the post-World War II atonal music more difficult, although I liked some of John Cage's work from the moment I heard it. Stockhausen and Boulez took a bit longer, but when I'm in the right mood, I like to listen to their music.

Every now and then, I run into someone who is interesting in exploring this difficult music, and I have always struggled with recommendations for getting started. Is it best to progress chronologically through the major works of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern to see how their atonality developed over time? Or is it better to jump right in, perhaps using a more accessible piece such as Berg's Violin Concerto? Or maybe start from some interesting post-World War II music and work backward in time as Eschbeg did? Or watch some Tom & Jerry cartoons and listen for atonal passages in Scott Bradley's scores, proving that atonal music doesn't have to be deadly serious and elitist? The experiences people are recounting in this thread might help others who are just getting started.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

it seems to me that many replies here are putting together the second viennese school and the Darmstadt school, which are two very different things no matter the role played in both cases by dodecaphony. In my personal experience it is not difficult to convert a music lover who is alien to 20th century music to the works of Schoenberg (Berg is even easier) - Darmstadt is the real breaking ball which puts the "conservative" listener off balance.
As for me, it has been a slow process, there was a lot of music in my family, but the clock stopped well before the second viennese school, in my home the history of music ended with Wagner (and it makes sense, they were people raised in the first half of the century, when wagnerism was king in music practice) so I discovered 20th century music thanks to Kubrick's the shining, from Ligeti and Penderecki, I went backwards and enjoyed the ride.
The funny thing about dodecaphony/darmstadt/whatever is that some of this music - and certainly many oh his techniques - have been successfully employed in films, I don't understand why it is so widely recognized as effective in that realm and not in its proper territory.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

larold said:


> I don't consider Berg's Violin Concerto a serial work; too much tunefulness.
> 
> Under Schoenberg's ideas every note in the 12 tone scale must be played before one is repeated in serialism. Because of this, there is never melody. Melodies almost always repeat the same note every second, third or fourth beat.


The ban on repeating notes is something Schoenberg and other serial composers don't adhere to in practice. The idea behind it was to prevent suggestions of tonality from arising, and the tone row on which a piece is based does have this restriction built in. But a tone row is not intended to be a melody.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I knew that at some point in this thread I would need a glossary! I know we have had such things before but the terms just don't stick in my mind. I am fairly clear what tonal means, I think! But I am not even sure what music cannot be called tonal. Was there anything before tonal music? Is Bartok tonal? Stupid of me not to know but I sense that his music is not fully tonal. Is atonal music always serialist music? Or have there been other approaches to managing a lack of tonality? What is dodecaphony and how would I recognise it? I understand Madiel to be saying that some (/all) of the Darmstadt composers practiced dodecaphony but I wonder whether they were the only ones? And there are so many other terms - some of which might be sub-categories of terms I have already mentioned. I think I said earlier that I don't really think about what a composer is doing musically - no, not even Beethoven - and am mainly concerned by what the resulting music (however it is achieved) does for me. But I would like to understand a bit more about all these terms that we bandy about actually mean and how they relate to each other. It might make it easier to talk (and listen) about.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> The funny thing about dodecaphony/darmstadt/whatever is that some of this music - and certainly many oh his techniques - have been successfully employed in films, I don't understand why it is so widely recognized as effective in that realm and not in its proper territory.


I think the answer to your question lies in the term "effective." Film music is written to have a specific expressive effect in relation to the action. Regardless of its style, its effect heard in isolation may be very different, and much less pleasurable. But noticing its use in film might be a way into appreciating it for some people.


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## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

Webern's piano variations were my gateway to the world of atonal music. I remember feeling absolutely mesmerized by the music, particularly the first two movements. I knew nothing about 12-tone technique, or even who Webern was. Now that I think about it, it must've been the way symmetries could be heard very easily in the first movement, creating a kind of mirror-melody.

Around the same time I heard Cage's prepared piano pieces and it coincided with my gamelan fascination, so Cage's work made perfect sense immediately. But I only really started listening to his chance music after reading his book _Silence_.


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## Guest (May 31, 2018)

I stuck in a CD, pressed play, and listened to it.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Q: How did you get into Atonalism/Serialism? 

