"So-called ‘Atonal’ Music Has Just Been In A Minor All Along" - Discuss....

[ahinton]

The problem I have with associating vocabulary like "formulaic", "mathematical" and "theory" with Atonality and/or Serialism, is that it sort of suggests that other types of Music are not equally "formulaic", "mathematical" and "theoretical". Diatonic "tonal" Music (from, say, Monteverdi to Verdi) for eaxample - with its upper and lower tetrachords, periodic phrasing, tempered scales, voice-leading algorithms, enharmonic equivalences (to say nothing of its attitudes to parallel fifths): there is more "mathematics" involved in a Gilebrt & Sullivan patter song that in Erwartung - to say nothing of The Twelve Days of Christmas!

What is often meant/presumed is that somehow or other (and I have never worked out how this was supposed to have happened) with Atonal/Serial Music, the Theory was "invented" first, and then the notes were written on paper following the "rules" of the Theory. The careers of the "Atonal" composers (Debussy, Scriabin, Ives, Stravinsky, Schönberg, Berg, Webern etc) quickly demonstrates that this is a false idea - that (some) Music moved from a variety of different sources (chiefly Mussorgsky and/or Brahms) into the expanded chromaticism of those composers and, in the case of the last three composers on that list (and Hauer) gradually into Dodecaphonic and (with later composers) other types of Serialism.

Atonality uses all the Harmonic/Thematic apparatus of mid-late 19th Century Tonal Music - Schönberg himself referred to his Music that is nowadays called "free Atonal" as "composing with the notes of a motif" and his Twelve-Note Music as "related only to each other": in both cases referring to how he uses harmony: the intervals connecting the notes. When Stravinsky finally "twigged" Serialism, he exclaimed that there was no difference with his former composing practices ("I've always composed with intervals"). Serialism was a means for generating the sort of large-scale structural patterns that had evolved for Tonal Musics for the new ways that harmony was used in "free Atonal" Music. From there, new patterns started to be heard - new relationships that had their origins entirely in Musical and Acoustic phenomena, and that really disturbed Schoenberg and his entire aesthetic as he became increasingly aware of them (the "recapitulation" of the First movement of the Fourth String Quartet is a seismatic moment in the composer's career - it really marks a turning point in the composer's alliance to the Austro-German ancestors he revered) and moved the possibilities of Serialism onto the shoulders of the next generation.

All of which is more vital, more exciting, more Musical than trying to hear Tonality in a piece whose motivation (ho-ho) lies in much more interesting directions.

Excellent sense here - all of it. The only issue that I might have is that those who hear tonality in a piece where others don't are not necessarily "trying" to do so; I think that such a phenomenon is far more likely to emerge instead from the experience of concentrated listening to a large variety of music of which some is a good deal less overtly "tonal" than others. I suppose that I don't like the term "atonality" for this reason as well as for that which prompted Schö/oenberg to inveigh against it.

In the excellent aural training classes that I attended at Royal College of Music millions of years ago it was not unusual to have to sight-sing passages from the Cantatas of Webern and I'll never forget a brief passage in (I think) the second one where a four part chord D-G-B-E (with D as the bass note) is followed by another C#-F#-A#-D# by the upper two parts moving upwards and the lower two downwards by a semitone; I incurred the displeasure of the person taking the class when I noted the first to be an added sixth major chord in second inversion, revealing that I had heard the passage "tonally" - "you're not supposed to hear it like that!". This was, for me, the sole blot on the landscape of those memorable classes; I didn't pursue it but couldn't help but think to myself "did Webern really tell his listeners how to hear - and how not to hear - any of his music?". Clearly, he "alwys composed with intervals" too; which of us doesn't, in one way or another? The ear finds what it finds - and another example of this (albeit unrelated to "tonality" issues) is whenever I hear, for example, Elgar's First Symphony or Schönberg's D minor String Quartet, I invariably notice things that I'd not noticed on previous hearings because my attention had been taken more by other things in those works; OK, this kind of thing is likely to happen only when the work has so very much to offer and is so concentrated, but its relevance here is to the way in which the listener hears what he/she does in any piece and, clearly, no two listeners will experience identical responses or find the same things in the same proportions of importance and impact.

But why is it only Music that attracts the sort of crap that is represented by the article (spoof or otherwise)? Is there any equivalent in the visual Arts, for example - are there similar infantile offerings trying to see the bowl of fruit still life in a Mondrian painting?

