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 [log in to unmask]