# Single 'progressive' view of music history?



## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

Hello, I'm just wanting to throw open the notion that music history might not be as 'inevitable' as it seems in hindsight. We seem to have this academic view that music evolved in the only direction it really could within the western tonal system, for instance: modality -> major/minor tonality -> ambiguity (wholetone music, etc) -> atonality.

But surely, this particular direction has been formed by a certain sequence of people, who happened to be born, happened to find music as their vocation, happened to make it as composers, and happened to be important enough to influence the course of musical development.

Let's consider if music could have developed in other ways by different musicians. What if Beethoven never heard Cherubini or had died young while Schubert had lived longer?

Obviously, we can't truly imagine the music itself, I just mean how different it would be in theory.

We could go further back. It may seem inevitable now that the simple 'round' begat the canon, and that the canon begat the fugue, like ever more intricate lace-making or tapestry.

But we can't know if there are other structures that were never discovered, other forms every bit as distinctive as the fugue, but would simply take a genius (who was never born) to discover and develop it.

If there are parallel universes, with different composers, do you think tonal music could've have developed along completely different lines?

What makes me wonder this, is that I'm sure most people here would be curious to know what sort of music Mozart would have been writing in his 70s. We may speculate that it would have been something like Schubert perhaps, but we can't know and therefore we are still curious.

Also, J.S. Bach still felt he had enough more to say in music to struggle in his blindness, and there is no reason to believe it is stylistic, that the next obvious step is the classical style. Could he not have gone on to write structures in the baroque style that would have astonished us? Like the descending spriral staircase harmony in the 'Sanctus' of the B minor mass? (



)

I feel that maybe structural tonal music could have more to offer beyond the deaths of these pioneers. We can't assume that CPE Bach would have continued his father's work had there been anything of the sort. He took his own very specific stylistic path and was not quite as fond of structural development as his father, or as Beethoven would eventually be.

It seems clear and understandable that J.S Bach saw such a vast potential in maj/min tonality that he was happy to explore it in most of his output. But, had such a development already been covered by others, could he have explored more modal structures, perhaps 6 (or more) part counterpoint, maybe influenced by early English composers like Byrd and Tallis?

It's just a thought. Obviously, he'd need to have access to this material, but I don't think it's safe to assume he'd feel 'above it' anymore than composers today feel they're 'above' baroque or classical music (in fact I doubt many would dare to write in such styles even for fun).

It's difficult to get across what I'm trying to say, but I hope some of you get the gist of it.

Thanks

M


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

While Mozart and Haydn established the symphony, the piano sonata and the string quartet as major forms, I still think it was Beethoven who turned these forms into the benchmark forms they became. Later composers turned to these forms, or turned away from them, because of what Beethoven had achieved in them. Had Beethoven exclusively written operas, songs and church music, these forms might perhaps have been discontinued.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I think history, musical and otherwise, always makes sense in retrospect. We review history and think, how could it have been otherwise?

Looking ahead, of course, is more uncertain.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Andreas said:


> While Mozart and Haydn established the symphony, the piano sonata and the string quartet as major forms, I still think it was Beethoven who turned these forms into the benchmark forms they became. Later composers turned to these forms, or turned away from them, because of what Beethoven had achieved in them. Had Beethoven exclusively written operas, songs and church music, these forms might perhaps have been discontinued.


Extraordinary view of musical history, with Beethoven the keystone, all composers before laying the ground for what he achieved, all composers after responding to what he achieved. Why Beethoven rather than Haydn or Mozart?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Minona said:


> Hello, I'm just wanting to throw open the notion that music history might not be as 'inevitable' as it seems in hindsight. We seem to have this academic view that music evolved in the only direction it really could within the western tonal system, for instance: modality -> major/minor tonality -> ambiguity (wholetone music, etc) -> atonality.
> 
> But surely, this particular direction has been formed by a certain sequence of people, who happened to be born, happened to find music as their vocation, happened to make it as composers, and happened to be important enough to influence the course of musical development.
> 
> ...


