Music Tuned by the World
Silje-Marie Salhus
The art`s function as a reflection of the world is not a new topic for discussion. One of the theorists who has written on this subject is R. Murray Schaefer who describes, in his book "Tuning of the world", how formal elements in musical compositions can be compared to the contemporary soundscapes. He draws a line between what happens in music development and tendencies in rest of the world, and uses the introduction of mechanical instruments and industrial sounds in the 40`s as an example. It is interesting to look at what is happening in society contemporarily to the development of the art and music in this way. What affects the artist and what is the art an expression of? One of the biggest changes of direction in music history is what is described as "the crisis of tonality", which happened in classical music between late 19th century and early 20th century (Adorno, Bloch, Lukacs). In this text, I want to look into this specific subject.
The rise of atonality was dramatic and I`m curious of what caused this. I will try to illuminate this specific change by focusing on one of the atonal movement`s leading figures, the austrian composer Albert Schoenberg, and the political situation in Europe at his time. "The sound of classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries was characterized by the system of tonal hierarchies "(Wikipedia, 'tonality'). "As ancient musicians developed the scale and melody a sense of "key" or "tonality" also developed" (Fink). "Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a key "center" or tonic, thus establishing tonality as relational at its core (Wikipedia)." It "describes the relationships between the elements of melody and harmony-- tones, intervals, chords, scales, and the chromatic gamut; but particulary those types of relationship that are characterized as hierarchical such as that one of the elements dominates or attracts another" (Milne). Atonality describes music not conforming to this system, where the hierarchy of tonal centers are not the primary way to organize a work. While music without a tonal center had been written previously, for example Franz Liszt´s "Bagatelle sans tonalité" of 1885, it is with the 20th century that the term atonality began to be applied to pieces, particulary to the works written by Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School (Wikipedia, 'Atonality'). When talking about the crisis of tonality, these composers were the ones leading music in this direction.
"Historically, atonal music can be divided into two phases. The first phase is often described as "free atonality" or "free chromaticism" and involved the conscious attempt to avoid traditional diatonic harmony. After WW1, the second phase begun. This phase "was exemplified by attempts to create a systematic means of composing without tonality, most famously the twelve-tone technique; the method of composing with twelve tones" (Wikipedia 'Atonality').
Arnold Schoenberg was a key figure in the atonal movement and the inventor of the twelve-tone technique. He was born in Austria in 1874 and largely self-taught, taking counterpoint-lessons with the composer Alexander von Zemlinsky (Schoenberg Centre). He started to compose at an early age, and in his twenties he made a living of orchestrating operettas while composing tonal works such as the string sextet "Transfigured Night" (1899). Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler both recognized Schoenberg`s early significance as a composer. "Mahler even adopted Schoenberg as a protégé and continued to support him even when his style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand" (Collage New Music). Besides composing, Schoenberg also taught harmony, counterpoint and composition. Among his first students were Anton Webern and Alban Berg, who would become composers of a great importance themselves and later taking Schoenberg`s ideas even further. Schoenberg`s position in the community of contemporary music was strong, and his textbook from 1910 on harmony; "Harmonielehre" remains one of the most influential books on music theory (Collage New Music).
Schoenberg`s music changed distinctly. In 1908, composing "You lean against a silver willow", "his first piece without any reference at all to a key"(Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). The same year he completed one of his most revolutionary compositions, the String Quartet No 2, in which the first two movements use traditional key signatures, even though chromatic in colour, but where the final two movements daringly weaken the link with traditional tonality (Collage New Music).
The first World War disrupted Schoenberg`s development. He left many unfinished works and undeveloped "beginnings" because of the mandatory military service he had to serve. The war changed Europe, and it pushed Schoenberg even further as a composer. "After the war, he worked at evolving a means of order which would enable his musical texture to become simpler and clearer. this resulted in the "method of composition with twelve tones". In order to promote consistency and order in atonal composition Schoenberg adopted specific precepts for his system. "In this method of composition, the twelve pitches of the octave are regarded as equal, and no note or tonality is given the emphasis it occupied in classical harmony" (Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). The technique was founded by Schoenberg in 1921, and first described privately to his associates in 1923 (Wikipedia, '12-Tone-Technique'). The method was used during the next 20 years almost exclusively by the Second Viennese School, "the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught between 1903 and 1925" (Frisch 121). In the fifties, the technique became widely used, taken up by composers such as Boulez and Stravinsky. Some of these composers extended the technique to control aspects other than the pitches of notes, such as duration, method of attack and so on, thus producing serial music. Some even subjected class elements of music to the serial process (Wikipedia, '12-Tone-Technique').
