Is It Music or Gibberish ?

[BachQ]

beehives

Elgar

[greg]

Elgar

no-legged Poju/Elgar chimera monster.

I win.

[jochanaan]

Jochanan,

As I see it art music is basically tonality. Without it there are only formal considerations for aesthetics to work with. It's a bit complex, but at the end that's about it I'm afraid.

So you would not call non-tonal music "art music"?  What about modal music such as European music from the Medieval or Renaissance period, or Asian or Native American or other world musics?

The trouble with this is that there is no sharp break between "tonal" and "atonal."  Even in Mozart you can find considerable dissonance (for example, the second movement of Piano Concerto #21), and as far back as Chopin there is music that strays distressingly far from standard tonality, as I and others have detailed.  So where do you draw the lines?

[Kullervo]

Much of Debussy is atonal. Triadic harmony ≠ tonality.

[Lethevich]

Much of Debussy is atonal. Triadic harmony ≠ tonality.

IIRC Eric admits that he dislikes Debussy's later directions, and much of his music

[The new erato]

So you would not call non-tonal music "art music"?  What about modal music such as European music from the Medieval or Renaissance period, or Asian or Native American or other world musics?

The trouble with this is that there is no sharp break between "tonal" and "atonal."  Even in Mozart you can find considerable dissonance (for example, the second movement of Piano Concerto #21), and as far back as Chopin there is music that strays distressingly far from standard tonality, as I and others have detailed.  So where do you draw the lines?

I agree. Whatever nonsense is there in insisting art = tonal?

[Kullervo]

IIRC Eric admits that he dislikes Debussy's later directions, and much of his music

Ha! 

[(poco) Sforzando]

So you would not call non-tonal music "art music"?  What about modal music such as European music from the Medieval or Renaissance period, or Asian or Native American or other world musics?

The trouble with this is that there is no sharp break between "tonal" and "atonal."  Even in Mozart you can find considerable dissonance (for example, the second movement of Piano Concerto #21), and as far back as Chopin there is music that strays distressingly far from standard tonality, as I and others have detailed.  So where do you draw the lines?

Mozart is often dissonant, but always within a tonal context. (Even the famous "12-tone sequence" at the start of the development in K550, mvt 4, is basically a sequence of diminished seventh chords.) And I don't know about "distressingly," but I would agree that the Chopin A minor prelude certainly pushes tonality pretty far. One of my teachers used to play a 2-bar atonal-sounding passage out of context for us to identify - Schoenberg? no, it was from the Chopin F# major Impromptu.

[jochanaan]

...And I don't know about "distressingly,"...

"Distressing" only to those who insist that great music is always tonal.

[karlhenning]

And we can always append a tangential Is any music really atonal? discussion 

[MN Dave]

I think it says something about the music that we still have to have these arguments.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I think it says something about the music that we still have to have these arguments.

We don't have to, but what does it say?

[MN Dave]

We don't have to, but what does it say?

That it's still controversial?

[Operahaven]

IIRC Eric admits that he dislikes Debussy's later directions, and much of his music

Exactly right Lethe.

I truly dislike his later works  i.e. the books of piano Preludes, Etudes and especially  Jeux.

Why?

Because they are not sensual to my ears.... Because I do not hear romanticism in this music.

For me, Music is the romantic art; and it follows that the greatest music has been, is, and always will be, romantic... Passion, emotion and sentiment, it is in the expression of these things that music is supreme I believe.

This is what I find in abundance in his early String quartet in G-minor opus 10,  Prelude To The Afternoon of A Faun,  Pelleas et Melisande  and  La Mer.


 

[eyeresist]

So you would not call non-tonal music "art music"?  What about modal music such as European music from the Medieval or Renaissance period, or Asian or Native American or other world musics?

The trouble with this is that there is no sharp break between "tonal" and "atonal."  Even in Mozart you can find considerable dissonance (for example, the second movement of Piano Concerto #21), and as far back as Chopin there is music that strays distressingly far from standard tonality, as I and others have detailed.  So where do you draw the lines?

We can't really call modal music "atonal", can we?
In Mozart and Chopin, apparent atonality is, I would argue, used for an effect that derives partly from contrast with tonality. This contrasting effect vanishes from purely atonal music.
BTW, I finally heard some Carter (if Amazon samples count!). I didn't find it at all horrific or disturbing, but I did find it very dull. This may be in part because I didn't understand what I was hearing.

Much of Debussy is atonal. Triadic harmony ≠ tonality.

harmony ≠ tonality

[(poco) Sforzando]

We can't really call modal music "atonal", can we?

I prefer to say "pre-tonal." The musical language of the Renaissance has many tonal features, but it lacks some of the essential elements of fully developed tonality - such as modulation and fully functional harmony based on the circle of fifths.

[karlhenning]

I truly dislike his later works  i.e. the books of piano Preludes, Etudes and especially  Jeux.

Why?

Because they are not sensual to my ears.... Because I do not hear romanticism in this music.

Many of us truly like those works, Eric, and do in fact hear aspects of Romanticism in them.  Even (or especially) in Debussy, you don't have this clean hermetic break from "stuff with Romanticism" and "stuff from which Romanticism is entirely absent."

As to "sensual," that's a moving target.  In a broad sense, since obviously we receive music via the sense of hearing, all music is sensual.

[Kullervo]

harmony ≠ tonality

I was attempting to highlight the error inherent in Operahaven's reasoning that all great art is tonal, assuming that he liked Debussy's later output, but as Lethe pointed out (and Operahaven himself has verified) that isn't the case. That said, I'm still not sure what you're confused about.

[DavidRoss]

Doh!  (Ouch!)

I didn't know Operahaven's "secret identity."  That explains everything.  Forget reasoning, Corey.  Consider the gulf between rationality and rationalization.

[karlhenning]

Consider the gulf between rationality and rationalization.

Elegant in its simplicity, surgical in its accuracy.