@Paul McGraw said:

 Atonality is a complete break with the very foundations of western music. 

Paul

I respectfully disagree to this.

Without a foundation in tonal harmony, voice leading and counterpoint no one can become a genuine atonal composer. So it is not a complete break but rather heavily rests on tradition. What more could be evidence other than the fact that Schonberg, the father of atonality, writing one of the greatest books on tonal harmony!

I am assuming of course that we are not talking about con artists, whereever they are (I consider them a waste of time) but considering only the best composers of avant garde music today...those who are both firmly based on tradition and also are performed by orchestras. Thats why I like Salonen as an example. You should hear his conducting Mahler or Beethoven...some of the best recordings Ive heard. It is with this background that he writes his own music.

And I hear in thse composers a lot of the foundation very rigidly followed, You can hear voice leading and sophisticated counterpoint in Corgliano, even some beautiful romantic passages. Have you heard John Williams' concert pieces btw? They border on atonality, and this is from someone who gave us some of the greatest tunes of our time!

To give an analogy, in physics there were Newtons Laws until about 1905, and Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics competely broke away from the old laws. They could not have done this without Newtons laws, but the new laws are completely different although built on the old laws. In fact Einstein himself could never get to accept quantum mechanics although he was one of the founders! it was too radical for him and he didnt believe nature cannot be deterministic. But quantum mechanics is the most successfully verified theory of the microscopic world, so sadly even Einstein was driven by his personal feelings and not reality.

The only differrence is, in music there are no laws, but just rules. These rules can be broken to make even broader rules. This is all to create larger and larger possibilities withing the infinite landscape of music.

This is the way I see western music.

Perhaps my situation is unique from others here. I was not brought up in the western classical tradition as a child, and I literally progressed from Bach to the present time over the last 25 years, entirely on my own will and desire (i.e., my parents never pushed me on to this;)). At each stage, I thought the music that came after that was pointless. I can vividly recall hearing Brahms Symphony no 1 about 15 years ago, and being totally befuddled, even annoyed. To that point I had only heard Beethoven and earlier. Only leater I realized how beautiful it was, and how the themes was woven with absolute mastery. I felt the same way when first hearing Stravinsky. It took me some time to appreciate the innovations they were doing at each stage and each one was a learning experience. I feel that I am again at a cross roads, with the music of today. 

Best

Anand

OK I try to make my point very sshort:

No music "should" be written. Musc "want" to be written.

Music is written beause a composer want it to be written. No concept, no ideology no convention or allmighty Law does the Job to intend music and to invent/ create music.

I do not close any way to compose at all. Yes personally I tend to feel uncomfortable if I do have the impression, someone avoids to develop his own musical language, and just imitates the habits of others. But for me the time of conflicting ideologies have been past away that was the problem of the 20th century.

OK, I have composed very few things, but when I used harmonic means of tonality and atonality when ever I feel the certain piece and what I intended to do would make profit from but I confess I do believe there is finally no decision that could be made wether a music is tonal or atonal.What you hear is what counts.

Atonal compositions could not evade the simple factt that every ear judges harmonic relations based on the more or less simple mathemetic relations of different tones. Atonal pieces therefore not so seldom charm with harmonic situations that even remind similar situations in Tonal compositions, as tonal compositions become interesting when the hamonic situation becomes more or less ambiguous. To make it a "yes or no question" is for me is if you try to paint the incredible variety of Colors of a sunrise with black and white. Both allone neither "Yes" nor "no" neither Black nor white neiter tonal not atonal gives you the truth of acoustic understanding of tones and harmony.

In my eyes you overrate the concept of 12-tone music aswell in his importants for the composers and compositions of the 20th and 21th century as in it's musical reception by the listener.  He always will hear tones and their relations however easy or complex their relation will be. And they can be and are both esay and complex in each musical language. It is the composer who decides that for every single note he composes and it is the listener who decides it for every single tone he listens.