The basis of the twelve-tone technique is the tone row, an ordered arrangement of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale. The principle behind twelve-tone music is that no one tone can be repeated until all eleven others in the set have also been heard. This way, the tones are interpreted in terms of their relation to each other, and not to any one key tone. This was what Schoenberg had in mind when he originally titled the system "Method of composing with twelve tones which are related only one with another" (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). The tone row chosen as the basis of the piece is called the prime series, and is notated as P0 in its original form. "Given the twelve pitch-classes of the chromatic scale, there are 12 (factorial 479.001.600) unique tone rows. When twelve-tone technique is strictly applied, a piece consists of statements of certain permitted transformations of the prime series (P). These statements may appear serially, or may overlap, giving rise to harmony" (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). Appearances of P0, the original tone-row, can be transformed in three basic ways: transposition up or down (Px), reversal in time (giving the retrograde (R)), and reversal in pitch (giving the inversion (I)) (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). The various transformations can be combined, and the combination of the retrograde and inversion transformations is known as the retrograde inversion (RI).
As it originally was invented, the twelve-tone technique is a very specific way of composing with many strict rules. " P, R, I and RI can each be started on any of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, meaning that 47 permutations of the initial tone row can be used, giving a maximum of 48 possible tone rows. This is known as invariance. The forty-eight permutations can be represented concisely in a form of chart called a matrix. "When rigurously applied, the technique demands that one statement of the tone row must be heard in full before another can begin" (Kelley). "Consistently atonal treatment of the row requires that no notes be doubled at the octave, tonal melodic or harmonic elements (intervals) are to be avoided, and no note should be sustained to the point where it becomes a focal pitch" (Kelley). Still, there is a lot of freedom within the system, as "adjacent notes in the row can be sounded at the same time, and other aspects of music other than the pitch can be freely chosen by the composer"(Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). There are also no rules about which tone rows should be used at which time, beyond them all being derived from the prime series (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique').
"To Schoenberg and his students, the purpose of twelve-tone technique was primarily avoidance of tonality through the systematic creation of a 'democracy of tones'. Experimental music without tonality prior to the development of the twelve-tone process seldom succeeded in offering enough musical cohesion to allow for movements of considerable length. Schoenberg's method solved this problem by offering the opportunity for the creation of musically significant and orderly structures that offer a piece both unity and variety. Finally, Schoenberg's twelve-tone procedure could even help the composer to avoid the traditional notions of 'theme' and 'development' that were inextricably linked with tonal composition, while offering twelve-tone music's own unique brand of both." (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique')
Schoenberg, commenting on his music of the time, stated: "Had times (before and after 1914) been "normal", then the music of our time would have been very different"(Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). This statement contains many clues about why he composed the music he did.
As mentioned, this was the time of "the crisis of tonality" in classical music, but that was not the only crisis at the time. The political situation in Europe was out of control and that was reflected in most parts of society. When the first world war broke out it was a consequence of the shots in Sarajevo in 1914. This was just "the last straw". The disruption had influenced large parts of Europe for the last hundred years. Power structures and alliances between countries changed in fast order. This lead to a Europe with a tense and uncertain atmosphere, and to draw a picture of the world that Schoenberg and his contemporaries were living in and which society their music was reflections of, this is a brief summary of the situation:
After Germany was united in 1850, the empire became one of the most powerful industrial nations in Europe. Germany demonstrated their new position when they won the war against France in 1870-71. Great Britain had controlled the oceans since the time of Napoleon. They intended to keep on having the power. The great British Empire included, among others, big colonies in Africa, Australia and Asia, and their intention was to maintain the balance of power on dry land in europe. Of course they were concerned about Germany´s new, strong position, especially because Germany started to build a large fleet (Howard 109). A method Great Britain used effectively to maintain their power was the way they chose sides in the wars that often arose in this time. Their strategy was to wait until they knew for sure what the result would be. Then they would take the losing country´s side and use their position to make sure that the winner did not get too powerful (Howard 111).