A: I broke in because I didn't have a key.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

In answer to the OP - a surfeit of alcohol I suspect!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Phil loves classical said:


> With some difficulty. But I suspect it adds to the appreciation of it more than without a struggle. Berg's violin concerto, although I've heard it is somewhat tonal.


Phil, your Mozart quote should be more correctly attributed to Peter Shaffer who wrote the play Amadeus from which that quote comes!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I never got into atonality or serialism. I just happen to like many works for which those seem to be the preferred terms. I tend to hear clear tonal organization in many works others describe as atonal.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Some years ago I stopped at a light and the guy standing at the crosswalk said 

"Hey man, what the **** are you listening to?" 
"Penderecki." 
"Cool." 

I recall being pretty proud of the interaction. 

Not sure if what I was listening to was atonal, but it was definitely noisy.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Works for me in so many ways
a) I like it
b) keeps neighbours away
c) has nothing to do with the TV show neighbours


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> Was there anything before tonal music?


The concept of tonality as we understand it was first theorized in the 1700s (though, even then, the word "tonality" itself was not coined until a century later), so in that sense, yes, there had already been several hundred years of music before "tonal music" was codified into a theoretical concept. Whether we can retroactively apply the concept of tonality to music before the 1700s is going to be debatable from case to case. It works better for some composers over others: calling Corelli "tonal" seems pretty harmlessly acceptable, Pérotin less so. Someone like Palestrina is somewhere in the middle: he uses things we recognize as features of tonality--triads, etc.--but he was not beholden to the concept of "keys," which is why much of his music ends on what we would hear as the "wrong" chord.

Whatever the case, it would be a mistake to think of tonality too rigidly as a "system," despite the unfortunate ubiquity today of terms like "the tonal system." Tonality is about as much a system as "representation" is a "system" of visual art, which is to say not much at all. It is telling, actually, that the term "tonal system" didn't come into common usage until atonality was invented. The terms were defined in opposition to each other. No one thought of tonality as a "system" until something came along that was trying to be the opposite of it. It's exactly the same phenomenon as "absolute music / program music" or "Classical / Romantic": in each case, the former terms were invented at the same time as the latter terms, for the explicit purpose of being opposites of each other.



Enthusiast said:


> Is Bartok tonal?


Like just about every composer of his generation, he experimented with tonality. Some of his works are straightforwardly tonal. Other works retain features of tonality (tone centers, triadic harmony) while deviating from it in other ways (conventions of resolution, large-scale harmonic schemes). Still other works establish tone centers through non-traditional means; whether those works count as "tonal" or not is an interesting but largely fruitless debate. Bartok himself never described nor desired for any of his works to be fully atonal.



Enthusiast said:


> Is atonal music always serialist music?


No. Serialism is merely a compositional tool. There is no requirement that atonal music make use of that tool.



Enthusiast said:


> Or have there been other approaches to managing a lack of tonality?


There have, yes, including not having any "management" system at all beyond using whatever harmonies strike the composer's fancy.



Enthusiast said:


> What is dodecaphony and how would I recognise it?


I'm simplifying things here, of course, but dodecaphony is when composer arranges the 12 pitches of the chromatic scale into a specific sequence (i.e. a "tone row"), and then uses that sequence as a rough guide to composing a piece. That last bit is important: dodecaphony is primarily a *pre*-compositional phenomenon. Devising a tone row is not the same thing as composing a piece of music, any more than prepping a palette is the same as painting a picture. It is a common mistake to believe that the "rules" governing a tone row must also govern the piece. For example, each of the 12 pitches appears only once in a tone row, but as a few people have mentioned above this does not mean a pitch cannot be repeated _in the piece_. (This is such a persistent misperception that analysts call it "The Myth of Non-Repetition.") Nor is it even the case that the pitches of a dodecaphonic piece have to appear in the same order as the tone row on which it is based. For his String Quartet, Webern devised a particularly intricate tone row with all kinds of fascinating symmetrical properties, but the piece deliberately alters the order in which the pitches appear: in the second appearance of the tone row, we first hear notes 1-4, then notes 9-12 (backwards, no less), and then notes 5-8. (The reason he does this is to give us a few clues about the tone row's properties.) Finally, a piece that incorporates a tone row is also free to use notes that do not derive from the tone row at all. Again, the tone row is only a guide; composers adhere to it as strictly or as freely as they see fit.

