D. Stephen Heersink wrote:

>I'm not sufficiently trained or experienced enough to pontificate "atonal"
>music as an oxymoron, but I can attest to mine and great many others' total
>dislike of this "style." I don't deny that atonal compositions may be
>well-crafted, but so can many other things without necessarily reaching the
>appellation of "music." Perhaps its just crafted "noise," appreciated on
>the level of its form, order, technique, and complexity. Its logic escapes
>me, and its ability to please or entertain is always absent. Whatever its
>merits and its continued "life," it shall always be marginal for most
>listeners.

While I can usually tell what I like, I can't tell tonal music from atonal
just by listening.  For example, are Schoenberg's Piano Concerto and String
Trio tonal or atonal? Whichever they are, I think they're attractive.
OTOH, most middle-period Schoenberg strikes me as hysterical and tedious.
Tonal/ atonal is only one aspect of style, and not (to me) necessarily the
most important.

However, it does irritate me when I see atonal music being described as
"advanced", with the obvious implication that anyone who prefers tonal
music is retarded.  There probably weren't really any more bad composers
in the mid- 20th century than at any other time, but it seems like there
were, because they had rather a neat trick which got their music performed
- if the audience didn't like the music, it was because the music was too
"advanced" (i.e.  it wasn't the composer's fault for producing junk, it was
the audience's fault for not being "advanced" enough).  (It wasn't even a
new trick - Schoenberg got away with it once or twice, and doubtless wasn't
the first to do so.)

Even so, I'd be wary of dismissing it as noise.  There's plenty of music
outside the CM tradition - according to my dictionary, anything musicians
play is music.  It's difficult to see how something without rhythm, melody,
counterpoint or symphonic development (for some reason, Berio Sequenzas
spring to mind) can be thought of as part of the same tradition as
Beethoven and Sibelius, but even so, however unpleasant it is, it's still
music.

Peter Varley
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