On May 26, 2007, at 2:44 PM, Dean M. Estabrook wrote:
Please define "Non -Tonal."
There are several definitions in current use of "tonal" and "atonal", none very strict nor all-encompassing. Depending on which one for "tonal" you are using, "non-tonal" would just be everything else that you decided didn't fall under the "tonal" umbrella.
I think Andrew was meaning for tonal; any music defined by a leading tone cadence, which has been the current European definition since late Renaissance up to 1910 or so, where things started to get harder to define. NOT tonal, by that definition, includes early modal and anything that you might like to include after 1910 or so that doesn't have its key centre defined by a leading-tone cadence, and a whole cartload of non-European music as well.
Atonal is just a very bad expression, and I wish we could come up with something more descriptive. Originally it was meant to include new music (at the start of the 1900's, that is) that didn't have a clear key centre, or else actively avoided leaning even slightly toward one, including most twelve-tone music. But the word has been co-opted to mean "music I don't like" by just about everyone who doesn't have a better definition than the above one to offer. Culprits in this category include our local classical music critic, who uses it as a dismissal whenever he doesn't understand a work, and my grandmother.
Incidentally, someone mentioned Berg's Violin Concerto as an example of atonal music. While it was undoubtedly composed using serial twelve-tone techniques (though not exclusively) I find it to be notable in that it DOES sort of bend toward a key, and in a fairly conservative way too, in that the series includes two sets of two stacked triads a fifth apart which sort of suggest a i-V harmonic movement. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that perhaps one of the reasons I find this work to be so beautiful is the suggestion of traditional tonality, however fleeting. But then I console myself by admiring his melodic sense and astonishing orchestrational colours (it really is a gorgeous work!)
Christopher _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