As for how you can recognize a piece as dodecaphonic, the only way to know for sure is to analyze it. Unless the composer deliberately makes a tone row audible in the music (Berg's Violin Concerto is the exemplar here), hearing a tone row in a piece of music is extremely difficult; some of have claimed it to be impossible.



Enthusiast said:


> I understand Madiel to be saying that some (/all) of the Darmstadt composers practiced dodecaphony but I wonder whether they were the only ones?


No, they weren't the only ones. There was a quietly burgeoning serial scene in the U.S. at roughly the same time (actually slightly in advance) as Darmstadt. Also, while Darmstadt composers experimented with serialism, they also did other stuff that wasn't serial.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Was there anything before tonal music?


while Eschbeg has made an admirable though concise effort to reply to your many questions, I'd like to add something here.
Eschbeg has correctly written that when what we now call tonal system emerged, Western Europe had already produced centuries of music, (before tonality came around there had even been someone - Gesualdo da Venosa - who already used what we would later call dissonance and chromaticism) there is no doubt that the emergence of tonality shocked the musical world in the early decades of the 17th century in a manner not much different then the second Viennese school did 400 years later, but the main point I'd like to make here is that when we talk about the tonal system we are indeed talking about modulation - key changes - which gives the ability to tonality to express emotions in a a musical way that everyone of us has learnt to understand, this technique was not there when tonality came around, listen to something by Monteverdi then skip to something by Alessandro Scarlatti (Neapolitan composers are some of the forgotten heroes of the history of music, Riccardo Muti in recent years is trying to raise them from oblivion, too little too late) then come back here and tell me if you cannot hear the difference, I assume that you will find Scarlatti more familiar/natural to your ear.

P.S. I had started writing about the differences between the differences in the use of dodecaphony between the second Viennese school and Darmstadt when I have realized that was gonna be huge, I'll leave it for another day or for another forumer


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> while Eschbeg has made an admirable though concise effort to reply to your many questions, I'd like to add something here.
> Eschbeg has correctly written that when what we now call tonal system emerged, Western Europe had already produced centuries of music, (before tonality came around there had even been someone - Gesualdo da Venosa - who already used what we would later call dissonance and chromaticism) *there is no doubt that the emergence of tonality shocked the musical world in the early decades of the 17th century in a manner not much different then the second Viennese school did 400 years later...*


Can you provide some documentary support for this statement? I think it's incorrect. Tonality of the sort we call "common practice," with its hierarchy of tonal areas and its major and minor modes, evolved; and over the centuries of that evolution, tonality - in the larger sense of the hierarchical organization of the tones of a scale around a central tone - was always present in some form. Common practice tonality is merely a harmonic elaboration of that basic and virtually universal principle of musical organization, and it didn't appear and shock people in 1600 or at any other specific time. It's origin, effect and reception were not at all comparable to what Schoenberg and friends brought about in 1920.

Dispensing with hierarchy and tone-centricity - purposefully denying the listener's tonal expectations - is a challenge to a fundamental principle of musical perception not comparable to any prior development in Western music except, to a degree, Debussy's use of the whole-tone scale (but even he rarely loses a sense of tonal orientation, and is generally distinctly tonal).


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Perhaps in other words to the above, the changes that occurred in the 17th century were a natural progression. Those that occurred in the early 20th century weren't.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Perhaps in other words to the above, the changes that occurred in the 17th century were a natural progression. Those that occurred in the early 20th century weren't.


A friendly warning: you're going to get some blowback over that word "natural." Many will argue that the extreme chromaticism of late German Romanticism (Wagner and after) resulted in such tonal ambiguity that the abandonment of a tonal center was a "natural" and inevitable next step.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Before coming to TC I thought I had a reasonable sense of what atonal music was. Since coming here, I've come to realize that my earlier understanding of atonal music was only modestly related to how musicologists view it. I think it's also true that most classical music listeners (including myself) are not able to distinguish atonal from tonal music.

I've significantly changed my view of modern/contemporary music in the past 5 years or so. Previously I would think of some music as atonal and wonder why it seemed so hard to enjoy. Now I simply view Baroque music as sounding different from Classical, Classical as sounding different from Romantic, and Modern as sounding different from Romantic. Whether a work is atonal or not does not really enter my mind. 

