Atonality

Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality, in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day, where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another (Kennedy 1994). More narrowly, the term atonality describes music that does not conform to the system of tonal hierarchies that characterized classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries (Lansky, Perle, and Headlam 2001). 'The repertory of atonal music is characterized by the occurrence of pitches in novel combinations, as well as by the occurrence of familiar pitch combinations in unfamiliar environments' (Forte 1977, 1). The term is also occasionally used to describe music that is neither tonal nor serial, especially the pre-twelve-tone music of the Second Viennese School, principally Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern (Lansky, Perle, and Headlam 2001). However, 'as a categorical label, 'atonal' generally means only that the piece is in the Western tradition and is not 'tonal'' (Rahn 1980, 1), although there are longer periods, e.g., medieval, renaissance, and modern modal music to which this definition does not apply. 'Serialism arose partly as a means of organizing more coherently the relations used in the pre-serial 'free atonal' music. ... Thus, many useful and crucial insights about even strictly serial music depend only on such basic atonal theory' (Rahn 1980, 2). Late 19th- and early 20th-century composers such as Alexander Scriabin, Claude Debussy, Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Edgard Varèse have written music that has been described, in full or in part, as atonal (Baker 1980; Baker 1986; Bertram 2000; Griffiths 2001; Kohlhase 1983; Lansky and Perle 2001; Obert 2004; Orvis 1974; Parks 1985; Rülke 2000; Teboul & 1995–96; Zimmerman 2002). While music without a tonal center had been previously written, for example Franz Liszt's Bagatelle sans tonalité of 1885, it is with the coming of the twentieth century that the term atonality began to be applied to pieces, particularly those written by Arnold Schoenberg and The Second Viennese School.The term 'atonality' was coined in 1907 by Joseph Marx in a scholarly study of tonality, which was later expanded into his doctoral thesis (Haydin and Esser 2009). Their music arose from what was described as the 'crisis of tonality' between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in classical music. This situation had arisen over the course of the nineteenth century due to the increasing use of The first phase, known as 'free atonality' or 'free chromaticism', involved a conscious attempt to avoid traditional diatonic harmony. Works of this period include the opera Wozzeck (1917–1922) by Alban Berg and Pierrot Lunaire (1912) by Schoenberg. The second phase, begun after World War I, was exemplified by attempts to create a systematic means of composing without tonality, most famously the method of composing with 12 tones or the twelve-tone technique. This period included Berg's Lulu and Lyric Suite, Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, his oratorio Die Jakobsleiter and numerous smaller pieces, as well as his last two string quartets. Schoenberg was the major innovator of the system. His student, Anton Webern, however, is anecdotally claimed to have begun linking dynamics and tone color to the primary row, making rows not only of pitches but of other aspects of music as well (Du Noyer 2003, 272). However, actual analysis of Webern's twelve-tone works has so far failed to demonstrate the truth of this assertion. One analyst concluded, following a minute examination of the Piano Variations, op. 27, that Twelve-tone technique, combined with the parametrization (separate organization of four aspects of music: pitch, attack character, intensity, and duration) of Olivier Messiaen, would be taken as the inspiration for serialism (Du Noyer 2003, 272).