I seem to remember that Bernard van Dieren (who, like Mondrian, was Dutch) once uttered the sentiment that music is the last refuge of the feeble minded (although, in so doing, he was consciously borrowing a phrase in which numerous others had already ascribed the feeble-mindedness of such refugees to a variety of phenomena other than music rather than fully inventing his own phrase) and let's not forget Shaw observing in Man and Superman that music is the brandy of the damned (although sadly he didn't go on to speculate upon what its malt whisky might have been); the article must be a spoof, albeit not a very good or entertaining one, but maybe the answer to your question can be found in this...

[Zucchini]

...the article must be a spoof, albeit not a very good or entertaining one, but maybe the answer to your question can be found in this...

Of course it's a spoof. I pointed out in #13 that this appears at the bottom of their webpage:

"ABOUT US
Submediant is a satirical site. Its contents are not to be trusted. Believe at your own risk."

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[ahinton]

Of course it's a spoof. I pointed out in #13 that this appears at the bottom of their webpage:

"ABOUT US
Submediant is a satirical site. Its contents are not to be trusted. Believe at your own risk."

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I know that. You know that. We've both known it all along. But it does seem as though a few members here are (or were) less certain...

[Lat-Literal]

The problem I have with associating vocabulary like "formulaic", "mathematical" and "theory" with Atonality and/or Serialism, is that it sort of suggests that other types of Music are not equally "formulaic", "mathematical" and "theoretical". Diatonic "tonal" Music (from, say, Monteverdi to Verdi) for example - with its upper and lower tetrachords, periodic phrasing, tempered scales, voice-leading algorithms, enharmonic equivalences (to say nothing of its attitudes to parallel fifths): there is more "mathematics" involved in a Gilbert & Sullivan patter song that in Erwartung - to say nothing of The Twelve Days of Christmas!

What is often meant/presumed is that somehow or other (and I have never worked out how this was supposed to have happened) with Atonal/Serial Music, the Theory was "invented" first, and then the notes were written on paper following the "rules" of the Theory. The careers of the "Atonal" composers (Debussy, Scriabin, Ives, Stravinsky, Schönberg, Berg, Webern etc) quickly demonstrates that this is a false idea - that (some) Music moved from a variety of different sources (chiefly Mussorgsky and/or Brahms) into the expanded chromaticism of those composers and, in the case of the last three composers on that list (and Hauer) gradually into Dodecaphonic and (with later composers) other types of Serialism.

Atonality uses all the Harmonic/Thematic apparatus of mid-late 19th Century Tonal Music - Schönberg himself referred to his Music that is nowadays called "free Atonal" as "composing with the notes of a motif" and his Twelve-Note Music as "related only to each other": in both cases referring to how he uses harmony: the intervals connecting the notes. When Stravinsky finally "twigged" Serialism, he exclaimed that there was no difference with his former composing practices ("I've always composed with intervals"). Serialism was a means for generating the sort of large-scale structural patterns that had evolved for Tonal Musics for the new ways that harmony was used in "free Atonal" Music. From there, new patterns started to be heard - new relationships that had their origins entirely in Musical and Acoustic phenomena, and that really disturbed Schoenberg and his entire aesthetic as he became increasingly aware of them (the "recapitulation" of the First movement of the Fourth String Quartet is a seismic moment in the composer's career - it really marks a turning point in the composer's alliance to the Austro-German ancestors he revered) and moved the possibilities of Serialism onto the shoulders of the next generation.


All of which is more vital, more exciting, more Musical than trying to hear Tonality in a piece whose motivation (ho-ho) lies in much more interesting directions.

But why is it only Music that attracts the sort of crap that is represented by the article (spoof or otherwise)? Is there any equivalent in the visual Arts, for example - are there similar infantile offerings trying to see the bowl of fruit still life in a Mondrian painting?

You have the technical knowledge but I agree with the attitude you express when it comes to listening. I don't seek to make theoretical distinctions based on technical similarities or differences partially because my technical knowledge is limited and mainly because any compare and contrast in me instinctively arises from actual sounds. I do find it educational to be told about aspects of the history whether that pertains to a composer's life, his/her connections with other composers, methods used in composing and how any movements "sat" in relation to broader history. So do most if not all of us, hence we have programmes on BBC Radio 3 like "Composer of the Week" and forums like the one we are on now.