Having said that, I think the first 12 tone (and possibly atonal) work that I came to love is Berg's Violin Concerto.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

DaveM said:


> Perhaps in other words to the above, the changes that occurred in the 17th century were a natural progression. Those that occurred in the early 20th century weren't.


I hope this isn't viewed as "blowback", but could you give us a better sense of what you mean by natural? I strongly believe that the transition from Romantic to Modern was and is harder for listeners to follow/accept/understand/enjoy than other previous transitions, such as those in the 17th century, but I don't really view either as natural.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Can you provide some documentary support for this statement? I think it's incorrect.


Just checked rapidly: Aaron Copland said that, what to listen for in music, chapter about harmony. 
And I am sure that I have read similar statements in other books too.
In a way I don't know how much Copland is correct using the term "shock" (and btw my memory betrayed me: Copland's comparison in terms of shock in their respective times was not Monteverdi and the second Viennese school but Monteverdi and Wagner and Mussorgsky) in the passage from "renaissance" to "baroque" music, "shock" has much to do with the media industry, which we could consider non-existent when we compare the early 17th century to the late 19th century - nonetheless we know for sure thanks to his letters that Monteverdi was involved in vigorous polemics to defend his innovations; say goodbye to polyphony and welcome to homophony. In the end I believe the proof is in the hearing: take a madrigale by Luzzaschi, then take one - especially the later ones - by Monteverdi and tell me if they aren't different worlds.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> We know for sure thanks to his letters that Monteverdi was involved in vigorous polemics to defend his innovations; *say goodbye to polyphony and welcome to homophony. *In the end I believe the proof is in the hearing: *take a madrigale by Luzzaschi, then take one - especially the later ones - by Monteverdi and tell me if they aren't different worlds.*


Hardly different worlds. In fact, they are not different at all with respect to tonality, which is what we're discussing. Now if we want to talk about polyphony versus homophony - that's a different subject.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I am concerned that this thread may be highjacked by those who want to debate the pros and cons of atonal music. There are other threads where one can go do that.

I have gone back and found some of them like the ancient: https://www.talkclassical.com/2446-atonal-music.html?highlight=atonal

I also found some polls which show most members enjoy atonal music.

I found one thread that was closed down: https://www.talkclassical.com/38985-do-you-like-atonal.html?highlight=atonal

There are probably many others if one take the time to do a through search.

It is interesting that the above thread contains many fine entries by former members who were never driven out of Talk Classical.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

DaveM said:


> Perhaps in other words to the above, the changes that occurred in the 17th century were a natural progression. Those that occurred in the early 20th century weren't.


I would agree with this statement. i'd say the changes with dodecaphony (and other forms of serialism) were not natural, but were logical. Free atonalism like Schoenberg's or Webern's 5 (or was it 6?) pieces for orchestra feel a more natural progression for me.

Serialism has a more strict "thinking/hearing outside of the box" mentality in my view.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> I knew that at some point in this thread I would need a glossary! I know we have had such things before but the terms just don't stick in my mind. I am fairly clear what tonal means, I think! But I am not even sure what music cannot be called tonal. Was there anything before tonal music? Is Bartok tonal? Stupid of me not to know but I sense that his music is not fully tonal. Is atonal music always serialist music? Or have there been other approaches to managing a lack of tonality? What is dodecaphony and how would I recognise it? I understand Madiel to be saying that some (/all) of the Darmstadt composers practiced dodecaphony but I wonder whether they were the only ones? And there are so many other terms - some of which might be sub-categories of terms I have already mentioned. I think I said earlier that I don't really think about what a composer is doing musically - no, not even Beethoven - and am mainly concerned by what the resulting music (however it is achieved) does for me. But I would like to understand a bit more about all these terms that we bandy about actually mean and how they relate to each other. It might make it easier to talk (and listen) about.


