Do you find atonal music melodic?

[imperfection]

To me it is like abstract expressionism in painting, you cannot immediately tell what you are looking at, some thought and emotion must be involved in order to comprehend, or even enjoy it. 

What do you think?

P.S. If you have any relatively accessible atonal music, please recommend it. Thanks.

[Kullervo]

Start here:

[gomro]

To me it is like abstract expressionism in painting, you cannot immediately tell what you are looking at, some thought and emotion must be involved in order to comprehend, or even enjoy it. 

What do you think?

P.S. If you have any relatively accessible atonal music, please recommend it. Thanks.

Wuorinen's Dante Trilogy is fairly "accessible" and he remains an unrepentant atonalist. There are "tunes" there, though not in the stepwise diatonic sense. Not "abstract" at all.  Pretty cheaply obtained, too, as it's been released on budget label Naxos. There are quite a few others that would possibly fit the bill: Roger Sessions, Luigi Dallapiccola, Alban Berg, Roberto Gerhard, Jacob Druckman, etc.

[CRCulver]

To me it is like abstract expressionism in painting, you cannot immediately tell what you are looking at, some thought and emotion must be involved in order to comprehend, or even enjoy it. 

What do you think?

P.S. If you have any relatively accessible atonal music, please recommend it. Thanks.

To me, and I think to European audiences in general, much Schoenberg and Berg is little distinguishable from the Romantic tradition that preceded them. Though they might have done something daring in harmony, they are still bound to the past in myriad ways.

But even the most abstract Darmstadt serialism can be catchy, if that's what you might mean by "melodic". Passages of Boulez's second piano sonata are earworms for me.

[greg]

Once you get the hang of it, Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra is like Broadway.....

[Kullervo]

To me, and I think to European audiences in general, much Schoenberg and Berg is little distinguishable from the Romantic tradition that preceded them. Though they might have done something daring in harmony, they are still bound to the past in myriad ways.

So what? Did you expect either of them to have written pieces involving microtones, instruments each in a different time-signature and extended-technique vocal effects? Only 8 years separate Verklärte Nacht and the second string quartet — that's one hell of a jump in a relatively short amount of time.

[anasazi]

In the 1940's, when many great European musicians came to the USA to escape Hitler, two of them were Arnold Schoenberg and Erich Wolfgand Korngold.  They both settled in Los Angeles. Korngold actually had a job writing movie scores for Jack Warner's celluloild features.  It is well known that Erich's father, Julius Korngold, the infamous Vienese music critic had made life hell for Schoenberg and his followers.

Yet in their artistic enclave in Los Angeles, they seemed to all take refuge with each other against the even more phillistine Americans.  The Korngolds regularly met and had lunch with Arnold Schoenberg, along with other European immigres.  There is a funny story that I have heard hoever that has been repeated about Schoenberg and Erich Korngold.  At lunch one day, Schoenberg was working to convince Korngold that his 12 tone system was right.  He held up a pencil and asked Erich what it was. Then he turned it upside down (to represent a regtrograde tone row) and asked him again (to illustrate that it was still the same theme)  Korngold very quickly replied (reportedly):  "Ya, it is still a pencil, but now you cannot write with it".

Amazing time for Los Angeles however.  Besides Shoenberg and Korngold. Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff along with many others were escaping totalitariasm there.

But to answer the original question: no,I do not find atonal music melodic.  I require the natural overtones to be satisfied.  I do not find music or art in mathematics, but in physics and biology.

[springrite]

Is atonal music melodic? I don't know. But since the question is a personal one (Do YOU find atonal music melodic?), then the answer is definitely YES! For a personal question I have the liberty of using my own definition of melodic. For me, melodic does not have to mean catchy, or things I can hum. Frankly, I do not hum (or much remember) Bruckner or Palestrina, though most people would consider their music reasonably "melodic". I can follow the musical lines in good atonal music very well, and they sound natural to me. In fact, I do find myself hum a few bars of Berg once in a while.

Of course, we can not forget that melody is only ONE dimension of music. Dittersdorf is very melodic.

[lukeottevanger]

I don't know any melody which impressed itself more quickly and inerradicably on my heart and brain than that which opens Boulez's Pli Selon Pli, which I first heard aged 14 and which from that moment on was seared in my mind! Thousands more examples would be possible, though - for instance (only selected from these thousands because I've been listening to these a lot recently) Dallapiccola's Lyiche Greche.