On Kandinsky and Bauhaus etc:

"Kandinsky taught the basic design class for beginners and the course on advanced theory at the Bauhaus; he also conducted painting classes and a workshop in which he augmented his colour theory with new elements of form psychology. The development of his works on forms study, particularly on points and line forms, led to the publication of his second theoretical book (Point and Line to Plane) in 1926. His examinations of the effects of forces on straight lines, leading to the contrasting tones of curved and angled lines, coincided with the research of Gestalt psychologists, whose work was also discussed at the Bauhaus. Geometrical elements took on increasing importance in both his teaching and painting—particularly the circle, half-circle, the angle, straight lines and curves. The period was intensely productive. This freedom is characterised in his works by the treatment of planes rich in colours and gradations as in yellow, red, blue, where Kandinsky illustrates his distance from the constructivism and suprematism movements influential at the time".

There are umpteen periods of Kandinsky as I am sure you will be aware - more so than me although I have attended exhibitions - from early conventional impressionism, if such a term should ever be used given that impressionism wasn't of itself at all conventional until after Turner, onto a freer form. In his middle age, considerable theory was attached to the latter including as outlined above. Subsequently there was a synthesis. There is contradictory weaving from the outset so that the more conventional was considered by a young original mind from the perspective of colour being music with references to Richard Wagner. Monet didn't really impress upon him until he was 30. One of the impacts was in the prompting both of the more abstract and technical theory to accompany it, eg ultimately "the (literal and specific) point (of colour) in a painting, according to its placement on the basic plane, will take a different tonality. It can be isolated or resonate with other points or lines". His most complex painting according to him was "Composition VII" which actually predates that sort of theory by some 13 years. As for the theory itself, it emanated partially from a century earlier with Goethe's "Theory of Colours" and "The Colour Wheel" which are not without reference to Newton. Yet it would probably be very easy for someone to say that almost everything by Kandinsky over many years had precedents both in terms of the formulaic and impressionistic. Whatever way it is played, the main circle is likely to be just a going round in circles in terms of opinion and not really getting anywhere at all.

I have no problem with adolescence in art, music and literature either where it is depicted as it should be along with any other aspect of life or instinctive in terms of approaches. As for the latter, I am not equating it with immaturity, however one chooses to define immaturity including an absence of full development, however one chooses to define the latter too. It is more about an instinct to develop something new which may or may not be consciously a "Smash It Up" by The Damned in relation to all that preceded it. Often it is individual or group statement about doing something different come what may. "Turn on, tune in, drop out". The artist of whatever kind is not restricted and hindered by concepts of age and can in principle be any age at any age in attitude. But where considerable theory is attached to what is produced, it is distinct from a mere emptying of paint pots. My issue with adolescence is where it is dominant in governance, short-term in perspective and blase about history/commitment where to my mind it only has the authority of force.

The discussion on the thread is interesting to me. Meandering. Inevitably inconclusive. I recognise the article as satirical. But to have worked at all there is some hint of a "truth"!

[Zucchini]

Re #48 A Hinton
Like you I felt some august members had lost the plot and needed a little help to find it. Sorry if my comment seemed directed at you.

[ahinton]

Re #48 A Hinton
Like you I felt some august members had lost the plot and needed a little help to find it. Sorry if my comment seemed directed at you.

It didn't! It's just that it seemed that not eveyone had immediately read the piece to be a spoof - perhaps in part because it's a pretty poor one; it it's supposed to represent "satire", it does so very badly - it's not even particularly funny.

[Lat-Literal]

For the record, all posts of mine up to 27 were in acknowledgment of it being a spoof; 27 itself began seriously but being seriously awry technically it became unintended satire of a very poor quality; 31 was more literal than lateral in motivation but ostensibly detour; 41 was a brief attempt at the meaningfully obtuse; and everything since 41 has been systematically measured, albeit crayoned in quite randomly, irrespective of the history of the thread including the roots of the ensuing discussion. Hope that clarifies it all nicely.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've always thought that cubism attracts the same sort of cart before horse exegesis, ferney.

... the misconception that the Theory came first? Yes - Lats' citing of Kandinsky is pertinent here, too - as would be Seurat's pointillism. It is interesting how many Modernist writers, Artists and Musicians were keen to demonstrate the theoretical substance behind their work - even whilst simultaneously emphasizing the "instinctive" and "spontaneous" aspects of it (and around 1911 Schönberg and Kandinsky were writing to each other for mutual support in their endeavours to create an entirely spontaneous and original Art which owed nothing to past work - not even their own "back catalogues").

Lats - concerning Goethe's Theories of colour: weren't they formulated in reaction to Newton's; seeking a more "spiritual" source of how colour is created and how humans perceive and respond to it? (Out of my territory here - what I know comes via Stockhausen's Licht! And I like the idea of an "adolescent" Music - I have often wondered how to describe much Nineteenth Century Music; "adolescent" (in the positive as well as the negative aspects of the word) will do very nicely indeed!