Way I see it is just like dark is absence of light, atonal is absence of tonal center. There is a lot of music in 20th century that has a tonal center, but is chromatic, dissonant, or have untraditional harmony. Bartok and Prokofiev are those. But different musicologists had different views of Bartok, they couldn't agree on or get his approach from what I've read. Just like when you're in a dark room, most times you eventually see a bit when your eyes adjust, your ears/brain adjusts and may start imagining you are hearing these complex harmonies with a shifting tonal center. I've been listening more to Ades and Chin lately, and felt that is the case. Ades violin concerto is clearly tonal to me.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Hardly different worlds. In fact, they are not different at all with respect to tonality, which is what we're discussing. Now if we want to talk about polyphony versus homophony - that's a different subject.


it is the same subject, horizontal (polyphony) versus vertical (tonality), a melody accompanied by chords is what basically constitutes the peculiarity and novelty of the tonal system, no triads no tonal system, homophony and tonality go hand in hand and they were not part of the musical practice in the 16th century, had not been a novelty I guess we wouldn't have a treaty titled synopsis musicae novae written in the early 16th century about it.
It seems crazy to have to discuss these obvious things, English is not my mother tongue and I am starting to think that I am unable to use it to express my thoughts in a clear way, sorry.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> *it is the same subject, horizontal (polyphony) versus vertical (tonality), a melody accompanied by chords is what basically constitutes the peculiarity and novelty of the tonal system, no triads no tonal system, homophony and tonality go hand in hand* and they were not part of the musical practice in the 16th century, had not been a novelty I guess we wouldn't have a treaty titled synopsis musicae novae written in the early 16th century about it.
> It seems crazy to have to discuss these obvious things, English is not my mother tongue and I am starting to think that I am unable to use it to express my thoughts in a clear way, sorry.


I suspect you're trying to define "tonality" too narrowly. To confine it to homophonic music makes no sense at all. A polyphonic mass by Monteverdi is neither more nor less tonal than an accompanied recitative in one of his operas, and the harmony in both is basically triadic. What the shift from polyphony to homophony did was encourage composers to explore harmony for its own sake and thus enrich the tonal vocabulary, a process facilitated later by systems of temperament which allowed for easy modulation. Of course people then found it convenient integrate chromatic harmony with polyphony.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I suspect you're trying to define "tonality" too narrowly.


I guess this could be the explanation of our disagreement, you find too narrow my understanding of tonality, I find your definition too comprehensive and in total discord with everything I have studied and understood about it, so now it is my turn to ask for some reference supporting your point of view


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> I hope this isn't viewed as "blowback", but could you give us a better sense of what you mean by natural? I strongly believe that the transition from Romantic to Modern was and is harder for listeners to follow/accept/understand/enjoy than other previous transitions, such as those in the 17th century, but I don't really view either as natural.


Well I stepped into it didn't I. 

But seriously,

The problem can be the application of the word 'natural' which has countless synonyms. Perhaps close to my use of the term is 'inborn, innate, in one's blood, instinctive, intuitive'

My premise is that the transition of music that occurred into the 17th century was in a direction that was increasingly more pleasing, or perhaps more comforting to the common man/woman as consonance became more the norm. After all, something has to explain the explosion that resulted in classical music in the 18th century and beyond. This was likely one of the more important reasons. Perhaps some quotes will explain this better than I can:

_'Boethius (6th century) characterizes consonance by its sweetness, dissonance by its harshness.'

'Dissonance has been understood and heard differently in different musical traditions, cultures, styles, and time periods. Relaxation and tension [ie consonance vs. dissonance] have been used as analogy since the time of Aristotle till the present'_
_
'Western musical history can be seen as progressing from a limited definition of consonance to an ever-wider definition of consonance.'_

Now we come to the introduction of the increasing use of dissonance starting in the late 19th century and climaxing with 12-tone/serialism/2nd Viennese School music in the 1920s. This was a shock to the system to the listening public. It might be said that this change did not come 'naturally' to the common man/woman. Some other quotes:
_
'The deteriorating relation between contemporary composers and the public led him [Schoenberg] to found the Society for Private Musical Performances in Vienna in 1918.'_

_'Nobody wanted to be, someone had to be, so I let it be me" (Schoenberg 1975, 104) (according to Norman Lebrecht (2001), this is a reference to Schoenberg's apparent "destiny" as the "Emancipator of Dissonance").'_

Also of interest to me is that, in regard to his music, Schoenberg encouraged people to think/listen more analytically which might explain why, for many people, enjoying this music requires a more challenging learning process.