[Symphonien]

Of course atonal music can be melodic. It would clearly be wrong to generalise that tonal = melodic while atonal = unmelodic, because there is such a tremendous variety in both categories. For example, much minimalist music remains strongly tonal in nature but the most important element is often rhythm rather than melody. On the other hand, there are plenty of atonal pieces that one could consider melodic, as others have mentioned above. But I would point out that in the 20th and 21st centuries, a lot of music has been written that cannot be easily labelled "tonal" or "atonal". To name a melody that has been stuck in my head recently, the prominent violin line (after about 30 seconds) in Xenakis's Jonchaies is essentially in G Major even though most of this piece is "atonal". So simply listen and enjoy without any prejudice over whether a certain composer or composition is "atonal" or not, and if you find something melodic so be it. Just don't expect that melody will always be the most important element in a piece of music.

[The new erato]

For me: YES. Atonality per se doesn't influence melodic content (though the 12-tone procedure might); only the harmonic underpinnings of it.

[val]

"Do you find atonal music melodic"?

It depends on the composer. If you listen several times the first part of Webern's Variations opus 27 - or even play it on the piano, this first part is not difficult -you will find a very innocent melody, not far from some themes used by Brahms in his last piano works.

The same with Schönberg's beautiful Serenata opus 24, or the first theme of the Andante of the Piano Concerto opus 42.

The melodic element is also present in more modern composers such as Bussotti (Bergkristal), Berio (Coro) or Dufourt (Les Hivers).

[Mark G. Simon]

Start here:

It should be noted that all of the music on this particular disc happens to be distinctly tonal, and so will do nothing to demonstrate the melodiousness of atonal music.

[CRCulver]

But to answer the original question: no,I do not find atonal music melodic.  I require the natural overtones to be satisfied.  I do not find music or art in mathematics, but in physics and biology.

While 12-tone serialism is very much a 20th century invention, there are numerous musical traditions in the world that make use of intervals that can't be justified with the natural overtone series. It's a pity and IMHO rather offensive if you don't find them melodic, because they have been used for natural musical expression to the pleasure of their listeners for thousands of years.

[karlhenning]

While 12-tone serialism is very much a 20th century invention, there are numerous musical traditions in the world that make use of intervals that can't be justified with the natural overtone series. It's a pity and IMHO rather offensive if you don't find them melodic, because they have been used for natural musical expression to the pleasure of their listeners for thousands of years.

Excellent point.

The question of the subject header could be (ought to be) value-neutral (melody is only one element of music;  'a good melody' means different things in different places and times;  and the question invites opinion, harvesting a variety of perspectives).

But, many people (not necessarily the OP in this case) use the question as shorthand for 'and therefore isn't that "new stuff" just not music?'

[Kullervo]

It should be noted that all of the music on this particular disc happens to be distinctly tonal, and so will do nothing to demonstrate the melodiousness of atonal music.

Really? I knew that the two chamber symphonies had plenty of tonal "relationships", but I had assumed that they were both atonal despite this. Thanks for the correction. They're still wonderful pieces and would be an excellent gateway into pieces with more astringent harmonies.

[Mark G. Simon]

Really? I knew that the two chamber symphonies had plenty of tonal "relationships", but I had assumed that they were both atonal despite this. Thanks for the correction. They're still wonderful pieces and would be an excellent gateway into pieces more astringent harmonies.

In the 1st Chamber Symphony, the notes are always threatening at any moment to spin off from their tonal orbit, but they never quite do. Schoenberg even felt it worth his while to include key signatures. The overall key is E major. The 2nd Chamber Symphony is pretty securely in E flat minor.

[drogulus]

But, many people (not necessarily the OP in this case) use the question as shorthand for 'and therefore isn't that "new stuff" just not music?'

      You can't usually figure out why something isn't music, since music can fail for prosaic reasons, like no one can remember hearing it, so they don't want to hear it again. With atonal music you have an unusual case because it's music you want to not hear, which is a little different. That's if you want to not hear it, and clearly some people do want to. So it's never proven not to be music, it's just ignored by most people. Music should be understood as an effect something has, and as long as it has that effect it's music, even if it's made with a chainsaw and only 3 people want to hear it.

      So if something isn't taken to be music by anyone the fact that it's melodic doesn't help, and if it is taken to be music it can be as unmelodic as it wants. Music can't be proved or disproved in this a priori manner. You could conduct a survey of why people don't want to hear something, but if they are like me they won't usually know. I don't know why most things don't interest me unless I actively dislike them, which is not usually the problem.
     
     
     

[Maciek]

Yes, quite often. (CRCulver's and Karl's good points notwithstanding.)

Lutoslawski, Dutilleux, Takemitsu spring to mind. And in a completely different vein: Schnittke or Pawel Szymanski.

BTW, is it just me or are many posters in this thread equating atonal to 12-tone?

[imperfection]

Quick question: Is Dr. Henning tonal?