I wrote the word "atonal" in quotes because I've discovered that the
same piece might be viewed as tonal or atonal by different listeners w/
apparently equal claim to authoritativeness.

Peter Schickele related the following anecdote, which was supposed to be
true, on today's broadcast of "Schickele Mix":

   Stravinsky was present at a recording of his Septet, a work w/
   which I'm unfamiliar.  Apparently its first movement is agreed by
   all to be tonal.  It's last movement is not.  For some unexplained
   reason the last movement was recorded first.  After that was completed
   to everyone's apparent satisfaction they were ready to start on the
   first movement.  At that point, the clarinetist realized to his horror
   that he had just been playing the wrong clarinet (A instead of Bb,
   or vice versa) throughout the movement.  He had been off key the
   entire time and hadn't noticed it.  Hurriedly he explained it sotto
   voce to the recording engineer, who hadn't noticed it either.  They
   explained to Stravinsky, who hadn't noticed the off key clarinet
   either (!), that there had been a technical problem in recording the
   last movement and that they would do it over.

Maybe there's a moral to this story; maybe not.  If so, I don't want to
labor it.  I couldn't resist, however, passing the story on to my Internet
friends (some of whom, I suspect will advise me that this is apocryphal if
not an urban legend).

Walter Meyer