(In response to a post above inferring nefarious intentions of my post: I am explaining what I meant in my one sentence post above (which was in response to another post) which has to do with my premise that the change in classical music in the 20th century was not a 'natural progression' for the listening public -though it may have been anticipated by musicologists- as the change was in the 17th century. This is not meant as a value judgment on music that obviously many people in this thread enjoy. And I don't plan on going there. )


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> I guess this could be the explanation of our disagreement, you find too narrow my understanding of tonality, I find your definition too comprehensive and in total discord with everything I have studied and understood about it, so now it is my turn to ask for some reference supporting your point of view


Tonality has never been defined as the exclusive property of homophonic music. Do you realize what enormous quantities of music would have to be judged atonal if that were the case?

If music is built from the tones of a scale, and those tones are systematically related to a tonal center and are so perceived by the listener, it's tonal music, regardless of its texture (monophonic, polyphonic, homophonic, or heterophonic).


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Tonality has never been defined as the exclusive property of homophonic music. Do you realize what enormous quantities of music would have to be judged atonal if that were the case?
> 
> If music is built from the tones of a scale, and those tones are systematically related to a tonal center and are so perceived by the listener, it's tonal music, regardless of its texture (monophonic, polyphonic, homophonic, or heterophonic).


I ask for reference, I get one more time your unproved opinion, goodbye.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> I ask for reference, I get one more time your unproved opinion, goodbye.


Here (from a variety of sources chosen at random):

T_onality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality.

Tonality is an organized system of tones (e.g., the tones of a major or minor scale) in which one tone (the tonic) becomes the central point for the remaining tones. The other tones in a tonal piece are all defined in terms of their relationship to the tonic. In tonality, the tonic (tonal center) is the tone of complete relaxation and stability, the target toward which other tones lead (Benward & Saker 2003, 36).

The word tonality may describe any systematic organization of pitch phenomena in any music at all, including pre-17th century western music as well as much non-western music.

In a general way, tonality can refer to a wide variety of musical phenomena (harmonies, cadential formulae, harmonic progressions, melodic gestures, formal categories) as arranged or understood in relation to a referential tonic.

The larger portion of the world's folk and art music can be categorized as tonal, as long as the definition is as follows: "Tonal music gives priority to a single tone or tonic. In this kind of music all the constituent tones and resulting tonal relationships are heard and identified relative to their tonic" (Susanni 2012, 66). In this sense, "All harmonic idioms in popular music are tonal, and none is without function."

Tonality, in music, principle of organizing musical compositions around a central note, the tonic. Generally, any Western or non-Western music periodically returning to a central, or focal, tone exhibits tonality.

The organization of all the tones and harmonies of a piece of music in relation to a tonic.

Tonality is a musical concept that explains the relationships between the various pitches that make up a piece of music. When many musical notes are sounded in a piece of music a set hierarchy is formed between the pitches based on the intervals formed between them. One pitch is heard as the strongest or most grounded note - this note is called the tonic. All other notes form an interval with the tonic note that has varying degrees of consonance (stability) and dissonance (instability).
_

Please find me one source that states that tonality has any necessary relation to homophony.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

What determines what we like is our ears and how the music sounds.

It has nothing to do with the definition of tonality in the Frostbite Falls Dictionary of Common Practice Tonality.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> The larger portion of the world's folk and art music *can be categorized as tonal, as long as the definition is as follows: "Tonal music gives priority to a single tone or tonic. In this kind of music all the constituent tones and resulting tonal relationships are heard and identified relative to their tonic"* (Susanni 2012, 66).


When you have said that I had written an incorrect statement and asked how I supported it, I have spent twenty minutes browsing books to provide a precise quote (by the way confirming the correctness of what I had written) - the reason I've asked to do the same was that I am curious and so willing to expand my knowledge. But you have come up with a series of generic quotes about tonality that say nothing about its history and development in the European music history.

The funny thing is that you have included a quote that proves my point, too much in a hurry copying and pasting from wikiwhatever to realize it?


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Please keep to the topic of "How did you get into Atonalism / Serialism."

Please do not post remarks about other forum members or their posting style in the thread. You are reminded that if you think a post is offensive it should be reported using the 'Report' function - it should not be the subject of posts within the thread itself.

I'll also just remind newer members that you may not post about putting other named members on 'ignore' in the thread.

Otherwise, have a nice day.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> When you have said that I had written an incorrect statement and asked how I supported it, I have spent twenty minutes browsing books to provide a precise quote (by the way confirming the correctness of what I had written) - the reason I've asked to do the same was that I am curious and so willing to expand my knowledge. But you have come up with a series of generic quotes about tonality that say nothing about its history and development in the European music history.
> 
> The funny thing is that you have included a quote that proves my point, too much in a hurry copying and pasting from wikiwhatever to realize it?


The phrase, "as long as the definition is as follows," is followed by the standard generic definition of tonality (which of course can be differently phrased without changing its meaning), and all the quotes I offered refer to that definition. "Tonality" can more narrowly refer to Western, "common practice" tonality, as it evolved in Europe and reached its final stage of development in the period between the 1600s and the 1800s. Not even this more specific form of tonality, however, has homophony as a necessary or defining feature. That is the point of contention, the point on which I challenged your statement.

The historical connection between tonality and the move toward homophonic textures in the 17th-century lies, not in homophony making tonality possible, but in the new ease with which harmony could be explored and exploited as a structural and expressive element free from the traditional constraints of counterpoint. Tonal hierarchies were identified in theory in the Baroque era, but tonic, dominant, subdominant, mediant and submediant relationships were already conspicuous in polyphonic music. More equal temperament of scales allowed for these relationships to be expressed through freedom of modulation on instruments previously incapable of it (voices had always been capable of free modulation, hence the startling chromaticism of the Italian madrigalists). The tonal system was thus enriched, but this is not to be understood as the invention or emergence of the tonal principle, which had always existed beneath the gradual development of the common practice harmonic system.

That's as succinctly as I can state my understanding of the matter.


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Some of Olivier Messiaen works and Schoenberg Webern and espacially Berg.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

TurnaboutVox said:


> I'll also just remind newer members that you may not post about putting other named members on 'ignore' in the thread.


I did not know that. Thanks for the heads up.

Follow-up: The Forum may need to update the TOS. I went through and I could not find that rule.


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

I will say how I was able to appreciate it. I don't listen to these works like I would a tonal piece. I basically stumbled across this by accident. 

What I do is to listen to each note individually. I started as minimal as possible so my focus would could hear as minimal as possible when listening. Then, I kind of have to train my ears NOT to anticipate what the next note will be. i.e. my ears "receive" the next note without any anticipation of that note. 

I think that when listening to "regular" music our ears tend to anticipate notes. But in atonal, I have found that if I do that it sounds like noise. If I listen to the note by receiving and not anticipating I will enjoy it. Another vital part is "focusing". As I receive the notes I am completely focused on the note. For myself, I usually have to listen to a piece this way about 3 times before I feel like I "get it". Then, the more times I listen the more I like it.

Of course, like anything else, some I never like. Also, some I never "get". A lot of the contemporary music falls into this category. I DO like Ligeti, and a few others. But mostly I'm referring to Modern music in this post.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

haydnguy said:


> I will say how I was able to appreciate it. I don't listen to these works like I would a tonal piece. I basically stumbled across this by accident.
> 
> What I do is to listen to each note individually. I started as minimal as possible so my focus would could hear as minimal as possible when listening. Then, I kind of have to train my ears NOT to anticipate what the next note will be. i.e. my ears "receive" the next note without any anticipation of that note.
> 
> ...


I am not sure about your method: it makes good sense but might require more patience than I have. But I certainly do strongly agree that you have to listen to different musics differently. What you get from them is different. Sometimes with atonal music there are similarities with the tonal music of the past or that was more familiar to me - perhaps in the structure - and this can help. But sometimes that is lacking, too.

Personally, I like to feel the whole before I get to the details of the narrative. I think I do often need a sense that there is a narrative but that is probably a prejudice and maybe one that I will some day overcome. I have learned too many times that music and composers who I think I don't like can suddenly become very rewarding to me. Conversely, composers who seem to be mostly recycling too much of the past usually end up boring me.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

arpeggio said:


> One of the problems with discussions like this is that those of us who appreciate atonal music unintentionally come across as elitist. Most of us realize that this music is different and many may never get it no matter how much they try. It is just a matter of taste. Just because we get it does not mean that our ears are superior to others.
> 
> And prior to participating in this forum I thought the music of Cage was junk. Listening to members grouse about Cage actually introduced me to some music of Cage that I enjoy. I now consider Cage to be a great composer.


