Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxn.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxn!rlr From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.classical Subject: Re: Misconceptions regarding atonality (2 of 2) Message-ID: <756@pyuxn.UUCP> Date: Mon, 18-Jun-84 14:58:47 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxn.756 Posted: Mon Jun 18 14:58:47 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 09:00:48 EDT References: <3852@tekecs.UUCP> <755@pyuxn.UUCP> Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J. Lines: 54 Keywords: Schoenberg, tone row, aleatory harmonic language, obvious tonalities > Anyone who thinks 12-tone composers are unconcerned about harmonic motion, > or try to avoid it, knows damn little about 12-tone composition. > One attempts to avoid obvious tonal progressions, but that is only for > the same reason that one doesn't try to write like Beethoven - it would > be an archaicism (is that a word?) that would only distract the listener > from more important musical bits and pieces. 12-tone composition specifically requires certain composing behaviors (tone rows, et al) because it is attempting to avoid what you refer to as "obvious tonal progressions" (ones we have all already heard, like I-IV-V-I). While the innovators like Debussy and Stravinsky (et al) were looking towards NOT SO OBVIOUS (i.e., unheard of) *tonal* combinations and motions, Schoenberg jumped to the same conclusion that Jeff made earlier: that if these chromatic harmonic motions with "fleeting" tonal centers were carried to its logical conclusion, there would be no tonality!! So, let's just pretend we can avoid it from the start!! Schoenberg's methodologies are a deliberate attempt to compose outside of understood harmony in an effort to "avoid the obvious" in tonal harmony (a goal I concur with). Effectively, he predates Cage's aleatory styles; in effect, Schoenberg is saying "I can no longer be satisfied with composing in the tonal harmonic system, since there are no more original tonal combinations (or tonal music) to be thought of. Therefore, I will seek a new harmonic language through specifically going out of my way to avoid standard tonality." It is akin to, while traveling, avoiding not only the well-trodden roads but one's very sense of direction in trying to get to a destination. If, perchance, one should actually make progress, it would surely be an original way of doing things, but it would come very rarely. > Remember, historically, chromaticism did lead to "atonality". You can > theorize all you want, but those theories (unsterbliche oder nicht) are going > to have to account for that. Now, there's a post hoc ergo propter hoc if ever I saw one. :-) Other composers (Scriabin, Ives, plus those I've already mentioned) continued composing while blazing new trails along the tonalist path. [WHAT AN OBSCURE METAPHOR! -ED.] Somehow, amidst all the innovativeness that existed, Schoenberg's ideals became the status quo amongst musical academia (perhaps because they themselves had run out of creative gas?). Again, others have used what Schoenberg proscribed and came up with new harmonic ideas (Berg, Webern). Perhaps the reason that Schoenberg is still only widely accepted as a musicological phenomenon (while his pupils have made strides into some public acceptance) is because Schoenberg sought to avoid tonality, while *they* sought new harmonic ideas from Schoenberg's system. (Just a wild speculation...) If we take such aleatory ideas to their logical conclusion, one reaches the compositional ideology of someone like John Cage, where specifically avoiding intentional harmonic results is not enough, and avoiding ANY intentional interference with the musical composition/performance process is the goal. Both systems deny some very important facets that pertain to music: that it is a world of sound created by a human composer (where do I-IV-V-I cadences occur in nature??), and that it is the sound that results, and how it is heard by the listener, that is what ultimately matters. -- This unit humbly and deeply apologizes for having and expressing opinions. This will not occur again. (BEEP) Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr