[...]Serialism Versus Edgy Tonality – Classical Convert[...]…

Moog, ARP, RCA and others designed synthesizers specifically to reproduce tonal systems. Many just happened to do atonal better.

And it’s musique concrete, not music concrete, you plebian lavatory laureate. If you’re going to criticize other people, at least know what you speak of. If he is talking out his butt, then you must be the ass.

My hypothesis is that tonal, organized music is very easy to criticize, and it’s easy to sort out who does it better and who doesn’t. Furthermore, there’s already a lot of tonal music, so if you compose tonal music, you have to use “standard” elements that have been used a gazillion times, so even if you come up with new modes or rhythmic structures, it’s almost sure that someone else came up with something similar before, so it’s easy to tar you as unoriginal.

Inversely, atonal music jumbles up all of this, so if someone criticizes you for doing something wrong, you can accuse him of not understanding your music and being close minded, and conserve a sort of moral high ground. It also provides a better defense against accusations of unoriginality, since it’s easy to invent all sorts of crazy systems if they don’t actually have to produce good music.

Because of this, composers that go in the atonal direction are “rewarded” for the “elitism” of their music by teachers and sometimes fellow composers, and they will praise other people’s atonal music in return. This is how atonal music sets foot in academic settings – despite its dubious musical viability, it offers an ideal social environment in which the group of composers can think highly of themselves. The problem is that, by doing so, they’re cutting themselves off from 95% of their potential audience.

Of course, sometimes atonal stuff can be interesting… but it’s basically for dimensions that WEREN’T all jumbled up by such techniques – in particular, the form, orchestration and timbre dimensions aren’t that touched, so often the main interest of such music comes from there. It’s also dependent on instrumentation – atonal music sounds much better on winds and chromatic percussions than on stuff like pianos or synthetisers, probably because the natural, soft tone of these instruments compensate for the harshness of the un-harmony and un-melody.

Schoenberg’s Begleitsmusik Op 34 and the Fourth String Quartet Op.37

It is perfectly possible to write tonal twelve-note music, and twelve-note tonal music too. The trouble with the technique is it’s absence of rules, so bad composers think ‘anything goes’ and write bad music.

Handled sensitively, with an ear for the final results, serialism can produce quite listenable and enjoyable music.

With regards to listening suggestions it’s a bit difficult to guess what you’ve already heard from these posts. But in order to dispel the idea that ‘atonal/twelve-tone/serial’ music is all the same academicised kettle of fish, I’d suggest a good listen to:

Webern: 6 Bagatelles for string quartet, op. 9 (early expressionism)

Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra (mature Schoenberg-style twelve-tone)

Stockhausen: Zeitmasse (early 1950s serialism)

Dallapiccola: Sex carmina Alcaei (later, more melodically-oriented twelve-tone)

Babbitt: The Head of the Bed (academic US serialism)

Berio: Points on the curve to find (later serialism)

Nono: Fragmente-stille (late late serialism)

Ferneyhough: La Chute d’Icare (hyper-structured post-serialism)

I’ve had to really fight to keep the list down to only these; it only barely scratches the surface and I’m only including directly serial/twelve-tone pieces, except the early Webern and Ferneyhough which are moving towards and away from the technique respectively. This doesn’t offer any representation of other ideas in atonal and experimental music, of which there are many.

On the other hand, I do think that it is quite rare to find someone who truly enjoys twelve-tone music in the same way as they do more tonally centered pieces. I very much feel that it is an inherently academic style of writing, which while being an interesting reaction, is ultimately unsatisfying to most listeners. Of course, this is all subjective, as music always is.

If you can suggest any pieces you think might sway me I’d certainly be interested in giving them a go!

For what it’s worth, I find Boulez extremely enjoyable to listen to. Even for those who find Boulez’s insistence on twelve-tone serialism unfortunate often still think he has shown some interesting insights into harmony ever since “Le Marteau”. And even many of those composers returning to something closer to tonality, like George Benjamin, call Webern (especially the string quartet and the symphony) a wonderful inspiration.