There were also other disturbances in Europe at the time. One of the reasons why things were so tense was because of the strong sense of nationalism that appeared in many european countries. National romanticism, which lead to a focus on and awareness of each nation's unique culture and history, had a strong influence in society in the last part of the 19th century. This lead to ideas about freedom and unity and those ideas did not make the situation any calmer. Russia used for instance the Balkan countries´ longing for an unique identity to expand and reach the ocean. "On the pretext that they would ”protect their slavic brothers" Russia went for their coastline (Strachan 218). The fact that Europe was influenced by many competing empires with nationalistic drives resulted in the countries splitting in two alliances: The triple-alliance that consisted of France, Russia and Serbia, and the triple-entent; Germany and Austria-Hungary (Howard 139). This is what was going on prior to the shots which murdered the heir to the Austrian empire, and parallel to atonality`s first phase in music. The atmosphere was tense and chaotic, and as Schoenberg put it, far from "normal".
Schoenberg`s music changed more rapidly pre-war, between 1901 and 1910, than any other time (Frisch). " After Wagner and mahler, classical music had reached something of an impasse. Tonality had been pushed as far as it could conceivably go. It became clear that additional insight could not be gained with further variations upon principles of harmony and counterpoint that had already been stretched into meaninglessness"(Vydyanath). Schoenberg`s "interest for atonality that resulted in the 12-tone technique came as a result of him feeling that the saturation of added notes in harmony had reached a stage when there was no meaningful difference between consonanse and dissonance. For a time his music became very consentrated and elliptical, as he could see no reason to repeat and develop" (Vydyanath).
There were many composers working with the same subject at this time. Schoenberg was not the only one creating systematic use of the chromatic scale, he was just by far the most influential. Actually, at the exact same time and in the same country, Josef Mathias Hauer also developed a similar system using unordered hextachords, but with no connection to Schoenberg (Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg') The hunger for something new was reflected in many different areas of society. "At this time, many intellectuals felt that thought had developed to a point of no return, and that it was no longer possible honestly to go on repeating what had been done before" (Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). "This is the same time as abstract painting and psychoanalysis was developed in the western world"(Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). We can also find other examples of artists talking about breakdown and longing for renewal, Kafka´s novel "Metamorphosis" is one of them. This was a general tendency. It was not something that only happened in the world of classical music, and this fact leads to the idea that the political and social situation around the war also effected the classical music, and had an important role in pushing music towards atonality.
If we in the light of the general situation look at the way this music was constructed, it is possible to draw lines from the formal elements of the atonal music to the historical events. When Schaefer is talking about the relationship between music and soundscape, he points at how music can be used as a guide to study shifts in aural habits and perception because it "forms the best record of past sounds". These shifts in aural habits and perception are most likely a consequence of the time and society, and so on the "crisis of tonality" is interesting. Regarding what another important theorist, Theodor W. Adorno, writes about sound and familiarity, the atonal movement could represent chaos and anxiety. In his essay "On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening", he states that "to like a piece is almost the same as recognize it". One of the principles behind the atonal movement was exactly to avoid recognition and repetition. There is no tonal center to be located, neither any references. The result is that this music tends to be perceived as dislikable, messy, chaotic and loaded with tension. Schaefer is using the hunting-horn motifs of 18th century- symphonies as an example of how music reflects society.
Would it be that strange if we took it a little further and said that the music can reflect the atmosphere of society the same way? The chaotic situation in pre-war Europe, as described, was parallel to the chaos that the crisis of tonalty caused in atonality`s early stage. Europe`s longing for a new start fits Schoenberg´s idea of "avoid the traditional notions of "theme" and "development" that were inextrictably linked with tonal composition" and so on give music a new start. When it comes to the twelve-tone technique, it was most of all an attempt to organize atonality in a way that made sense. This focus on organizing what can seem random and chaotic is interesting as it doesn`t just appear with such a great importance just right after WW1. After WW2, the 12-tone- technique again became "widely used, taken up by composers such as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Dallapiccola and, after Schoenberg`s death, Igor Stravinsky" (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique').
The question about where art comes from has no simple answer. There are always many factors involved when music is composed, the art is usually an expression both coloured by external influences and the artist`s internal life. I believe that there can be a connection between the way music is constructed and the general tendency of that specific time, and that the crisis of tonality can be used as an example of this. Around WW1, things evolved simultaneously. As the more or less stabile constructions of the European societies fell apart, so did the standards music had been constructed on for hundreds of years. As Europe had to find a way to organize the new, post-war world, the composers had to figure out a way to organize the new world of music represented by atonality. The outside world does play a role, tuning the music history.
