Atonal Music
To the Editor:
Thank you for publishing Neil M. Ribe's article, “Atonal Music and Its Limits” [November 1987]. It is a little ironic that I had to turn to COMMENTARY to see in print some of the arguments against and doubts about atonal music that I and many other academic and professional musicians have hitherto been able to express only behind closed doors to trusted loved ones and faithful students.
We musicians are indeed, as Mr. Ribe suggests, “reluctant critically to examine the conceptual foundations of atonality,” not necessarily “for fear of lending support to its vocal and often irrational opponents” but, rather, for fear of being branded as hopelessly backward and professionally incompetent. Just as the emperor's subjects did not dare to remark that there might be something funny about his new clothes, musicians do not dare question the validity of a type of music that was unpopular at its conception in the beginning of the century, and that even today few people really like. As Mr. Ribe points out, there are some fundamental problems in the very structure of atonal music which keep it from being a true successor to the tonal system of the past, yet musicians are forced to overlook these problems and are required instead to embrace the modern era without looking back. Our own professional journals would never carry this “unenlightened” article for fear that it might awaken some interest in a case that was settled long ago.
Thus, just as art mimics life, politics in art mimic those in life so that even in the musical world, where one would assume that individuality and personal expression would be especially encouraged, we musicians must depend on an articulate geologist to say what so many of us have been thinking for years.
Lisa Hanford Halasz
Department of Music
Rutgers University
Camden, New Jersey
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To the Editor:
Although I am not entirely sure that Neil M. Ribe is correct that no musical system is natural without qualification, his article is extremely clear, well-written, and harmonious.
Seth Cropsey
Washington, D.C.
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To the Editor:
As one who tries to discuss music in intelligent and informative ways, I was most distressed to read Neil M. Ribe's “Atonal Music and Its Limits.” . . .
Mr. Ribe's definition of tonality as a “musical idiom in which all pitches are organized in relation to a central pitch, or ‘tonal center,’” and the subsequent description of atonality as an idiom which “lacks” this focus (whereby Mr. Ribe weaves his idea of the system's deficiencies into its very definition) is excruciatingly incomplete. But as one progresses to his criticisms of dodecaphony (or twelve-tone technique) one realizes that this was necessary to his thesis.
In fact, tonality is nothing so simple as Mr. Ribe suggests. It is as much a result as it is a source of the syntax which obtains in any given piece. Volumes have been written on this difficult topic, and yet music theorists are still largely unable to offer any acceptable definition. As Eugene Narmour says, “The fact is that, to date, we simply do not know the set of arguments that justifies our accepting ‘tonicness’ as axiomatic” (Beyond Schenkerism, University of Chicago Press, 1977).
Mr. Ribe's definition, however, would have us believe that a particular pitch within a given collection of pitches is a tonal center merely as a matter of agreement. This completely ignores the fact that it is the syntactical relationships of those other pitches to that central pitch which provide it with its “tonicness.” More simply stated, Mozart's Sonata in C Major is in C Major not because of the work's title (i.e., because he said it is), but rather because he chose that particular harmonic field whose syntax defines the pitch C as a tonal center. How that particular field centers on C is still not known to us; that it does so is clear even to the most uneducated listener.
This is important because Mr. Ribe's incomplete definition allows him then to proceed to a discussion of intervals in an attempt to defend the “naturalness” of tonality. He posits the idea of the octave as a “natural measure” in music, it being the “most consonant” interval. It is by this “natural measure,” Mr. Ribe suggests, that the quality of all other intervals is judged. This is completely untenable, of course, and the reader will note that he makes no serious attempt to defend it. Rather, he writes that the sound of the octave is “so familiar that we seldom pause to reflect on how strange it is that the octave exists at all.” In this way Mr. Ribe is attempting to give the interval a kind of magical, supernal status, when it is in fact an entirely predictable and simple acoustical phenomenon, as are all intervals. This all rings rather suspiciously of the mysticism inherent in Heinrich Schenker's concept of Ursatz in music, a static harmonic structure which Schenker claimed exists in the “background” of all “great” music. And great music, by definition of the Ursatz, must be tonal music, specifically of the Central Northern European variety. . . .