[ahinton]

I like the idea of an "adolescent" Music - I have often wondered how to describe much Nineteenth Century Music; "adolescent" (in the positive as well as the negative aspects of the word) will do very nicely indeed!

In the light of what he wrote during his final years, people had better stop calling Haydn "Papa", then!...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In the excellent aural training classes that I attended at Royal College of Music millions of years ago it was not unusual to have to sight-sing passages from the Cantatas of Webern and I'll never forget a brief passage in (I think) the second one where a four part chord D-G-B-E (with D as the bass note) is followed by another C#-F#-A#-D# by the upper two parts moving upwards and the lower two downwards by a semitone; I incurred the displeasure of the person taking the class when I noted the first to be an added sixth major chord in second inversion, revealing that I had heard the passage "tonally" - "you're not supposed to hear it like that!". This was, for me, the sole blot on the landscape of those memorable classes; I didn't pursue it but couldn't help but think to myself "did Webern really tell his listeners how to hear - and how not to hear - any of his music?". Clearly, he "alwys composed with intervals" too; which of us doesn't, in one way or another? The ear finds what it finds

That's like telling someone not to think of an elephant! If a chord is taken out of context, then there's no "wrong" way of hearing it - DGBE might well be an added sixth chord in second inversion; it's only what precedes and follows that sonority that makes its function clear. Is the opening of RVW's Fifth Symphony a Dominant Seventh of G in third inversion? Certainly the sketches of that work make it clear that when he first thought of those sounds, the composer was thinking in those terms - it's only as the Music progresses, as context changes, that such a way of understanding becomes unhelpful. The "Petrushka" Chord used to be described as a "bitonal" chord; two major triads a tritone apart (C major and F# major) - and heard in isolation, that is a perfectly valid description of what is being heard. But in context, it becomes clearer that it is an octotonic hexachord (C, C#, [D#], E, F#, G, [G#], A# - the bracketed notes those missing from the chord). Would it be helpful, in an aural training class, to tell students that they're "not supposed to hear it like" two diatonic triads heard simultaneously?

Tonality is context-dependant: a D major triad is a consonance in G major, but a dissonance in Ab major. Composers play with these contexts, creating Art from our expectations and their fulfilling or rejecting these expectations; making new contexts and new expectations - in order to tease and reward these new expectations. So, in the context of each of his works, Webern can be said to "tell" (if that's the right word) "listeners the right way to hear" his Music (or, perhaps, the best, most effective ways of listening to it) - but in this respect, he's no different from any other composer who produces Music that's worth listening to. As you say, which of them doesn't in some way work with intervals (in the widest sense)?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It didn't! It's jut that it seemed that not eveyone had immediately read the piece to be a spoof - perhaps in part because it's a pretty poor one; it it's supposed to represent "satire", it does so very badly - it's not even particularly funny.

Exactly - I hadn't realized it was meant to be funny because, quite simply, it wasn't! And, having "lost" the intended "plot", I found myself in a much more interesting one.

[ardcarp]

The ear finds what it finds

Does it find it odd (if it can remember long enough) that Mahler's 9th wanders through seemingly random keys, IIRC beginning in D and ending in D flat. Is this a different sort of atonality? In other words it's not obliterating chordal relationships, but is dispensing with key relationships over a span of time.

I probably ought to get me coat........

[ahinton]

Does it find it odd (if it can remember long enough) that Mahler's 9th wanders through seemingly random keys, IIRC beginning in D and ending in D flat. Is this a different sort of atonality? In other words it's not obliterating chordal relationships, but is dispensing with key relationships over a span of time.

I probably ought to get me coat........

It's called progressive tonality (which is a definitional term, not a value judgement!) and indicates a piece tht begins in one key and ends in another, as do all of Mahler's symphonies except 6, 8 & 10. Beginning in one key and ending in another doesn't - indeed cannot of itself - "dispense with key relationships".

Only get your coat if you're going out and the weather demands it!

[ahinton]

Is the opening of RVW's Fifth Symphony a Dominant Seventh of G in third inversion? Certainly the sketches of that work make it clear that when he first thought of those sounds, the composer was thinking in those terms - it's only as the Music progresses, as context changes, that such a way of understanding becomes unhelpful.