One thing to say about this is that "atonality" doesn't suite music over the past 70 years. For one thing there's concrete music, and minimilaist music and spectral music.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Minona said:


> Hello, I'm just wanting to throw open the notion that music history might not be as 'inevitable' as it seems in hindsight. We seem to have this academic view that music evolved in the only direction it really could within the western tonal system, for instance: modality -> major/minor tonality -> ambiguity (wholetone music, etc) -> atonality.
> 
> But surely, this particular direction has been formed by a certain sequence of people, who happened to be born, happened to find music as their vocation, happened to make it as composers, and happened to be important enough to influence the course of musical development...


I'll just comment on this quote, Minona.

I think that the kind of baton passing, or linear view, of music history is less prevalent now than it was say fifty years ago. The idea that progress or innovation - or certain descriptions of these - lead to others. That's when the word inevitable is inevitably used (pun intended!).

The second paragraph speaks to how those who have power and influence shape music history, or make big impacts on how it is written. What's put in, what's left out. What's made to be seen as important, and what's not. What's said to be the real thing, and what's said to be imitation. And on it goes.

I just see it as more about connections between things, rather than differences. Its also less linear, more circular. Things go in and out of fashion. There's also a whole lot of smaller innovations or trends. This last weekend I listened to Elgar's Enigma Variations, and in that he wrote music that reflected the speech patterns in the English language. Everybody knows guys like Mussorgsky and Janacek did this, but not many people put emphasis on how guys like Elgar and Dvorak where doing it too. Whatever it is, innovation or just being imaginative and creative as composers are, it adds to that network of classical music.

The other thing is that non-classical does the same. A big influence for Steve Reich has been James Brown, you look at what Brown was doing before Reich and it becomes clear that not only classical is the area where things changed in radical ways. You've got that aspect of jazz, world music and other things impacting on classical. You've got this mixing, and cross fertilisation.

I don't think its only about inevitability, but about connections that are made, and have been made. That's what's interesting for me. There's so much there, and a lot of the way music history was written served to downplay these connections. A lot of it is about politics and sectarianism in music.

My view is that it is due to these types of agenda driven ways of seeing music, we have the establishment of ideologies, schools, hegemonies that have more to do with power games than with acknowledging connections. Its not to say there aren't differences, but things get problematic - and acrimonious - when we try to draw too many lines between things like 'old' and 'new,' 'retro' and 'cutting edge,' 'original' and 'imitation' and so on.

Dichotomies aren't any good either, like John Cage's classic lines coming as if from some guru on high, like "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." Well John, I'm worried about that fence you're building, I think its time to take it down after 200 years of fighting and focus more on the music and the history.

Sadly its been a common thing, however now with hindsight music historians more distanced from those divisive personality driven agendas can look at things in a way which emphasises the connections between things rather than build these fences. Its about celebrating the diversity of music that's always been around, rather than building these vast fences to divide everything into neat little boxes (which aren't that neat, but contradictory, but that's how life is).

As to some of the rest of what you say, there will always be hypotheticals (the 'what ifs'). I'm happy though to look at what we actually know about the past and make connections, and jettison a lot of the less than helpful ideologies.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Minona said:


> Hello, I'm just wanting to throw open the notion that music history might not be as 'inevitable' as it seems in hindsight. We seem to have this academic view that music evolved in the only direction it really could within the western tonal system, for instance: modality -> major/minor tonality -> ambiguity (wholetone music, etc) -> atonality.
> 
> But surely, this particular direction has been formed by a certain sequence of people, who happened to be born, happened to find music as their vocation, happened to make it as composers, and happened to be important enough to influence the course of musical development...


