Atonal

From Music-Web Encyclopedia

[edit] Definition

Atonal music is music that lacks a tonal center. Nearly all music in the western classical tradition is 'tonal': that is, its harmonic structure is based on a motion away from and back to a specific key-chord (the major or minor triad of a particular pitch class). Atonal music, however, rejects the notion that any one particular chord is 'special' and that all surrounding harmony is to be viewed in hierarchical relation to that single chord: instead, it uses other methods (frequently mathematical, the most famous being serialism) to structure the musical argument. As a result, many listeners used to tonality find atonal music very difficult, in particular because the lack of a tonal heirarchy means that highly dissonant chords are far more common (and, indeed, early practitioners of the style often deliberately used these chords to avoid any implied reference to a tonic). That said, others argue that atonality is simply another musical language which needs to be 'learnt' before listeners can hope to fully understand it.

[edit] A brief history of atonality

Composer Arnold Schoenberg is generally seen as the first composer to fully embrace 'atonality', although a number of other composers (such as Bartok and Scriabin) had been moving in that direction for some time. In 1925, after experimenting with free atonality, he composed his Suite fur Klavier, the first piece of music ever written using the twelve-tone method of composing. His students, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, followed in his footsteps by composing numerous twelve-tone pieces; the method was generalised during the 1950s to include other parameters such as rhythm and volume, the resultant system being known as total serialism. Following this, there was a reaction against what was seen as excessive systematisation of music, with a number of composers (foremost among them John Cage and the New York School) choosing to write music (known as 'aleatoric music') containing far greater elements of chance. Following this, in the 1970s musical minimalism (as developed by Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Philip Glass, among others) again attacked serialism (and atonality with it) as being too incomprehensible, suggesting a return to a static form of tonality based on repetition. The last 25 years have, in general, followed the same pattern of 'reaction' and 'counter-reaction': while some composers (such as David Del Tredici) have re-embraced tonality completely, others have moved towards music of ever-increasing complexity and difficulty (most notably Brian Ferneyhough and other New Complexity composers).

[edit] Contemporary situation

All these influences over the last century have meant that it is now very difficult to draw an clear line between atonal and tonal music: for example, the music of Philip Glass has a clearly defined tonal center (and is generally seen as tonal), but it does not use harmony in the traditional way (as a means of giving the music direction), instead using repetition to create something more static; similarly, the music of composers such as Alfred Schnittke or John Adams combines elements of tonal and atonal music freely and undogmatically; this approach can be seen as far back as Berg's Violin Concerto of 1936, which sounds almost tonal in many places despite its use of the twelve-tone method.