I've been searching for this post because it worried me! Do people here really read others trying to share their views and loves as showing off or being elitist?

When I read this it felt that it might be true but then I started thinking what would be the point of a forum where people think that (or where people just try to show how clever or refined they are)? I wondered what I think about people who like different music to me and whether I am guilty of the same sort of dismissiveness. And it is true I am sometimes a little put off by claims of _neglected _masterpieces. But I don't think I am dismissive of their authors. I know the joyful feeling of discovering something that is not as well known as it could be.

But it is certainly true that I am more interested in finding people who share my loves. I guess that is why I come here. And, yes, I do seek insights that can help me broaden my own enjoyments. So far, though, my feelings about Cage are relatively unenthusiastic. I don't hate him but I don't love him either!


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

My gateway into Atonalism/Serialism (and all other mid 20th century and contemporary classical) was avant-garde prog rock. These are bands whose main influences are taken from mid century classical composers. 

Bands like: Henry Cow, Thinking Plague, Aranis, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, Motor Totemist Guild, 5UUs, etc.

My ear was already primed for atonality, serialism, dissonance from these bands, so, the classical composers these bands were influenced by, were just a natural extension of what I was already listening to.

Progarchives has this description on their site:

Avant-prog is generally considered to be more extreme and 'difficult' than other forms of progressive rock, though these terms are naturally subjective and open to interpretation. Common elements that may or may not be displayed by specific avant-prog artists include:

- Regular use of dissonance and atonality.
- Extremely complex and unpredictable song arrangements.
- Free or experimental improvisation.
- Fusion of disparate musical genres.
- Polyrhythms and highly complex time signatures.


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## St Matthew (Aug 26, 2017)

Simon Moon said:


> My gateway into Atonalism/Serialism (and all other mid 20th century and contemporary classical) was avant-garde prog rock. These are bands whose main influences are taken from mid century classical composers.
> 
> Bands like: Henry Cow, Thinking Plague, Aranis, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, Motor Totemist Guild, 5UUs, etc.
> 
> ...


You are officially my best friend now Mr Dobbs


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Not quite sure if I could say this work got me into this broad genre... but the first work I enjoyed and still do a lot is Webern’s 5 pieces for orchestra op 10. I find this to be very approachable, not at all dissonant. Indeed, it’s a lovely little work. But I can’t say it upended the floodgates. ( Bergs violin concerto only half applies..?)


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

juliante said:


> Not quite sure if I could say this work got me into this broad genre... but the first work I enjoyed and still do a lot is Webern's 5 pieces for orchestra op 10. I find this to be very approachable, not at all dissonant. Indeed, it's a lovely little work. But I can't say it upended the floodgates. ( Bergs violin concerto only half applies..?)


It's neither opened nor upended the floodgates


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

St Matthew said:


> You are officially my best friend now Mr Dobbs


:cheers::tiphat::wave:


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## ChrisBrewster (Jul 4, 2014)

This isn't how I started, but I recommend anything (at least, done by someone with good instincts) that somehow makes the music visual. There are ballets of Berg's violin concerto and other modern works. And consider how appropriate some modernist (not 12-tone) music seems in Kubrick's movie "2001"-- I didn't hear audience members muttering "oh my god-- modern music!". It just fit. Unfortunately the movies "Fantasia" and "Allegro non Troppo" (if anyone has seen that) don't include animated versions of 12-tone music.


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## Norman Gunston (Apr 21, 2018)

It is music that uses notes in different orders and instruments that you would find in classical music


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## RogerExcellent (Jun 11, 2018)

Oh I was wondering, do they do Operas like that?


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## Norman Gunston (Apr 21, 2018)

RogerExcellent said:


> Oh I was wondering, do they do Operas like that?


It depends, one generally expects the variety of fun and exciting composer types (compared to melodramatic and dull academic) in this day and age. It depends on ones tastes.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I didn't! There are somethings you just don't get into!


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## RogerExcellent (Jun 11, 2018)

If its Opera I'll try it


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## Ivan Smith (Jun 11, 2018)

Atonal Ive even got my shower tuned atonally


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

RogerExcellent said:


> If its Opera I'll try it


Wozzeck by Alban Berg is probably the most well known atonal opera.


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