Have you recently read a history of Western music? -- especially one written in the last 20 years? I don't think any historian worth his or her salt writes the narrative as "inevitable" or of a "single progressive view." Marxist historians used to write that way (mainly about political and economic history). Any genuinely scholarly history of Western music in the last 50 years highlights the pluralism of things, the complexities of context, the place of non-musical factors fueling the history. "Inevitability" is a myth (usually with a political ax to grind) -- but it seems to be a common one that pops up now and again around here. Be very wary of grand narratives -- they usually studiously avoid unpleasant facts that upset their grand inevitabilities. I would encourage reading in those areas where you may be less familiar: e.g., medieval and Renaissance musics or, better, the musics of the 20th and 21st century. Try, for example, Alex Ross, _The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century_, rev. ed. (New York: Picador, 2008) -- beautifully written, not technical, but deeply sensitive to context and to pluralism, and for that matter, deeply attuned to the exchange with "classical" music and popular movements. As for earlier periods, a good starting point is Mark Everist, ed., _The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Music_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Richard Freeman, ed., _Music in the Renaissance_, series: Western Music in Context (New York: W.W. Norton, 2013). If you want a sweeping narrative -- but one deeply attuned to complexities, to context, to ambiguities -- there is the massive 5-volume _Oxford History of Western Music_ by Richard Taruskin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). No inevitabilty in his narrative. For a very brief introduction to historiography, John H. Arnold, _History: A Very Short Introduction_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); for an in-depth exploration, try Aviezer Tucker, ed., _A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography_ (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). All the best.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Speculation is all well and good, and a kind of fun, but speculation it is and will remain.

I don't muse over such things, since the past is irrevocably the past, and there is no extending this composer's life -- or removing a composer who influenced other composers from the timeline.

One thing is clear, it is not so much a progression as it is a series of developments and the one thing holding true to date in the history of western music is the developments in its use of harmony: that development follows in a direct parallel to the overtone series, i.e. first the unison, then fifths, then fourths, then thirds, seconds, chromatics and microtones.

The classical forms you mention, as much as we find them 'cemented in place,' should not be accepted as concrete, and are better thought of as the artificial constructs they were / are vs. anything remotely 'innately true or organic.' (Beethoven either maximized and extended these forms to what later generations thought of as an ideal -- or he corrupted them beyond credibility, take your pick!)

But as to the conjecture game, it can be taken wherever one would like, and with supposedly good reasoning behind it. One could say, and make a good defense for it, that if Mozart had lived (unnaturally) long enough that he could have later composed more like Mahler, or had he lived longer still, been at the cutting edge of microtonality, the new complexity, and spectralism, and his later scoes replete with use of prepared taped sounds, synthesizers, live interactive electronics, and noise as some of the sound materials used therein -- possibly with an accompanying abstract video thrown in for good measure. What good that does, other than perhaps a bit of "what if" fun, I could not say


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I think history, musical and otherwise, always makes sense in retrospect. We review history and think, how could it have been otherwise?
> 
> Looking ahead, of course, is more uncertain.


Or, as Alfred Polgar said: We look optimistically to the past.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I think history, musical and otherwise, always makes sense in retrospect. We review history and think, how could it have been otherwise?
> 
> Looking ahead, of course, is more uncertain.


Is that how you think of the second world war?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> One thing to say about this is that "atonality" doesn't suite music over the past 70 years. For one thing there's concrete music, and minimilaist music and spectral music.


Musique Concrete was pure sound, enabled by recording and editing of tape...minimalism has no harmonic movement or development in the normal sense, and is influenced by the East...spectralism is an outgrowth of IRCAM and computer analysis in trying to emulate acoustic instruments...so it's all coming from the same general area of modernism, which seeks to leave the confines of tonality.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minona said:


> Hello, I'm just wanting to throw open the notion that music history might not be as 'inevitable' as it seems in hindsight. We seem to have this academic view that music evolved in the only direction it really could within the western tonal system, for instance: modality -> major/minor tonality -> ambiguity (wholetone music, etc) -> atonality.


I don't think it's academic; Pythagoras started it when he divided the octave into 12 notes, trying to catch a fifth.



Minona said:


> But surely, this particular direction has been formed by a certain sequence of people, who happened to be born, happened to find music as their vocation, happened to make it as composers, and happened to be important enough to influence the course of musical development.