Mr. Ribe then discusses the two intervals just below the octave in his hierarchy, the perfect fifth and perfect fourth. He points to the five-note or pentatonic scale, and the fact that the ancient Chinese recognized that “the notes of this scale are obtained by ascending in fifths (or descending in fourths) from a given pitch.” This is true, if one arbitrarily stops after five such superimposed fifths or fourths. What Mr. Ribe does not tell us is that if one continues to twelve, one will have constructed a twelve-note scale; in fact, the very same twelve-note scale that Schoenberg—and for that matter Bach—employed.
More importantly, the need to look for such hypothetical generative structures is proof of Narmour's statement (the ancient Chinese may have been the first to do this but they were certainly not the last). We do not understand how the syntax of the scale itself defines its tonal center, so when we discover that the scale also consists of ascending fifths we feign greater understanding—as if this were a meaningful realization. . . .
Next Mr. Ribe turns to the medieval organum to defend the privileged position of the fourth and fifth, as this music consisted almost entirely of those intervals. What he again does not tell us is that in the music of the Renaissance, such as that of Lassus and Palestrina, the fourth separated from its tandem relationship to the fifth and was treated as a dissonance, requiring . . . resolution downward to the third. This omission denies the all-important fact that the definition of dissonance has changed through history.
Indeed, Mr. Ribe seems to be defending the “naturalness” of tonality by way of the alleged “naturalness” of consonance, as if the two were one and the same. In fact they are not related theoretical issues. A work can be firmly tonal and yet very dissonant. An example which immediately comes to mind are the complex six- and seven-note chords which we have come to accept as a final tonic in popular music and jazz today—harmonies that would have been impossible even a hundred years ago. These are one very clear example of how the terms consonance and dissonance must be defined relative to their historical context (i.e., relative to the period of the music one is examining). It should also demonstrate that consonance and tonality are completely separate questions.
Mr. Ribe's equation of atonality with dodecaphony—he never clearly distinguishes one from the other—creates a false impression. Music which is atonal is not by definition dodecaphonic. “Stravinsky,” says Mr. Ribe, “managed to be highly innovative while remaining within a recognizably tonal context.” But would he care to identify a tonal center in The Rite of Spring, or for that matter in many passages of The Firebird or Les Noces? I would venture to guess not. Yet these are works from Stravinsky's earliest, most innovative, period, long before he began to use dodecaphonic techniques. Consider as well the work of many younger composers. Ligeti, Penderecki, Henze, Crumb, and others have eschewed completely the techniques of dodecaphony, and yet composed in distinctly atonal idioms. . . .
Nor is it the case that all twelve-tone music is uncompromisingly dissonant. Mr. Ribe mentions Alban Berg's Wozzeck, but neglects to point out that much of its harmony is triadic or tonal, something I should think would please him. Berg's Violin Concerto, a lush and lyrical work, also uses a row which is intentionally triadic. The Italian dodecaphonist Dallapiccola often chose twelve-tone rows which provided him with triadic verticalities.
That dodecaphony “fizzled out”—at least with regard to Schoenberg's predictions for it—cannot be denied. . . . But Mr. Ribe's claim that this was due to an inherent “ugliness” in the music, or that its expressive possibilities were limited to psychosis, is entirely specious. The twelve-tone system did not become the harmonic vocabulary of our time because the harmonic “grammar” of tonal music could not be replaced, and that was the mistaken goal of dodecaphony. In fact, the entire development of such a system was, viewed in retrospect, an acknowledgment of the fact that the centuries-old domination of harmony in music was coming to a close. . . .
