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From: jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow)
Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Rosen on atonality - Webern / what the hell is tonality, anyway?
Message-ID: <3883@tekecs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 30-Jun-84 16:28:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekecs.3883
Posted: Sat Jun 30 16:28:18 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Jul-84 02:59:17 EDT
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
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I think Rich and I are having more of an argument of words than an argument
of ideas (yeah, I finally figured it out). But I have a few comments.

   It's interesting that you find Webern more tonal than Schoenberg. I have
always felt that if you looked hard enough at Schoenberg's "atonal" music,
you could find tonal processes going on. There's an intended one in "ode to
napoleon", of course, but I'm referring to more canonical things, like the
"orchestra variations", for instance. After all, S. had composed a lot of
tonal music, and had a commanding grasp of traditional harmony, so do you think
he could really completely escape it? on the other hand, Webern's op. 1, if
I remember correctly, is a "passacaglia" of only very vague tonality. perhaps
the reason Webern's music sounds more tonal to you (enter wild guess mode)
is that the thinner textures allow overtones of the played notes to sound
untrammeled by (presumably conflicting) upper voices that would exist in a
thicker texture. Those overtones might tend to give a tonal "sound" to a 
piece that was theoretically not. Just an idea.

   Rich said something to the effect, "each moment having tonality, but the
piece having no key". Tonality, like rhythm, is something that exists
only in context. It is impossible to have rhythm with just one beat,
likewise it is impossible to have tonality with just one note or chord. 
Tonality is the sense that the pitches in a particular bit of music are
in a heirarchy, with one note being the most important in some sense. 
I suspect that, to a sufficiently trained ear, real atonality is not
possible.

   Here's an interesting thought for you: one could easily write a piece
which used 12-tone rows as a structural element but was tonal as well.
But such a piece certainly would not please the anti-atonalists any more
than the most uncompromising serialist work, because what they object to
(if they haven't learned to prate learnedly about the "unnaturalness" of
dodecaphony) is dissonance, not lack of tonality.  (This is not aimed at
Rich, I'm just making the comment.)

						Jeff Winslow