Yes, just like I said: Pythagoras.



Minona said:


> Let's consider if music could have developed in other ways by different musicians. What if Beethoven never heard Cherubini or had died young while Schubert had lived longer?


What if Pythagoras had kept on going around his circle, and stopped on 17? Then we'd all be eating lamb and couscous.



Minona said:


> Obviously, we can't truly imagine the music itself, I just mean how different it would be in theory.


Yes, but 12 is a good number. Carpenters like it, they can divide by 3's or 4's.



Minona said:


> If there are parallel universes, with different composers, do you think tonal music could've have developed along completely different lines?


No, even if it was all different, tonality would still be like trying to stuff a horse into a suitcase.



Minona said:


> What makes me wonder this, is that I'm sure most people here would be curious to know what sort of music Mozart would have been writing in his 70s. We may speculate that it would have been something like Schubert perhaps, but we can't know and therefore we are still curious.


Hopefully, it would have developed some more 'hair.'



Minona said:


> It seems clear and understandable that J.S Bach saw such a vast potential in maj/min tonality that he was happy to explore it in most of his output. But, had such a development already been covered by others, could he have explored more modal structures, perhaps 6 (or more) part counterpoint, maybe influenced by early English composers like Byrd and Tallis?


I think Bach would have gotten more chromatic, and would have eventually began writing serial music, if he had lived three hundred more years.



Minona said:


> It's just a thought. Obviously, he'd need to have access to this material, but I don't think it's safe to assume he'd feel 'above it' anymore than composers today feel they're 'above' baroque or classical music (in fact I doubt many would dare to write in such styles even for fun).


I think his faith would have kept him humble, and he'd be writing 12-tone cantatas.


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## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I think Bach would have gotten more chromatic, and would have eventually began writing serial music, if he had lived three hundred more years.
> 
> I think his faith would have kept him humble, and he'd be writing 12-tone cantatas.


1. But we know they didn't think about 12 notes, which is just our ET reduction of something that was once far more complex. Again, the 'progressive' view has allowed the later development of ET to over-simplify the tonal system to 12 notes. In fact, even Mozart considered a 21-note octave for practical reasons, but even so, his melodies consisted of diatonic scales* with chromatic 'decoration' and harmonies that resulted purely from counterpoints. "Chromaticism" should not be synonymous with "12 notes" in my view.

*This is also true in non-western music, even where the total number of notes add up to more than 7, their melodies are still based on diatonic scales (only some notes each have a variation that is considered a substitute). So we should say, melodies are not 'based on' scales, rather melodies are reducible to scales. This is another problem I have with serialism as a consequence of maj/min neutralization.

2. You are adhering (rightly or wrongly) to the view that serialism is the only end product, even though tonal harmony has broken down and so arguably it has nothing whatsoever to do with the tonal tradition Bach was in.

3. We know there are other avenues, for instance, Indian composers of popular music have applied some western harmony to Indian melodic concepts. So we have to consider what might have happened if composers had studied non-western systems. Also, there is exploration of rhythm that did not take place in the baroque or classical eras that could have been.

4. I don't think Bach's chromatic fantasia & fugue had anything to do with serialism, and he didn't use equal temperament so he didn't necessarily compose with the idea of 12 notes as we understand it, even though most keyboards had to be restricted to 12 (J.C Bach imported split-key pianos to London which allowed #/b separately.).

P.S. I like serialism, but as a means of expression that has nothing really to do with tonal music. That is, if I composed with serial rows, I would not be attempting to create music that is intended to be an 'offshoot' of the first Viennese school. I think later composers were desperate to connect themselves with the likes of Mozart and Beethoven as a way of validating their music.