Many composers, as Mr. Ribe very correctly points out, continue to use the techniques of dodecaphony and its offspring, serialism, in an almost pathetically fixated way, expelling those students who dare come to their lessons with an octave or triad anywhere on the page. They suffer from the delusion, perhaps, that this is itself the stuff of masterworks. They do not see that Anton Webern's music, for example, is great not because of dodecaphony but rather in spite of it—that is, it is great because of Webern. . . .
All of this discussion of harmony and intervals and pitches brings me to perhaps my most important point. The simple fact of the matter is, Schenker's Ursatz and Mr. Ribe's “natural measure” notwithstanding, music does not exist only in one vertical dimension, namely, in harmony. The syntax or meaning which a listener perceives in music lies also in its line or melody, its rhythm, its tone color, its instrumentation, dynamics, form, and so forth. Within each of these parameters, some theorists are beginning to discover, as well as within the interactions among different parameters, there exist certain identifiable dialectical structures which either propel the music forward, provide it with its “richness,” or do not. . . . The attractiveness of ideas such as Schenker's and Ribe's lies in the very fact that they are actively uninterested in the diachronic aspects of style, and one can thus apply them to any and all periods of music equally. If the resulting analysis is faulty, say both these concepts, then it is the music which is suspect, and not the theory itself.
It should be clear that I do not disagree with most of Mr. Ribe's criticisms of dodecaphony. The problem is that his supporting arguments are too frequently empty. His views on dissonance and his denial of its changing role throughout history are indefensible. The underlying premise that tonal equates with “accessible” and atonal with “inaccessible” is offensive to the intelligence of the informed reader. Bach was regarded as inaccessible and unnecessarily dissonant in his day, as were Beethoven and Wagner and countless others. Perhaps the problem lies more in the “extreme” or “abnormal” emotions which Mr. Ribe says atonal music expresses?
He feels that atonality has little hope of finding acceptance in the concert hall—yes, he said this in November 1987—for a “simple” reason: “Atonality is not very well suited to expressing things traditionally considered ‘beautiful.’” What he means, essentially, is that the composer is ultimately responsible to the tastes of the “Blue-Danube” crowd—a view of the musician-as-lackey which is entirely consistent with his other distinctly 18th-century perspectives.
The purpose of art, I suppose, is to lull us and amuse us, to distract us from the evils and injustices, the neuroses and psychoses, of our day. In fact, however, many artists—since before Schoenberg's time, I daresay—view art as an opportunity to confront their society with these things. Admittedly not an attitude befitting a lackey, but times have changed. The 20th century—a century plagued by war and genocide; by coercive, lying governments posing as democracies; by hunger and homelessness; by fascism and fanaticism (religious, political, and aesthetic)—is a terrifying time for many of us. Mr. Ribe says he doubts that works such as Erwartung or Lulu could have been written prior to the 20th century. On this point I concur. They were not needed until the 20th century.
Jeffery Cotton
Department of Music
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Neil M. Ribe writes:
I thank Lisa Hanford Halasz and Seth Cropsey for their kind words. I am sorry to learn that the limits of atonality remain an unacceptable subject for discussion among professional musicians of Miss Halasz's acquaintance.
I thank Jeffery Cotton for taking my arguments seriously, even if he disagrees with most of them. He begins by noting that my definition of tonality, while not incorrect, is “excruciatingly incomplete.” Of course it is: its only purpose is to introduce the subject matter of the article by pointing out that there was a musical system (“tonality”) which Schoenberg felt compelled to reject. My subsequent argument in no way relies on this preliminary (but perfectly correct) definition, contrary to Mr. Cotton's claim.
Mr. Cotton's criticisms of my discussion of the octave show that he has completely failed to grasp the argument. The special status of the octave is an empirical fact: there is nothing “magical” or “supernal” about it (or indeed about my argument). Moreover, it is Mr. Cotton who “makes no attempt to defend” his view. I remind him that I explicitly noted two crucial facts which testify to the importance of the octave: its near-universal use as the foundation of the musical scale, and Schoenberg's acknowledgment of octave equivalence. A more ancient testimony to the same effect is the statement of Aristotle's student Aristoxenus that “the sum of an octave and any consonance is a consonance.” The truth is that the evidence for the simplicity of the octave is overwhelming. Mr. Cotton, however, seems to prefer to ignore it. His gratuitous comparison of my views with those of someone he evidently despises (Heinrich Schenker) merely shows that he has no cogent response to the argument.