@Paul McGraw said:

I did not state that all composers who have written atonal music are con artists or shams. That particular distinction is reserved for John Cage. Are some atonalists just being lazy and wanting the title of composer without doing the actual work? Of course. And university faculty members typically make $150,000 per year (starting salary) plus benefits that no one working a non-government job could even dream of receiving. I'm certain many composers have been tempted by those university checks to churn out the atonal mess and will go to their graves defending it. But most atonalists were and are just people like anyone else, trying to do something good. Of course, good intentions do not forgive ugliness, but they are not con artists like Cage.

This is a very different perspective which I dont know much about since I wasnt formally educated in music like you. I would even agree with you here that Universities become the haven for mediocrity posing as avant garde.

The litmus test for me is, can they compose a symphony or sonata or any other tonal peice in a competent fashion? I think this has to be the basic requirement. (Thts why I was quipping that Wayne is way more qualified to appreciate modern music, if he wishes to)

From what you tell me Cage couldnt probably have done it, but I dont know. 

I am 100% sure Corigliano or Williams or Salonen or Boulez can churn out tonal symphonies if they wanted to.

Best

Anand

fahl5,

Thank you for trying to communicate in English. I know it must be difficult. I took German classes in univeristy in the early 1970's, but I can remember nothing after all these years. I admire your ability with English.

While I understnad your points, it was not Paul McGraw that placed such importance on Schoenberg and serialism. Modern music histories and musicologists have clearly done that. Check Groves, or even Wikipaedia.

I believe you are correct that the human mind is always looking for relationships and patterns. That has been well established by research. That is why it is particularly difficult for audiences to grasp any meaning in atonality. Could there be people who can follow, appreciate and enjoy atonality? I think so. Many people report that they very much enjoy atonal sounds. Modern jazz often uses chord constructs including the 11th or 13th which sounds to many atonal. Yet there are poeple who really like this type of jazz. However, jazz was previously THE primary popular music in America. Classical music was once almost as popular, being depicted frequently in movies. In my home town when I was young we had 3 classical stations. Today there is only 1 and it is part time. Take a look at this article about music preferences.

Click here for article

So what do both jazz and classical have in common that has alienated audiences?

Please do not feel that you missed out on much by not going to University. Knowledge is available to all who are willing to read and study. No one needs a university to gain knowledge. It might help in some areas, but it is just as likely to simply be an indoctrination.

Anand,

I agree that Williams does like tone clusters and bi-tonality, but he does not verge into atonality as far as I am aware. Williams is a chameleon (and I mean that as a complement) who is so good that he can write whatever he thinks will work for his audience. I can't think of anyone in music history who has been more widely heard and admired than Williams. And I really am not sure what Williams would write just for himself. He writes for his audience. 

I also agree that Williams could easily write a wonderful symphony.

Why don't we end with these points of agreement. I have some errands to run and it is getting late in the afternnon.

Paul

@Paul McGraw said:

why don't we end with these points of agreement. I have some errands to run and it is getting late in the afternnon.

Paul

Hahaha sounds good. Life is more important to attend to.

Best

Anand

@Paul McGraw said:

So what do both jazz and classical have in common that has alienated audiences?

just quickly adding that my impression was that without Jazz and blues there would have been no rock n roll or pop or beatles or led zeppelin and everything that followed...Jazz is another music that fascinates me for its complexity and sophistication. The reason for its decadence was that folllowing the end of an era of great black muscians who started it, the blacks in America moved on to rap, and now the rest of the world is catching up to rap....just see the success of 'Hamilton'.

I dont intend light another fire here😉 will sign off, for now. 

Thank you for your well-meaning comment on my awful broken english. Yes it seem to me more cruel to expect foreigners to speak german, than to let them suffer under my poor english abilities.

@ Universities:

Just to correct a possible misunderstanding I am very pleased by Anands detailed knowledge of even sophisticated musical subjects. But when I understood him right it was he, who has had no formal musical education. And yes Paul he is a good proof that personal interest is an unvaluable power to gain knowledge even without the support of an formal education.