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PetrB said:


> S What good that does, other than perhaps a bit of "what if" fun, I could not say


Well, there are those who are keen to compose within the earlier tonal frameworks, and perhaps they are perfectly right to do so ...especially IF there are undiscovered forms were left unexplored.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minona said:


> 1. But we know they didn't think about 12 notes, which is just our ET reduction of something that was once far more complex. Again, the 'progressive' view has allowed the later development of ET to over-simplify the tonal system to 12 notes. In fact, even Mozart considered a 21-note octave for practical reasons, but even so, his melodies consisted of diatonic scales* with chromatic 'decoration' and harmonies that resulted purely from counterpoints. "Chromaticism" should not be synonymous with "12 notes" in my view.


Bear in mind that equal-divisions (more than 12) of the octave are used solely to approximate 'just' intervals.

What you are saying is true about chromatic notes being adjunct to diatonic scales is true, as long as there is a tonal reference. This is apparent in the highly chromatic free-form music of Miles Davis' later period, where melodically, anything makes sense as long as there is a 'groove' provided by the bass and drums, like a latter-day 'drone' African-derived form.



Minona said:


> *This is also true in non-western music, even where the total number of notes add up to more than 7, their melodies are still based on diatonic scales (only some notes each have a variation that is considered a substitute). So we should say, melodies are not 'based on' scales, rather melodies are reducible to scales. This is another problem I have with serialism as a consequence of maj/min neutralization.


I can't disagree with that, either; serialism's radicalism is based on the fact that there is no tonal reference. The "ordering" of the row ensured this. I see this as an arbitrary system in one regard, since it supposedly took the increasing chromaticism occuring in tonality and pushed it over the brink. Yet, there are other aspects of serialism which reflect a broader form of musical thought, which has less to do with chromaticism or tonal reference, and has more to do with the inevitable consequences of a 12-note division of the octave, and how this 12-division was arbitrary and unsuited for tonality's generating idealistic purposes, which was consonance. A compromise with inevitable consequences, as I shall explain.



Minona said:


> 2. You are adhering (rightly or wrongly) to the view that serialism is the only end product, even though tonal harmony has broken down and so arguably it has nothing whatsoever to do with the tonal tradition Bach was in.


You're right, I was being a little facetious, but I'm not used to being taken seriously. I do think that you are ignoring the aspects of tonality which are 'arbitrary,' meaning those aspects which are more cerebral and cognitive, rather than sensual. It is in this sense that I wish to point out the weaknesses in the tonal system, namely its horizontal time-based "function" aspects. These vertical factors are secondary, occur in time, and require cognition, and are derived from the primary aspect of tonality and harmony, which is the vertical dimension of the "harmonic" model, which is instantaneous compared to the horizontal.



Minona said:


> 3. We know there are other avenues, for instance, Indian composers of popular music have applied some western harmony to Indian melodic concepts. So we have to consider what might have happened if composers had studied non-western systems. Also, there is exploration of rhythm that did not take place in the baroque or classical eras that could have been.


I see tonality as having a broad, general definition of being "tone-centric," like most folk music, just so you know. I don't want to bother with any strict academic definitions, just in case.



Minona said:


> 4. I don't think Bach's chromatic fantasia & fugue had anything to do with serialism, and he didn't use equal temperament so he didn't necessarily compose with the idea of 12 notes as we understand it, even though most keyboards had to be restricted to 12 (J.C Bach imported split-key pianos to London which allowed #/b separately.).


True, I think Bach was tone-centric all the way. (to be continued)



Minona said:


> P.S. I like serialism, but as a means of expression that has nothing really to do with tonal music. That is, if I composed with serial rows, I would not be attempting to create music that is intended to be an 'offshoot' of the first Viennese school. I think later composers were desperate to connect themselves with the likes of Mozart and Beethoven as a way of validating their music.


----------------



Minona said:


> Well, there are those who are keen to compose within the earlier tonal frameworks, and perhaps they are perfectly right to do so ...especially IF there are undiscovered forms were left unexplored.


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## ToneDeaf&Senile (May 20, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Extraordinary view of musical history, with Beethoven the keystone, all composers before laying the ground for what he achieved, all composers after responding to what he achieved. Why Beethoven rather than Haydn or Mozart?


Why Beethoven. I lack the intellect to say with certainty.

