Satoshi Akima:

>>>Talking about whether one likes or dislikes "atonal" music is rather like
>>>asking if one likes modal music.  The answer should be that it depends on
>>>the composition.

Jocelyn Wang:

>>Not at all.  Since the entire process of atonal composition is inconducive
>>to producing anything resembling beauty, it does not take a leap to dislike
>>every last one of them.

Bernard Chasan:

>...  But there is a lot of atonal music which is, IMHO, marvelous.  At
>the top of the list is the Berg Violin Concerto - it is near the top of
>the twentieth century list as well. ... No glib snap one-size- fits- all
>opinion on atonal music will do.

I agree that the Berg Violin Concerto is a beautiful work, but I wouldn't
put it anywhere near the top of a list of twentieth-century music (what
happened to Sibelius, Vaughan Williams and Rachmaninov, amongst others?).
Comparing it with other beautiful late-romantic violin concertos, I
wouldn't put it above the Barber, for example.

It seems that Berg earned himself a lot of brownie points from the critics
by using a process which "is inconducive to producing anything resembling
beauty" in itself, and despite this managing to produce a beautiful work.
This shows the quoted passage from Jocelyn to be a non-sequitur, but the
idea of working against the grain in this way still strikes me as being
rather odd.

Barber produced an even more beautiful violin concerto, but because he
didn't restrict himself with artificial constraints, it seems that this
is regarded by some as a lesser achievement.  IMO what matters is the
merit of the music, not the difficulty of solving the problem of composing
attractive music within a particular voluntarily-chosen set of constraints,
but apparently others disagree.

Maybe it's the month for non-sequiturs. Earlier in the thread, Satoshi Akima
wrote:

>>>Nonetheless in saying "I don't like atonal music" I can tell straight
>>>away at what composers this is directed against.

Berio, Boulez and Xenakis, I should assume.  However, the posting went on
to defend Berg and Schoenberg, including the latter's 2nd String Quartet
(which isn't atonal IIRC).

I'll add a non-sequitur of my own.  I've been told that if you like orange
juice, you might find _very_ dilute hydrochloric acid refreshing.  OTOH,
strong acids are poisonous and should be avoided.

Peter Varley
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