For me it is a little bit different, my personal interest was already in my youth as strong, that it actually leads me to an pretty rich formal musical education, and I am deeply grateful fo that. Thats why I do have no problems with Universities at all.

@Schönbergs historic importants is different from his importants for the 21th century composer

IMHO it is something different, if you talk about Schönbergs importants for musichistory which I admit should not be underestimated, since he and his pupills Berg + Webern obviously were very influencal for the composers of the 50th and 60th in Germany as in the USA.

But.... this is already half a century away from our situation today.

No, today you can not make any revolution with a 12 tone or otherwise serial composition. And I do have the impression there is today also very little interest in any musical revolution at all. If ever one would like to write any dodekaphonic or serial composition today it would be as if Mozart ttried to write baroque Fugues or Churchmusic. It could not be anything else than the attempt to gave an historic composition technic a new chance since it might have an interesting aspect for the composer who draw back to those historic forms.

But it does not make any sense to "compose" dodekaphonic as academic duty (if it should be more than a stylistic study) as it does likewise make for me no sense to think we do need more Mozart like Sonatas or Symphonies. Yes Mozart is likewise an very interesting subject for stylisitic exercises and/or academic analysis.

But imho a composer of contemporary music does more than just imitations of any historic style. If he is honest, he struggles for his own path and musical language.

@ Jazz, Classical, Country

BTW: It seems as if the audience of Jazz has shiftet to Countrymusic in the USA. (Thats a pitty, since Jazz has always been very impressive innovative and seem to me much closer to our old european music than "country" however the Classical music does not seem to be that little heard in the USA when I believe the Statistic of the Article you linked above. As far as I know the classical "interest rate" in germany seem likewise neither very high but also not that bad. I do not know anythong concrete about the interest in contemporary composition.

Comment withdrawn.

fahl

just wanted to quickly clarify that I am not particularly against universities or formal education. As a matter of fact I am a university professor, but in engineering and not music. We do need universities to allow academic curiosity to fluorish in any field.

In my comment all I was saying from my own experience in academia is that this is a haven for mediocrtity but this is unavoidable. There are a lot of great people in academia too, not to mention the greatest scientists who ever lived!

I did take a few courses in conservatory but do not have a music degree.

And talking about classical music in America, I live in Boston where there is are so many amazing musicians and live concerts, many of them free. https://www.classical-scene.com/ We have some very exciting conductors like Benjamin Zander, and this was the place where John Williams spent many years in the Boston pops.  

Living here Ive always felt classical music thrives, maybe its a bubble.

Also I should point out that I dont think Jazz fans moved to country music. Jazz music also thrives in north america, with so many festivals...just that its not as popular as it was in the Jazz era.

Best

Anand 

@agitato said:

The only differrence is, in music there are no laws, but just rules. These rules can be broken to make even broader rules. This is all to create larger and larger possibilities withing the infinite landscape of music.

Best

Anand

I think you are partially correct, in music there are no direct laws governing a composer's aesthetic choices.  But music is sound, sound is vibration, there are laws governing the behavior of vibration, and biological laws governing how we experience vibration.   There are nonphysical laws, i.e. one's integrity, capacity to love and be loved, to be kind, fair, just and patient. We call it well-being or being in tune with one's whole being, to my mind and heart it's really about attunement with the absolute, the divine. We live in a law-governed cause-and-effect cosmos. Trying to determine the cause and the effect is the difficult part. Music can help us appreciate the harmony that pervades everything, which makes it lawful.    The cultures that reject music will die out.  

Jerry

"That's all you do William, is "mouth-off", exactly like you said.   You write in such incredible generalities and make such sweeping assumptions ("Music is now in a state of fragmentation") that I have to laugh at your posturing.   More's the pity.  

William writes " In the past there was always a singular great movement..." 