One reason might be that up until Beethoven (as least during the "classical" era) composers, Haydn and Mozart included, wrote music that would immediately appeal to a vast majority of their intended audience. Much of it was written so that it could be performed by reasonably gifted amateurs. (Sonatas, in those days, were normally performed in the home / salon rather than public concert halls / auditoriums.) Many of these works might also be sublime and survive the test of time, but their initial intent was to please.

Beethoven on the other hand, in his more progressive / visionary pieces, wrote as his muse dictated. If the audience didn't get it...well, they had better keep listening until they did! Likewise, many of his works were at the time deemed too difficult for amateurs. (I imagine they still are.) In other words, Beethoven started (or at least solidified) the notion that a composer writes for the sake of art, and the the listener / performer had better adjust as best they can. (On the other hand, Beethoven wrote his share of "popular" pieces (Wellington's Victory anyone?) and loved it when people heartily applauded his music.)

There were/are certainly a goodly number of "popularist" composers after Beethoven, but those that get the most attention in history books tend to be the visionaries.

Or so it seems to me. Then again, I'm known as something of an imbecile. Take what I say with the grain of salt it deserves.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minona said:


> 4. I don't think Bach's chromatic fantasia & fugue had anything to do with serialism, and he didn't use equal temperament so *he didn't necessarily compose with the idea of 12 notes as we understand it,* even though most keyboards had to be restricted to 12 (J.C Bach imported split-key pianos to London which allowed #/b separately.).


It is somewhat misleading to say that Bach did not use equal temperament. His Preludes and Fugues from the WTC sound good in all 12 keys, because, as the title tells us, he was using a "well" tempered tuning, which was one of many attempts to achieve equal temperament, which was not fully achieved until the early 20th century. Bach was probably using the tuning discovered by Bradley Lehman from the cryptic flourishes on the cover page of the WTC, which were thought to be mere decoration, but turned out to be a representation of Bach's "well tempered" tuning, using commas and piano-tuner's nomenclature in graphic form. See this website for a full explanation: [url]http://www.larips.com/

[/URL]I don't agree when you say "*Bach didn't necessarily compose with the idea of 12 notes as we understand it," *which is misleading. He had other keyboards to accommodate other temperings, but he still used the 12-division octave. He probably used these other keyboards when he had to play with choral groups or strings.



Minona said:


> ...music history might not be as 'inevitable' as it seems in hindsight. We seem to have this academic view that music evolved in the only direction it really could within the western tonal system, for instance: modality -> major/minor tonality -> ambiguity (wholetone music, etc) -> atonality.
> 
> But surely, this particular direction has been formed by a certain sequence of people, who happened to be born, happened to find music as their vocation, happened to make it as composers, and happened to be important enough to influence the course of musical development.


I don't think that it was composers who caused the gradual move away from tonality, but the materials themselves, based on the 12-note octave.

This trend shows up early, in Bach and Beethoven. Beethoven used diminished seventh chords as flat-nine dominants, and does this in the late string quartets. Any diminished chord will become a b9 dom by placing a different root under it; for example, B-D-F-G#/Ab) becomes a b9 dominant by placing a G in the bass; thus we have a G7b9, spelled G-B-D-F-Ab (root, third, fifth, seventh, flat nine).

In this way, from the three possible diminished sevenths, we can generate all 12 dominant chords. Alternately, you can lower any note of a dim7 by a half-step and get a dom7 voicing; that's 4 dom7 chords for every dim 7, and 4 X 3 = 12. This opens up a whole range of modulation and chromaticism.

So in this way, the symmetries inherent in the 12-note octave are what led to more modulation and chromaticism. Symmetries like this are basic to modern musical thought, as well as serialism. Bartok used this principle as well, dividing the octave at the tritone instead of IV or V, thus exploiting a purely mathematical/geometric approach, rather than a tonal one. My blogs contain more detail.



Minona said:


> Let's consider if music could have developed in other ways by different musicians. What if Beethoven never heard Cherubini or had died young while Schubert had lived longer?...If there are parallel universes, with different composers, do you think tonal music could've have developed along completely different lines?