WORKS CITED
Ardorno, Theodor W. "The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture"- On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening". Brunner-Routledge, 2001.
Adorno,Theodor, Bloch,Ernst, Lukacs,Georg: "Music and Society in the 20th Century" International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Volume 1, Number 2 December 1987, http://www.springerlink.com/content/h74u420jl3874k55/
The Arnold Schoenberg Centre: "Biography". The Arnold Schoenberg Centre, October 24th, 2006. http://www.schoenberg.at/2_center/history_e.htm
Collage New Music: "Arnold Schoenberg". October 14th 2006. http://www.collagenewmusic.org/schoenberg.html
Fink, Bob. "A further note on Early Harmony- The Role of the Drone and counterpoint in the Development of Harmony". Appendix to Orgigin of Music, 3rd Edition 1980. October 14th 2006. http://www.greenwych.ca/drone.htm
Frisch, Walter and Bard Music Festival: Schoenberg and his World". Princeton University Press August 16, 1999.
Howard, Michael. "The First World War". Simon and Schuster (Trade Division), 2003.
Kelley, Robert. "Introduction to Post-functional Music Analysis: Set Theory, The Matrix, and the Twelve-Tone Method". 2002. November 2nd 2006.
Milne, Andrew: "What is Tonality?" The Tonal Centre. November 29th 2006. http://www.andymilne.dial.pipex.com/
Schaefer, R. Murray. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Destiny Books Nov. 1993
Simms, Bryan R. "The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg 1908-1923". Oxford University Press, June 25 2003.
Strachan, Hew. "The First World War: A New Illustrated Story". Oxford University Press, 2003.
Vydyanath, Manasi: "Classical music from 1904 Vienna to today`s Chicago". Chicago Maroon- the independent student newspaper of the university of Chicago. May 20, 2005. November 3rd, 2006. http://maroon.uchicago.edu/voices/articles/2005/05/20/classical_music_from.php
Wikipedia
12-tone technique: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_tone_technique
Arnold Schoenberg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoenberg
Atonality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality
Tonality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonality
The art`s function as a reflection of the world is not a new topic for discussion. One of the theorists who has written on this subject is R. Murray Schaefer who describes, in his book "Tuning of the world", how formal elements in musical compositions can be compared to the contemporary soundscapes. He draws a line between what happens in music development and tendencies in rest of the world, and uses the introduction of mechanical instruments and industrial sounds in the 40`s as an example. It is interesting to look at what is happening in society contemporarily to the development of the art and music in this way. What affects the artist and what is the art an expression of? One of the biggest changes of direction in music history is what is described as "the crisis of tonality", which happened in classical music between late 19th century and early 20th century (Adorno, Bloch, Lukacs). In this text, I want to look into this specific subject.
The rise of atonality was dramatic and I`m curious of what caused this. I will try to illuminate this specific change by focusing on one of the atonal movement`s leading figures, the austrian composer Albert Schoenberg, and the political situation in Europe at his time. "The sound of classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries was characterized by the system of tonal hierarchies "(Wikipedia, 'tonality'). "As ancient musicians developed the scale and melody a sense of "key" or "tonality" also developed" (Fink). "Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a key "center" or tonic, thus establishing tonality as relational at its core (Wikipedia)." It "describes the relationships between the elements of melody and harmony-- tones, intervals, chords, scales, and the chromatic gamut; but particulary those types of relationship that are characterized as hierarchical such as that one of the elements dominates or attracts another" (Milne). Atonality describes music not conforming to this system, where the hierarchy of tonal centers are not the primary way to organize a work. While music without a tonal center had been written previously, for example Franz Liszt´s "Bagatelle sans tonalité" of 1885, it is with the 20th century that the term atonality began to be applied to pieces, particulary to the works written by Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School (Wikipedia, 'Atonality'). When talking about the crisis of tonality, these composers were the ones leading music in this direction.
"Historically, atonal music can be divided into two phases. The first phase is often described as "free atonality" or "free chromaticism" and involved the conscious attempt to avoid traditional diatonic harmony. After WW1, the second phase begun. This phase "was exemplified by attempts to create a systematic means of composing without tonality, most famously the twelve-tone technique; the method of composing with twelve tones" (Wikipedia 'Atonality').