Of course this is wrong, as there have been aesthetic clashes and debates going back to the 14th century with Ars Nova.  The critics were pounding composers in the 19th century as romanticism and modernism clashed, and today, as always, the best composers write music that is authentic to the culture and reflective of the many traditions we've inherited from our ancestors.  Even in the 16th century, there were different approaches and styles all throughout Europe.  There never has been a "singular great movement", you're sentimentalizing the past, which is what people tend to do when they cannot cope with the challenges, complexities, diversity, influences and dynamism of the 21st century."  - jsg

In the Classical Era, there WAS a movement headed by Joseph Haydn. Beethoven was anxious to be accepted by Haydn.   In the Romantic Era, there WAS a movement - Brahms and Schumann were vigorously opposed to Wagner.  There were extreme factions between these groups.   In the Post-Romantic Era, there WAS a movement - Bruckner and then his champion -  Mahler - were creating music in a similar harmonic idiom, slowly advancing to more and more complex harmony.   

There was not total freedom - to do anything from pure white sound to Medieval plainchant which is in fact a characteristic of today - and that was NOT the case in the past.

btw this person jsg says the only thing I do is "mouth off" - no, I do other things including:

VSL music

VSL Chivalry

William Kersten

Production music

to name a few. I will not be insulted like this on this Forum and demand an apology. I am not accepting this kind of treatment from people who have no qualification to dismiss me in this way.

@Paul McGraw said:

. Of course, good intentions do not forgive ugliness, but they are not con artists like Cage.

OK, you've publically accused a dead artist of being a con-man.  Prove it.  Did you know him?  Did he con you out of money, out of property or a job?  Did he con anybody you know?   Your empty accusations are ugly.  You've made him into a monolith and now you have to rip him apart.  It's all in your mind Paul.

@William said:

btw this person jsg says the only thing I do is "mouth off" -  no, I do other things including:

VSL music

VSL Chivalry

William Kersten

 Production music

 

to name a few.  I will not be insulted like this on this Forum and demand an apology.  I am not accepting this kind of treatment from people who have no qualification to dismiss me in this way.  

I have nothing to apologize for so in spite of your demand for one you won't get it from me.  It was YOU who said you are mouthing off on the forum, here are your words:

( btw  unlike Errikos I always try to find time to mouth off here on the VSL Forum - as long as the libations hold out.    

@Paul McGraw said:

mh-7635,

Why not post under your real name? I believe using ones real name on the internet fosters a more congenial environment for all.

Who do I rate? By that I think you mean who do I admire and spend time listening to their music? The fields of choral music, especially religious choral music, and symphonic band music, have many composers of note. The way this usually works is I name a few, then the proponent of atonality trashes them, thinking they have thus won some kind of point. However, I will play along and we will see what happens.

Among choral composers Eric Whitacre has had enormous success. Among symphonic band composers Phillip Sparke is well worth a listen. Most of the best orchestral writers have gravitated towards film music. There are many of these in the past, Korngold, Herman and Miklos Rozsa immediately come to mind. Living today we have a clear connection with concert music in the Lord of the Rings Symphony by Howard Shore. 

But no need to look further than right here at the VSL forum. Guy Bacos and William Kersten create marvelous, well crafted orchestral music. 

My statement that atonality is old is not a misleading, false, or deceptive argument. It is simply a fact, and was stated as a fact backed up by factual evidence. Calling a fact an opinion, even calling it specious, does not advance the discussion. I do not have a time limit for aesthetic movements. What made you think that? Tonality dates back to the dawn of human history. The greek philosophers of antiquity wrote about the various modes. 

What do I propose for young composers? I would tell them to write what is in their heart. I would tell them that if they want a large audience they need to utilize the tonal language of music. I would tell them not to worry about being "original" or "finding their own voice" or "speaking to our time." If they master their craft, then if they have something original to say it will come out of them naturally.

Yes, institutions have probably ruined many potentially fine composers. Thankfully that seems to be changing. I do not agree that anyone needs to "make themselves relevant." How do we judge what is or is not relevant to our current society? Isn't Eric Witacre relevant? If not, why not? 

