Atonality

Atonality describes music that departs from the system of tonal hierarchies, which characterizes the sound of classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Atonality usually describes compositions written from about 1900 to the present day, where the hierarchy of tonal centers is not used as the primary way to organize a work. Tonal centers gradually replaced modal organization starting in the 1500s and culminated with the establishment of the major-minor key system in the late 1600s and early 1700s.

Controversy over the term itself

The use of the term "atonality" has been controversial. Schoenberg, whose music is generally used to define the term, was vehemently opposed to it, arguing that "atonal" meant "without tone." For some, the term continues to carry negative connotations. A popular joke among musicians posits that "The two great errors of the 20th century were atonality and Marxism." Others have said that it's called atonal, because the composer has a lot to atone for.

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"Atonal" developed a certain vagueness in meaning as a result of its use to describe a wide variety of compositional approaches that deviated from traditional chords and chord progressions. Attempts to solve these problems by using terms such as "pan-tonal," "non-tonal," "free-tonal," and "without tonal center" instead of "atonal" have not gained broad acceptance.

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Composer Anton von Webern, musicologist Robert Fink, and others have asserted that all music is perceived as having a tonal center. Others have argued that the avoidance of a tonal center produces more sophisticated music, which requires greater ability to appreciate, for example, Schoenberg in his article on 12-tone composing. Influential critic Theodor Adorno argued, however, that one could express anything from tragedy to a smirk in atonality, provided one had compositional ability.

Related Topics:
Anton von Webern - Robert Fink - Theodor Adorno

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Others remarked that atonal music could not express the wide range of human emotions in an appropriate way. One could translate Amiri Baraka into hundreds of different languages, but one could not translate a Beethoven symphony into an atonal equivalent. The language of music was not as arbitrary as the normal languages. Atonality was even described as "not music" or "incomprehensible."

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In the historical view, however, neither of the extremes of prediction have come about: atonality has neither replaced tonality, nor has it disappeared.

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