Again, I don't think musicians caused this shift away from tonality. It was inherent in the materials and symmetries of a 12-note octave.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minona said:


> ...(Mozart's) melodies consisted of diatonic scales* with chromatic 'decoration' and harmonies that resulted purely from counterpoints. "Chromaticism" should not be synonymous with "12 notes" in my view.


But "chromatic decoration" did not weaken tonality; excessive root movement did. When modulation began to occur more frequently, it became difficult to definitively identify the root reference, if it had multiple possibilities.



Minona said:


> ...melodies are not 'based on' scales, rather melodies are reducible to scales. This is another problem I have with serialism as a consequence of maj/min neutralization.


Yes, scales are simply an "index" of notes, which is used to derive melodic ideas. We don't hear whole "scales" quoted in Mozart; we hear melodies.

But it's unfair to compare that to the way serial rows are used. Likewise, rarely do we ever hear a tone row stated by itself. Schoenberg was a thematic composer, and always was, so he used the row as thematic material, which is melodic in nature. Just because the row is ordered does not make it a stiff, inflexible scale-like construct.

Also, there is a basic difference; a tone row is really not the pitches themselves, but a series of interval relationships, like a template. Big difference.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

ToneDeaf&Senile said:


> Beethoven on the other hand, in his more progressive / visionary pieces, wrote as his muse dictated. If the audience didn't get it...well, they had better keep listening until they did! Likewise, many of his works were at the time deemed to difficult for amateurs. (I imagine they still are.) In other words, Beethoven started (or at least solidified) the notion that a composer writes for the sake of art, and the the listener / performer had better adjust as best they can. (On the other hand, Beethoven wrote his share of "popular" pieces (Wellington's Victory anyone?) and loved it when people heartily applauded his music.)


Well said, I agree with this. It's part of why I love Beethoven's music so much, I do feel his music was deeply personal and whether the critics and audience liked it or not wasn't his end goal. It was his art. Plus, from the two biographies I've read, there are quite a few quotes from Beethoven himself that back that up.

Here's a pertinent section that TC member Alypius posted on another thread, it's transcribed from Charles Rosen's _Classical Style_: _"it is certain that Beethoven assumed a position not only contrary to the fashion of his time, but also in many ways against the direction that musical history was to take. He was perhaps the first composer in history to write deliberately difficult music for a great part of his life. Not that he ever set his face against popular success, or lost hope of achieving it despite the uncompromising difficulty of his work... No composer before Beethoven ever disregarded the capacities of both his performers and his audience with such ruthlessness."_

(not sure how much I agree with the use of the word "deliberately", but nonetheless.)


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Minona said:


> Hello, I'm just wanting to throw open the notion that music history might not be as 'inevitable' as it seems in hindsight. We seem to have this academic view that music evolved in the only direction it really could within the western tonal system, for instance: modality -> major/minor tonality -> ambiguity (wholetone music, etc) -> atonality.
> 
> But surely, this particular direction has been formed by a certain sequence of people, who happened to be born, happened to find music as their vocation, happened to make it as composers, and happened to be important enough to influence the course of musical development.


No need even to speculate. Study of the history itself leads one to conclude _against_ any such inevitability narrative. Just such an anti-inevitability conclusion is the central conclusion of the historical investigation of the music Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in Charles Rosen's famous study. In the very opening of his description of the classical style he says:



> The classical style appears inevitable *only after the event*. Looking back today we can see its creation as a natural one, not an outgrowth of the preceding style (*in relation to which it seems more like a leap, or a revolutionary break*), but a step in the progressive realization of the musical language as it had existed and developed since the 15th century. At the time *nothing would have seemed less logical*; the period from 1750 to 1775 was penetrated by eccentricity, hit-or-miss experimentation, resulting in works which are still difficult to accept today because of their oddities. Yet each experiment that succeeded, each stylistic development that became an integral part of music for the next half-century or more was characterized by its aptness for a dramatic style based on tonality.
> 
> It is a useful hypothesis to think of one element of a new style as a germinal force, appearing in an older style at a moment of crisis, and gradually transfroming all the other elements over the years, into an aesthetic harmony until the new style becomes an integral whole, as the rib-vault is said to have been the creative, or precipitating element in the formation of the Gothic style. In this way the historical development of a style seems to follow a perfectly logical pattern. *In practice, things are rarely so simple.* Most of the characteristic features of the classical style *did not appear one by one in an orderly fashion, but sporadically, sometimes together and sometimes apart, and with a progress despairingly irregular to those who prefer a hard-edged result.* The final product does, however, have a logical coherence, as even the irregularities of a language, once investigated, become consistent."--Charles Rosen, _The Classical Style,_ p. 57


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Alypius said:


> No need even to speculate. Study of the history itself leads one to conclude _against_ any such inevitability narrative. Just such an anti-inevitability conclusion is the central conclusion of the historical investigation of the music Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in Charles Rosen's famous study. In the very opening of his description of the classical style he says:





> Charles Rosen:
> The classical *"style"* appears inevitable *only after the event*. Looking back today we can see its creation as a natural one, not an outgrowth of the preceding style (*in relation to which it seems more like a leap, or a revolutionary break*), but a step in the progressive realization of the musical language as it had existed and developed since the 15th century.


I'm reading Rosen differently. He seems to distinguish mere surface "style" from "musical language." Rosen says the classical style is "a natural creation, not an outgrowth of the preceding era, but *a step in the progressive realization of the musical language as it had existed and developed since the 15th century.*"

"Progressive realization of a musical language" sounds like an evolutionary progression of musical thought to me, and that's how tonality developed. It is easy to see the elements which led from Medieval music to Baroque music, and the development of tonality and harmony. Composers began to see the coincidences of individual lines as entities unto themselves, thus as chords, and root movement was developed from there. Now composers could sketch out the plan of a movement by using root movement, and figured bass nomenclature was developed.



> At the time *nothing would have seemed less logical*; the period from 1750 to 1775 was penetrated by eccentricity, hit-or-miss experimentation, resulting in works which are still difficult to accept today because of their oddities.


That sounds like the exact state of affairs when Schoenberg introduced his 12-tone method.



> The final product does, however, have a logical coherence, as even the irregularities of a language, once investigated, become consistent."--Charles Rosen, _The Classical Style,_ p. 57


This sounds like Rosen is saying "substance over style," which means that TRUE MUSICAL THOUGHT is what drives the changes and in music, not superficialities of style.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minona said:


> (Mozart's) melodies consisted of diatonic scales* with chromatic 'decoration' and harmonies that resulted purely from counterpoints....So we should say, melodies are not 'based on' scales, rather melodies are *reducible* to scales. This is another problem I have with serialism as a consequence of maj/min neutralization.


The comparison of tonal scales to tone rows does not apply, for these reasons:
A tonal scale is an "index" of notes in a key; they are listed with the key note first. All the notes relate to this key note, and are given a function (I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii). This is an "unordered" index of notes, because the order is irrelevant; only the function is, in relation to the key note.

In a tone row, the notes _*are*_ ordered, since they do not have a function in an hierarchy. In fact, the actual pitches are irrelevant, since they are in no "key" and do not relate to a key note; only their intervallic relationships to the preceding and succeeding note is relevant. In this way, a tone-row is not a "set of pitches," but is a set of intervallic distances, a "template" related only to itself, as a self-referencing form, not referencing a key note.

Thus, to criticize serial rows because "they are just scales" or boring successions of ordered notes, like a scale, ignores the reality that tone rows are "templates" of intervallic sonorities. The original "O" form of the tone row is simply the "prototype," and this gets transposed, inverted, and reversed.

Admittedly, although Schoenberg was a thematic composer, and used the row as "thematic" material sometimes, there are many other structural and "developing variation" techniques he used to give structure and meaning to music composed with tone-rows.


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