Mr. Cotton criticizes my citation of the pentatonic scale by noting that the twelve-note chromatic scale used by Bach and Schoenberg can also be obtained by ascending in fifths. This is correct, but misses my point, which I apologize for not explaining more clearly. The important point is that the further one ascends in the circle of fifths, the more complex is the intervalic content of the resulting scale. The intervals defined by pairs of notes in the pentatonic scale are primarily simple intervals low in the overtone series, with a high proportion of fifths and fourths. The chromatic scale, by contrast, contains a smaller proportion of such intervals and a greater proportion of complex intervals (such as the major seventh and the tritone). The limited intervalic content of the pentatonic scale is what accounts for the relatively simple and static quality of pentatonic music.
Mr. Cotton next criticizes me for not mentioning the fact that Renaissance music requires resolution of the fourth downward to the third. I did not do so for the simple reason that musical traditions generally become more complex over time: the earlier stages therefore reveal the simpler musical elements (i.e., fifths and fourths) more clearly. Nevertheless, the use of the third in Renaissance music is a revealing case which deserves further comment. The canonical interpretation of this development, shared by Mr. Cotton, is that the concepts of consonance and dissonance have changed over time. This is a superficial reading which obscures the more fundamental truth. To avoid misunderstanding, it is best to describe the qualities of intervals in terms of “complexity” or “color” rather than “dissonance” (as I no doubt should have done in my article). One can then see the evolution of Western music for what it is: the progressive discovery and exploitation of musical color. Medieval music made extensive use of relatively simple, “plain” intervals such as the fifth and the fourth. The great discovery of the Renaissance was that the possibilities of musical expression could be enormously increased by using a more complex and colorful interval (the third) at the expense of a simpler one (the fourth).
The transition from medieval to Renaissance music thus provides strong evidence that the intervals of the overtone series form a hierarchy of increasing complexity and color. The fact that the third came to be regarded as “consonant” (i.e., suitable for ending a piece) by no means implies that it is “simpler” than the fourth. The same is true of the final chords used in modern jazz, cited by Mr. Cotton. These chords are merely highly colored versions of the tonic triad, and thus embody precisely the same intervalic hierarchy as the rest of Western music.
I quite agree with Mr. Cotton that not all atonal music is dodecaphonic. I also agree that not all dodecaphonic music is uncompromisingly dissonant—that is, not if one builds tonal implications into the structure of the basic set in the first place (as Berg sometimes did). The important point is that the twelve-tone method as such is indifferent to tonal relations, and will only embody such relations if the composer deliberately introduces them.
I reject Mr. Cotton's false assertion that I ignore all but the vertical or harmonic aspects of music. I do not believe that the concepts of consonance and dissonance (or “color”) are limited to the vertical dimension, and I therefore did not state or even imply such a view. Mr. Cotton evidently enjoys attributing other people's views to me, for he does it again a few lines later with his remarks on musical “accessibility.”
Mr. Cotton begins to wax eloquent—or rather to rave—when he comes to the subject of musical expression in the 20th century. His last two paragraphs are a real collection of rhetorical gems, and I won't spoil the reader's fun with a detailed COMMENTARY. I merely pose a few questions for Mr. Cotton's consideration. Is our century the first to be plagued by “war and genocide,” “coercive, lying governments,” “hunger and homelessness,” “fascism and fanaticism”? Were composers of previous centuries too naive to recognize the evils of their times? Why did they insist on creating works of beauty? What does this tell you about the 20th century? What does this tell you about your theory of art?
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