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More narrowly still, the term is used to describe music that is neither tonal nor Serial , especially the pre- Twelve-tone music of the Second Viennese School , principally Alban Berg , Arnold Schoenberg , and Anton Webern . However, composers such as George Antheil , Béla Bartók , John Cage , Carlos Chávez , Aaron Copland , Sigismondo D'India , Roberto Gerhard , György Ligeti , Alberto Ginastera , Alois Hába , Josef Matthias Hauer , Paul Hindemith , Charles Ives , Sergei Prokofiev , Carl Ruggles , Luigi Russolo , Alexander Scriabin , Roger Sessions , Nikos Skalkottas , Igor Stravinsky , Toru Takemitsu , Edgard Varèse , and others, including pop-music composers and Jazz artists such as Anthony Braxton , Ornette Coleman , John Coltrane (Radano 1993, 108–109), Jerry Goldsmith , Keith Jarrett , and Cecil Taylor (Radano 1993, 108–109) have written music that is described, in full or in part, as atonal. HISTORY OF ATONALITY While music without a tonal center had been written previously, for example Franz Liszt 's '' Bagatelle Sans Tonalité '' of 1885, it is with the 20th century that the term ''atonality'' began to be applied to pieces, particularly those written by Arnold Schoenberg and The Second Viennese School. Their music arose from what was described as the crisis of tonality between the late 19th Century and early 20th Century in Classical Music . This situation had come about historically through the increasing use over the course of the 19th century of ambiguous chords, less probable harmonic inflections, and the more unusual melodic and rhythmic inflections possible within the style {Link without Title} of tonal music. The distinction between the exceptional and the normal became more and more blurred; and, as a result, there was a concomitant loosening of the syntactical bonds through which tones and harmonies had been related to one another. The connections between harmonies were uncertain even on the lowest—chord-to-chord—level. On higher levels, long-range harmonic relationships and implications became so tenuous that they hardly functioned at all. At best, the felt probabilities of the style system had become obscure; at worst, they were approaching a uniformity which provided few guides for either composition or listening. (Meyer 1967, 241) The first phase is often described as "free atonality" or "free chromaticism" and involved the conscious attempt to avoid traditional diatonic harmony. Works of this period include the opera '' Wozzeck '' (1917-1922) by Alban Berg and '' Pierrot Lunaire '' (1912) by Schoenberg. The second phase, begun after , would be taken as the inspiration for Serialism (Du Noyer 2003, 272). Atonality emerged as a pejorative term to condemn music in which Chord s were organized seemingly with no apparent coherence. In Nazi Germany , atonal music was attacked as " Bolshevik " and labeled as Degenerate (''Entartete Musik'') along with other music produced by enemies of the Nazi regime. Many composers had their works banned by the regime, not to be played until after its collapse after World War II . In the years that followed, atonality represented a challenge to many composers — even those who wrote more tonal music were influenced by it. The Second Viennese School, and particularly 12-tone composition, was taken by avant-garde composers in the 1950s to be the foundation of the New Music, and led to Serialism and other forms of musical innovation. Prominent post-World War II composers in this tradition are Pierre Boulez , Karlheinz Stockhausen , Luciano Berio , Krzysztof Penderecki , and Milton Babbitt . Many composers wrote atonal music after the war, even if before they had pursued other styles, including Elliott Carter and Witold Lutosławski . After Schoenberg's death, Igor Stravinsky began to write music with a mixture of serial and tonal elements.(Du Noyer 2003, 271) During this time, the Chord Progression s or Successions designed to avoid a tonal center were explored and named. A vocabulary described as Musical Set Theory encompasses all pitch and pitch-class sets, whether used in tonal, atonal, modal, or other music. Iannis Xenakis generated pitch sets from mathematical formulae, and also saw the expansion of tonal possibilities as part a synthesis between the hierarchical principle and the theory of numbers, principles which have dominated music since at least the time of Parmenides (Xenakis 1971, 204). Atonal music continues to be composed, and many atonal composers of the late 20th century are still alive and active. However, serial atonal composition began to fade in the 1960s — where, on one hand, Aleatoric Music , Spectral Music , and electronic music demanded more and more attention and, on the other, musicians influenced by Eastern mysticism, modality, and Minimalism began writing music based on Ostinato patterns. CONTROVERSY OVER THE TERM ITSELF The appropriateness of the term "atonality" has been controversial. Schoenberg , whose music is generally used to define the term, was vehemently opposed to it, arguing that "The word 'atonal' could only signify something entirely inconsistent with the nature of tone. . . . {Link without Title} o call any relation of tones atonal is just as farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or acomplementary. There is no such antithesis" (Schoenberg 1978, 432). For some, the term continues to carry negative connotations. "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. COMPOSING ATONAL MUSIC Setting out to compose atonal music may seem complicated because of both the vagueness and generality of the term. Additionally George Perle (1962) explains that, "the 'free' atonality that preceded dodecaphony precludes by definition the possibility of self-consistent, generally applicable compositional procedures." (p.9) However, he provides one example as a way to compose atonal pieces, a pre- Twelve Tone Technique piece by Anton Webern , which rigorously avoids anything that suggests tonality, to choose pitches that do not imply tonality. In other words, reverse the rules of the Common Practice Period so that what was not allowed is required and what was required is not allowed. This is what was done by Charles Seeger in his explanation of Dissonant Counterpoint , which is a way to write atonal counterpoint (Seeger 1930). Further, Perle agrees with Oster and Katz that, "the abandonment of the concept of a root-generator of the individual chord is a radical development that renders futile any attempt at a systematic formulation of chord structure and progression in atonal music along the lines of traditional harmonic theory." (p.31). Atonal compositional techniques and results "are not reducible to a set of foundational assumptions in terms of which the compositions that are collectively designated by the expression 'atonal music' can be said to represent 'a system' of composition." (p.1) Perle also points out that structural coherence is most often achieved through operations on intervallic cells. A cell "may operate as a kind of microcosmic set of fixed intervallic content, statable either as a chord or as a melodic figure or as a combination of both. Its components may be fixed with regard to order, in which event it may be employed, like the twelve-tone set, in its literal transformations... Individual tones may function as pivotal elements, to permit overlapping statements of a basic cell or the linking of two or more basic cells." (pp.9-10) CRITICISM OF ATONAL MUSIC Composer Anton Von Webern held that "new laws asserted themselves that made it impossible to designate a piece as being in one key or another" (Webern 1963, 51). Composer Walter Piston , on the other hand, said that, out of long habit, whenever performers "play any little phrase they will hear it in some key—it may not be the right one, but the point is they will play it with a tonal sense. . . . {Link without Title} he more I feel I know Schoenberg's music the more I believe he thought that way himself. . . . And it isn't only the players; it's also the listeners. They will hear tonality in everything" (Westergaard 1968, 15). Swiss conductor, composer, and musical philosopher Ernest Ansermet , a critic of atonal music, wrote extensively on this in the book ''Les fondements de la musique dans la conscience humaine'' (Ansermet 1961) where he argued that the classical musical language was a precondition for musical expression with its clear, harmonious structures. Ansermet argued that a tone system can only lead to a uniform perception of music if it is deduced from just a single interval. For Ansermet this interval is the fifth (Mosch 2004, 96). So the incomprehensible (to Ansermet) modern atonal music, by choosing interval relations seemingly at random, could not achieve such an impact, ethos and catharsis for an audience. SEE ALSO REFERENCES
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