Do We Really Need Atonality?

Introduction

    This post includes personal opinions on classical music, atonality & tonality, composition. Also includes formal informations about atonality theory and its history. Before starting to read, I strongly recommend you listen the most beautiful composition of Stravinsky: Le Sacre du printemps. Leaving aside its historical development, atonality first manifested itself in the form of music in the early 1900s. I have described the lack of tonal music in my Free Jazz post. But, free jazz and classical music, these two are very different things. As a classical music composer, I want to introduce ‘the dark side of the classical music’…

The most of the people believe that classical music to be calming and relaxing, but it’s a little wrong called.

Second Viennese School & The Others

Arnold_Schoenberg is the key name for atonality. He was a composer, teacher and painter. Arnold Schoenberg also the developer of better-known 12-tone-technique, which is ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one note through the use of tone rows, orderings of the 12 pitch classes [1]. Meaning that, this 12-tone -which makes up the chromatic scale- is organized in a way that avoids particular tonal associations and of course provides the composer with the possibilities of use they want later on. 12-tone-technique became associated with the “Second Viennese School” composers, who were the primary users of the technique in the first decades of its existence.

Second Viennese School is a group of composers, includes Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern. Those 3 composer are known as the milestone of the atonal music. As I introduced Arnold Schoenberg, he taught between 1903 and 1925. Alban Berg studied with Schoenberg for six years in the first decade of the 20th Century, and seemed to take a lot from his experiences. Gently tweaking Schoenberg’s 12-tone brand of serialism by developing an entire piece from just one four-note idea. And, Anton Webern was also influenced by the great Schoenberg, and extended his 12-tone serialism into something that would later be called ‘total serialism’. Webern’s music was especially stripped-back and precise, often requiring some strange techniques on the part of the performer. Most of all, though, Webern was responsible for influencing the next generation of serialists.

12-tone-technique also used by Igor Stravinsky (my favorite), Béla Bartók, Krzysztof Penderecki etc. The most of the composers after 1950 influenced by 12-tone-technique and Schoenberg, Webern, Berg.

Béla Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin, Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps, Krzysztof Penderecki’s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima are good examples for chromaticism and atonality. Also Dmitri Shostakovich, Russian composer, was prone to use chromatic scales [2]. His pieces are not completely atonal, but at the same time he often really abuses the key that he’s in. The main difference between chromaticism and atonality is when you decide to use chromatic scales, you use a scale consisting of all 12 tones without actively trying to make it sound atonal; on the other hand, when you decide to use atonality, you use a scale consisting of all 12 tones, but with active avoidance of tonality.

Do We Really Need Atonality?

Atonality comes from diversity. Getting stuck in tonal music is something common in music, especially in Romantic era. Even in the Baroque music, you may encounter similarity between compositions, for example in Antonio Vivaldi’s compositions. Circling around a minor scale or major key will create this simplicity and repeat yourself situation for you after a while. So should I be more atonal? Should I use chromatic scales in my compositions? Do not forget that Johann Sebastian Bach used only one or two keys in his compositions, especially D minor and G minor. And still, he achieved diversity in his compositions. For me, this is more about how you want to express your music with an arbitrary technique. Why were Romantic era musicians stuck in this repetition? They expressed same emotion and music with same technique.

Appendix: More About 12-tone-technique [3]

In a twelve-tone composition, every note can be accounted for as being a member of the original series or one of its permutations, providing unity to the piece as a whole. Additionally, a twelve-tone series is a repository of intervals and can be seen as an outgrowth of atonal music with its emphasis on interval over chord or scale. The basic premises of twelve-tone music are as follows:

• All twelve notes of the chromatic scale must occur
• No note can be repeated in the series until the other 11 notes of the chromatic scale have occurred (exceptions include direct repetition of a note, trills, and tremolos)
• The series can be inverted, retrograded, and the inversion can be retrograded
• The order of notes in a series remains fixed, without reordering.

Row Forms

The four types of row forms used in twelve-tone technique are prime (P), retrograde (R), inversion (I), and retrograde inversion (RI). The prime is the original row. The retrograde is the prime form backward. The inversion is the original row with all intervals in the row inverted (going in the opposite direction of the original). Finally, the retrograde inversion is the inversion retrograded (and therefore might have more appropriately been labeled “inversion retrograded” since “retrograde inversion” sounds like it refers to the backward form inverted instead of the inverted form backward).

Transposition Numbers

Each row form can be transposed to start on any note from the chromatic scale. We will use the same pitch integers as in set theory. For primes and inversions, we will use P and I accompanied by a pitch integer to specify the starting note. For example, \(P_0\) is a twelve-tone row starting on C (pitch integer 0), \(P_3\) is a twelve-tone row starting on E♭, and so forth. The same is the case for row forms like \(I_2\) (starting on D), \(I_5\) (starting on F), on so forth.

However, the retrograde (R) and retrograde inversion (RI) row forms use the pitch integer of the last note in the row to designate their transposition level. Therefore, \(R_1\) ends on C♯, and \(RI_7\) ends on G.

Have a Listen In Order

• Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos. 1, 8 & 14 - Borodin Quartet
• Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin - Chicago Symphony Orhestra
• Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring - Berliner Philharmoniker
• Penderecki: Symphony No. 3 / Threnody - Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
• Schoenberg: Piano Concerto, Op. 42 - Seiji Ozawa
• Berg: Wozzeck - Wiener Philharmoniker

References

[1] Twelve-tone technique, Wikipedia. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique

[2] Scott Marino, Dissertation on Dmitry Shostakovich’s Harmonic Language. I.B Music Extended Essay. January 1, 2014. URL: link

[3] Robert Hutchinson, Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom. 34.1 Twelve-Tone Technique. URL: https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/TwelveToneTechnique.html

[4] Moya K. Mason, Theodor Adorno’s Theory of Music and its Social Implications. URL: http://www.moyak.com/papers/adorno-schoenberg-atonality.html

[5] Şafak Bilici, A Brief Introduction to Free Jazz. URL: https://safakkbilici.github.io/int-to-free-jazz/

[6] Alban Berg, Wikipedia. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alban_Berg