Arnold Schoenberg was a key figure in the atonal movement and the inventor of the twelve-tone technique. He was born in Austria in 1874 and largely self-taught, taking counterpoint-lessons with the composer Alexander von Zemlinsky (Schoenberg Centre). He started to compose at an early age, and in his twenties he made a living of orchestrating operettas while composing tonal works such as the string sextet "Transfigured Night" (1899). Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler both recognized Schoenberg`s early significance as a composer. "Mahler even adopted Schoenberg as a protégé and continued to support him even when his style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand" (Collage New Music). Besides composing, Schoenberg also taught harmony, counterpoint and composition. Among his first students were Anton Webern and Alban Berg, who would become composers of a great importance themselves and later taking Schoenberg`s ideas even further. Schoenberg`s position in the community of contemporary music was strong, and his textbook from 1910 on harmony; "Harmonielehre" remains one of the most influential books on music theory (Collage New Music).
Schoenberg`s music changed distinctly. In 1908, composing "You lean against a silver willow", "his first piece without any reference at all to a key"(Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). The same year he completed one of his most revolutionary compositions, the String Quartet No 2, in which the first two movements use traditional key signatures, even though chromatic in colour, but where the final two movements daringly weaken the link with traditional tonality (Collage New Music).
The first World War disrupted Schoenberg`s development. He left many unfinished works and undeveloped "beginnings" because of the mandatory military service he had to serve. The war changed Europe, and it pushed Schoenberg even further as a composer. "After the war, he worked at evolving a means of order which would enable his musical texture to become simpler and clearer. this resulted in the "method of composition with twelve tones". In order to promote consistency and order in atonal composition Schoenberg adopted specific precepts for his system. "In this method of composition, the twelve pitches of the octave are regarded as equal, and no note or tonality is given the emphasis it occupied in classical harmony" (Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). The technique was founded by Schoenberg in 1921, and first described privately to his associates in 1923 (Wikipedia, '12-Tone-Technique'). The method was used during the next 20 years almost exclusively by the Second Viennese School, "the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught between 1903 and 1925" (Frisch 121). In the fifties, the technique became widely used, taken up by composers such as Boulez and Stravinsky. Some of these composers extended the technique to control aspects other than the pitches of notes, such as duration, method of attack and so on, thus producing serial music. Some even subjected class elements of music to the serial process (Wikipedia, '12-Tone-Technique').
The basis of the twelve-tone technique is the tone row, an ordered arrangement of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale. The principle behind twelve-tone music is that no one tone can be repeated until all eleven others in the set have also been heard. This way, the tones are interpreted in terms of their relation to each other, and not to any one key tone. This was what Schoenberg had in mind when he originally titled the system "Method of composing with twelve tones which are related only one with another" (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). The tone row chosen as the basis of the piece is called the prime series, and is notated as P0 in its original form. "Given the twelve pitch-classes of the chromatic scale, there are 12 (factorial 479.001.600) unique tone rows. When twelve-tone technique is strictly applied, a piece consists of statements of certain permitted transformations of the prime series (P). These statements may appear serially, or may overlap, giving rise to harmony" (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). Appearances of P0, the original tone-row, can be transformed in three basic ways: transposition up or down (Px), reversal in time (giving the retrograde (R)), and reversal in pitch (giving the inversion (I)) (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). The various transformations can be combined, and the combination of the retrograde and inversion transformations is known as the retrograde inversion (RI).
As it originally was invented, the twelve-tone technique is a very specific way of composing with many strict rules. " P, R, I and RI can each be started on any of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, meaning that 47 permutations of the initial tone row can be used, giving a maximum of 48 possible tone rows. This is known as invariance. The forty-eight permutations can be represented concisely in a form of chart called a matrix. "When rigurously applied, the technique demands that one statement of the tone row must be heard in full before another can begin" (Kelley). "Consistently atonal treatment of the row requires that no notes be doubled at the octave, tonal melodic or harmonic elements (intervals) are to be avoided, and no note should be sustained to the point where it becomes a focal pitch" (Kelley). Still, there is a lot of freedom within the system, as "adjacent notes in the row can be sounded at the same time, and other aspects of music other than the pitch can be freely chosen by the composer"(Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). There are also no rules about which tone rows should be used at which time, beyond them all being derived from the prime series (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique').
"To Schoenberg and his students, the purpose of twelve-tone technique was primarily avoidance of tonality through the systematic creation of a 'democracy of tones'. Experimental music without tonality prior to the development of the twelve-tone process seldom succeeded in offering enough musical cohesion to allow for movements of considerable length. Schoenberg's method solved this problem by offering the opportunity for the creation of musically significant and orderly structures that offer a piece both unity and variety. Finally, Schoenberg's twelve-tone procedure could even help the composer to avoid the traditional notions of 'theme' and 'development' that were inextricably linked with tonal composition, while offering twelve-tone music's own unique brand of both." (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique')
Schoenberg, commenting on his music of the time, stated: "Had times (before and after 1914) been "normal", then the music of our time would have been very different"(Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). This statement contains many clues about why he composed the music he did.
As mentioned, this was the time of "the crisis of tonality" in classical music, but that was not the only crisis at the time. The political situation in Europe was out of control and that was reflected in most parts of society. When the first world war broke out it was a consequence of the shots in Sarajevo in 1914. This was just "the last straw". The disruption had influenced large parts of Europe for the last hundred years. Power structures and alliances between countries changed in fast order. This lead to a Europe with a tense and uncertain atmosphere, and to draw a picture of the world that Schoenberg and his contemporaries were living in and which society their music was reflections of, this is a brief summary of the situation:
After Germany was united in 1850, the empire became one of the most powerful industrial nations in Europe. Germany demonstrated their new position when they won the war against France in 1870-71. Great Britain had controlled the oceans since the time of Napoleon. They intended to keep on having the power. The great British Empire included, among others, big colonies in Africa, Australia and Asia, and their intention was to maintain the balance of power on dry land in europe. Of course they were concerned about Germany´s new, strong position, especially because Germany started to build a large fleet (Howard 109). A method Great Britain used effectively to maintain their power was the way they chose sides in the wars that often arose in this time. Their strategy was to wait until they knew for sure what the result would be. Then they would take the losing country´s side and use their position to make sure that the winner did not get too powerful (Howard 111).
There were also other disturbances in Europe at the time. One of the reasons why things were so tense was because of the strong sense of nationalism that appeared in many european countries. National romanticism, which lead to a focus on and awareness of each nation's unique culture and history, had a strong influence in society in the last part of the 19th century. This lead to ideas about freedom and unity and those ideas did not make the situation any calmer. Russia used for instance the Balkan countries´ longing for an unique identity to expand and reach the ocean. "On the pretext that they would ”protect their slavic brothers" Russia went for their coastline (Strachan 218). The fact that Europe was influenced by many competing empires with nationalistic drives resulted in the countries splitting in two alliances: The triple-alliance that consisted of France, Russia and Serbia, and the triple-entent; Germany and Austria-Hungary (Howard 139). This is what was going on prior to the shots which murdered the heir to the Austrian empire, and parallel to atonality`s first phase in music. The atmosphere was tense and chaotic, and as Schoenberg put it, far from "normal".
Schoenberg`s music changed more rapidly pre-war, between 1901 and 1910, than any other time (Frisch). " After Wagner and mahler, classical music had reached something of an impasse. Tonality had been pushed as far as it could conceivably go. It became clear that additional insight could not be gained with further variations upon principles of harmony and counterpoint that had already been stretched into meaninglessness"(Vydyanath). Schoenberg`s "interest for atonality that resulted in the 12-tone technique came as a result of him feeling that the saturation of added notes in harmony had reached a stage when there was no meaningful difference between consonanse and dissonance. For a time his music became very consentrated and elliptical, as he could see no reason to repeat and develop" (Vydyanath).
There were many composers working with the same subject at this time. Schoenberg was not the only one creating systematic use of the chromatic scale, he was just by far the most influential. Actually, at the exact same time and in the same country, Josef Mathias Hauer also developed a similar system using unordered hextachords, but with no connection to Schoenberg (Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg') The hunger for something new was reflected in many different areas of society. "At this time, many intellectuals felt that thought had developed to a point of no return, and that it was no longer possible honestly to go on repeating what had been done before" (Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). "This is the same time as abstract painting and psychoanalysis was developed in the western world"(Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). We can also find other examples of artists talking about breakdown and longing for renewal, Kafka´s novel "Metamorphosis" is one of them. This was a general tendency. It was not something that only happened in the world of classical music, and this fact leads to the idea that the political and social situation around the war also effected the classical music, and had an important role in pushing music towards atonality.
If we in the light of the general situation look at the way this music was constructed, it is possible to draw lines from the formal elements of the atonal music to the historical events. When Schaefer is talking about the relationship between music and soundscape, he points at how music can be used as a guide to study shifts in aural habits and perception because it "forms the best record of past sounds". These shifts in aural habits and perception are most likely a consequence of the time and society, and so on the "crisis of tonality" is interesting. Regarding what another important theorist, Theodor W. Adorno, writes about sound and familiarity, the atonal movement could represent chaos and anxiety. In his essay "On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening", he states that "to like a piece is almost the same as recognize it". One of the principles behind the atonal movement was exactly to avoid recognition and repetition. There is no tonal center to be located, neither any references. The result is that this music tends to be perceived as dislikable, messy, chaotic and loaded with tension. Schaefer is using the hunting-horn motifs of 18th century- symphonies as an example of how music reflects society.
Would it be that strange if we took it a little further and said that the music can reflect the atmosphere of society the same way? The chaotic situation in pre-war Europe, as described, was parallel to the chaos that the crisis of tonalty caused in atonality`s early stage. Europe`s longing for a new start fits Schoenberg´s idea of "avoid the traditional notions of "theme" and "development" that were inextrictably linked with tonal composition" and so on give music a new start. When it comes to the twelve-tone technique, it was most of all an attempt to organize atonality in a way that made sense. This focus on organizing what can seem random and chaotic is interesting as it doesn`t just appear with such a great importance just right after WW1. After WW2, the 12-tone- technique again became "widely used, taken up by composers such as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Dallapiccola and, after Schoenberg`s death, Igor Stravinsky" (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique').
The question about where art comes from has no simple answer. There are always many factors involved when music is composed, the art is usually an expression both coloured by external influences and the artist`s internal life. I believe that there can be a connection between the way music is constructed and the general tendency of that specific time, and that the crisis of tonality can be used as an example of this. Around WW1, things evolved simultaneously. As the more or less stabile constructions of the European societies fell apart, so did the standards music had been constructed on for hundreds of years. As Europe had to find a way to organize the new, post-war world, the composers had to figure out a way to organize the new world of music represented by atonality. The outside world does play a role, tuning the music history.
WORKS CITED
Ardorno, Theodor W. "The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture"- On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening". Brunner-Routledge, 2001.
Adorno,Theodor, Bloch,Ernst, Lukacs,Georg: "Music and Society in the 20th Century" International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Volume 1, Number 2 December 1987, http://www.springerlink.com/content/h74u420jl3874k55/
The Arnold Schoenberg Centre: "Biography". The Arnold Schoenberg Centre, October 24th, 2006. http://www.schoenberg.at/2_center/history_e.htm
Collage New Music: "Arnold Schoenberg". October 14th 2006. http://www.collagenewmusic.org/schoenberg.html
Fink, Bob. "A further note on Early Harmony- The Role of the Drone and counterpoint in the Development of Harmony". Appendix to Orgigin of Music, 3rd Edition 1980. October 14th 2006. http://www.greenwych.ca/drone.htm
Frisch, Walter and Bard Music Festival: Schoenberg and his World". Princeton University Press August 16, 1999.
Howard, Michael. "The First World War". Simon and Schuster (Trade Division), 2003.
Kelley, Robert. "Introduction to Post-functional Music Analysis: Set Theory, The Matrix, and the Twelve-Tone Method". 2002. November 2nd 2006.
Milne, Andrew: "What is Tonality?" The Tonal Centre. November 29th 2006. http://www.andymilne.dial.pipex.com/
Schaefer, R. Murray. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Destiny Books Nov. 1993
Simms, Bryan R. "The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg 1908-1923". Oxford University Press, June 25 2003.
Strachan, Hew. "The First World War: A New Illustrated Story". Oxford University Press, 2003.
Vydyanath, Manasi: "Classical music from 1904 Vienna to today`s Chicago". Chicago Maroon- the independent student newspaper of the university of Chicago. May 20, 2005. November 3rd, 2006. http://maroon.uchicago.edu/voices/articles/2005/05/20/classical_music_from.php
Wikipedia
12-tone technique: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_tone_technique
Arnold Schoenberg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoenberg
Atonality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality
Tonality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonality
posted by Studies in Audio Culture at 10:31 a.m.
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