Walter Meyer:

>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.

Atonalism is, in many cases, just a matter of degrees. A tonal piece is
one in which traditional harmonic poles (tonic, dominant, etc.) can be
perceived with certain degree of clarity. The problem is that the border
between "clear" and "unclear" perception is --obviously-- hard to be
defined. Schoenberg's op. 19 pieces, for example are atonal, but at the
fourth piece I find traces of a IV (minor) I cadence. Something similar
occurs at "Farben" (from Schoenberg's op. 16). That's a very far
resemblance of traditional harmony, but it exists. Dodecaphonic compsitions
are different: the dodecaphonic technique forbides any association which
resembles traditional chords (however, Berg used this technique in a very
special way, which sometimes gives to their compositions a sort of tonal
taste. His Violin Concerto is a good example of this).

Pablo Massa
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