Well Paul to address your post in order - my signature tells everyone who I am but your continuing adjectives tend to rule out congeniality.  BTW I suggest you do not click on my site as there are some pieces there that will not be to your taste, but you and everyone else are welcome to call me whatever you like, I only ask that you keep it civil if you want reasoned debate.

From what you write, I can't seem to escape the conclusion that you seem to think atonality and tonality do not mix whether it be musically or regarding someones creative preferences. I believe you are wrong on these points , firstly because I am not going to 'trash' your preferences and instead agree with you about the composers you have mentioned - although it is duly noted that the best you can come up with in a thread instigated by an appreciation of Salonen is Howard Shore who is of course a great film composer, but some here might consider his ouvre to be a little off-topic when considering the highest aspirational realms of our practice, if only because film scorings  raison d'etre imposes a utility on self-expression, which is in the main absent in the concert world. (I do not want to digress too much here, but accept that there is a good argument against this that suggests that the desire for self expression in film scoring can be quenched in practice, but as this thread is not about film scoring I shall leave it there). 

Secondly, your assumption that the 2 technical practices (tonal -atonal) are mutually exclusive is completely fallacious because one is surely an all-encompassing extension of the other and when used competently gives the composer a wide expressive arc - all that is needed are adventurous ears and a willingness to search.

Your assertion that atonality is old and therefore not a way forward is a subjective conclusion based on your antipathy and is not factual nor predicated on the reality of current practice. The fact is that atonality and tonality exist side by side in todays zeitgeist and can even be combined very successfully. You really are missing out on wonderful music Paul, music that has extended levels of functioning harmonic practice that is not proscriptive in a dodecaphonic sense. This makes me wonder if your definition of atonality is the same as mine and many of the great composers of shall we say the last 60 years, but if you haven't listened to any of their music, how are you to know and even insult their work convincingly.

For once I agree fully with the paragraph starting with your propositions for young composers. Some will venture into atonality and find a seductive world of possibilities.

OK Jerry + William and who else is talking on the edge of any "insult" against anyone here or anywhere else please in respect to the dignity of the very interesting and serious subject of this Thread it seems to me time to come back to Beethoven 9th:

"O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere."

Please stay true friends in music: straight, clear and honest in the matter, but not in anyway personal since I fear that will not answer at all the question which started this thread.

Some days ago, I've tried to give my point of view, but Ive been reading all the posts so far. I must say that I'm not very pleased with the tone of them. Some are quite practical, intellectual... some are rather rude to even brutal. It migt be true that only friends can speak their minds freely to one another, but an insult remains an insult, no matter how you look at it.

My second point was, that this section of our forum has been hijacked for a long topic that actually doesn't belong here, however interesting. Maybe for that purpose a new section should be opened like "Personal views on the direction of future music". This sections should deal with Composition - Orchestration - Instruments. One could of course argument that the direction of composition fits in here, but that's more a cultural or historical consideration with aesthetic aspects (and taste).

I don't want to interfere any further, but to throw another aspect in the discussion, I would want to post a little piece here that says it all in a nutshell. It is not (as we say in Flanders) a stone in the frog's puddle (disturbance), but only a minor and rather funny example without wanting to prove any right or wrong.

Jean-Féry Rebel (what's in a name...) wrote "Les Eléments" in 1737. The first element is called "Le Chaos" .

Le Chaos makes a leap of 200 years towards atonality (Wikipedia). It wasn't received warmly as you can imagine. But Féry was a clever man. He used this bit of atonality only functionally in the context of the creation of order in the universe as a huge contrast. Not just a series of meaningless dissonants without any direction. But still, it was a daring enterprise at that time of strictly regulated harmonic sequences.

Jos

Great baroque clustermusic ! (meanwhile I think, when it comes to pittoresque composing there are of course several examples which tend to leave the range of conventional harmony even in earlier music history)

In short: courageuos modernism seems to be one of the oldest and most venerable traditions music has ever had 😃

Post removed due to offering nothing of value to this conversation.