On 16 Nov 2002 at 11:08, Andrew Stiller wrote: > But none of these things are true, not to any educated musician. To > use the words "tonal" and "tonality" to refer to the entire musical > universe except for the relative handful of pieces that are atonal is > useless, even ridiculous. It's as if one referred to all the world's > inhabitants as "non-Andorrans." Except, of course, for the Andorrans, who > are thereby stigmatized.
While I don't disagree with the overall thrust of your message, I do think that you have equated the word "tonal" with the word "tonality." I fully agree with your definition of the latter, though I would say that the late 19th century expanded tonality system is, in fact, as rooted in functional tonality as the earlier system was. A piece of music does not have to recapitulate the V/I narrative to be tonal, by any means, if the V/I juxtaposition still has power and meaning within the musical universe of the piece. In late Wager or Bruckner or Mahler, despite a vastly expanded universe of consonances and allowable modulations, the V/I relationship and the pre-eminence of the leading tone still occupy the center of the tonal system in use, even if they are present only elliptically. "Tonal," on the other hand, means to me that a piece uses a pitch universe in which some pitches are more central than others. Any number of systems that are not common-practice period tonality and lack the V/I dichotomy are, in fact, tonal. All of modality is tonal, and there is no V/I in the modal system (not the fake modal system you're taught in theory class, but the real one, as used in the 15th- 18th centuries, as found in folk music of many different countries, etc.). And that is far from being the only kind of tonal universe available. The Rite of Spring is tonal, for instance. There is, in fact, plenty of tonal music that does not rely on common- practice period tonality, and so I think it's a huge mistake to equate the terms. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