I doesn't sound like that to me and never has done - it has a magical way of inferring such an idea but doesn't actually state it, to my ears and mind - but when the F#s turn into F naturals I am reminnded of a passage in the coda of the finale of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony - do you know the bit I mean?

The "Petrushka" Chord used to be described as a "bitonal" chord; two major triads a tritone apart (C major and F# major) - and heard in isolation, that is a perfectly valid description of what is being heard. But in context, it becomes clearer that it is an octotonic hexachord (C, C#, [D#], E, F#, G, [G#], A# - the bracketed notes those missing from the chord). Would it be helpful, in an aural training class, to tell students that they're "not supposed to hear it like" two diatonic triads heard simultaneously?

Telling aural training class students how they should listen to anything is the mark of a bad teacher; telling them that this particular example is made up of two major triads a tritone apart (assuming that the students would realise this without being told!) and could be heard as such or as an octatonic hexachord (provided that the students also already knew what an octatonic scale is!).

Tonality is context-dependant: a D major triad is a consonance in G major, but a dissonance in Ab major.

Well, that's not quite how I'd put it; I would say that it's a closely related key in the first example and a distantly related one in the latter.

Composers play with these contexts, creating Art from our expectations and their fulfilling or rejecting these expectations; making new contexts and new expectations - in order to tease and reward these new expectations. So, in the context of each of his works, Webern can be said to "tell" (if that's the right word) "listeners the right way to hear" his Music (or, perhaps, the best, most effective ways of listening to it) - but in this respect, he's no different from any other composer who produces Music that's worth listening to. As you say, which of them doesn't in some way work with intervals (in the widest sense)?

Yes, the music itself - be it Bach's, Webern's, Liszt's, Schönberg's, Messiaen's or whoever else's - is what "tells" the ear how to perceive, or rather offers perceptions as to how it can (not should!) be heard, even though not all pairs of ears will be attached to brains with identical previous listening experiences.

[Lat-Literal]

... the misconception that the Theory came first? Yes - Lats' citing of Kandinsky is pertinent here, too - as would be Seurat's pointillism. It is interesting how many Modernist writers, Artists and Musicians were keen to demonstrate the theoretical substance behind their work - even whilst simultaneously emphasizing the "instinctive" and "spontaneous" aspects of it (and around 1911 Schönberg and Kandinsky were writing to each other for mutual support in their endeavours to create an entirely spontaneous and original Art which owed nothing to past work - not even their own "back catalogues").

Lats - concerning Goethe's Theories of colour: weren't they formulated in reaction to Newton's; seeking a more "spiritual" source of how colour is created and how humans perceive and respond to it? (Out of my territory here - what I know comes via Stockhausen's Licht! And I like the idea of an "adolescent" Music - I have often wondered how to describe much Nineteenth Century Music; "adolescent" (in the positive as well as the negative aspects of the word) will do very nicely indeed!

Yes indeed,

(and I am amazed I'm keeping my head above water)

But that means they were engaged in significant dialogue which is inevitable when science meets art. JMW Turner's "Rain, Steam and Speed" could be seen as a convergence of a science and art, albeit hazy, but the dialogue is still there. It is between the artist and observer. It is considerable and it represents a number of challenges. Goethe had things to say about the observer and the observed. My angle - prejudiced - is that it is a rare science that really observes art. In contrast, I see very many examples of how art seeks to accommodate science. In general terms, art probably recognises it is opinion. Science is content to argue with itself but clubs together like a group of 13 year ego-olds in other circumstances to insist that it is unequivocal fact. That is why the Schoenbergs need to play down categorising. It all gets a little powerful and hence very challenging culturally and politically when artists become technical. The potential for a transforming power is known. It is there factually in da Vinci and in Bach. That, I think, is one reason why the Nazis needed subconsciously to counter-balance enthusiasm for technological development with cultural purity extending as far as music. Perhaps everything is in natural balance.

They would have bombarded London with super-gun many times every hour on the hour to use a modern news term. Military effort and natural forces intervened. London was still to some extent a world centre and to this day Mimoyecques remains a hamlet. That was the latter's weakness and it cannot be explained by mere rationality. It was in the seam of history and geography and had it not been, none of this would be in English. I feel that serialism should have made more headway, whatever my preferences for and against it. Its combination of components could have achieved it. As events transpired, it is halfway between esperanto and its inventor Zamenhof. Zamenhof has an asteroid named after him with an identifiable light curve befitting of an opthalmologist. Esperanto looked promising at the conference in Boulogne-sur-Mer but hasn't travelled further than Neutral Moresnet.

(.....................at least it hasn't reached Mumsnet)