Word: tonally
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...what is the most important achievement of this book, Rosen reveals the manner in which non-tonal music can supply both tension and the release of tension that many have criticized Schoenberg for destroying. "The saturation of musical space is Schoenberg's substitute for the tonic chord of the traditional musical language. The absolute consonance is a state of chromatic plenitude." As Rosen points out, Ewartung, one of Schoenberg's early works, ends with all the instruments of the orchestra playing accelerating chromatic scales up and down until a "state of chromatic plenitude" has been created. This state, according...
...works with their usual conviction and energy. Leon Kirchner, whose talents as a coach were in evidence throughout the concert, showed himself to be a formidable triple threat by appearing as the pianist in his own Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello (1954). This piece uses a dissonant, non-tonal vocabulary, articulated in driving rhythms and evocative melodic fragments. The result is an almost Romantic sense of clearly defined broad gestures. Kirchner, along with violinist Donald Weilerstein and cellist Laurence Lesser, responded to these qualities in a lean, rhythmically taut performance that conveyed a sense of urgent, breathless energy...
...challenges left. To restore the music's freshness, another revolution was necessary, but like most revolutions, it brought changes for which few were prepared. Musicians such as Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman sought to move outside the boundaries of traditional musical structure, to ignore the rules of harmony and tonality. Such an innovation also necessitated a change in listening expectations; for those who expected jazz to be tonal and chordal, the new avant-garde style seemed threatening as well as incomprehensible...
...discord is not in itself expresssve and only masks the individual efforts of each musician. In 'Improvisation' however, Brown opens alone, unaccompanied and gradually builds on a simple theme until at a peak of intensity, drums and bass enter flying. Brown rides on top, climbing all over the tonal scale in his musical fury. Then as suddenly as they began, Altena and Bennik stop. The dichotomy of solo and ensemble work emphasizes the aura of loneliness which Brown evokes in his solo passages. The piece finally ends with a slow restatement of theme and a despairing musical squiggle by Brown...
Billy Cobham: Total Eclipse (Atlantic; $6.98). An alumnus of Miles Davis and John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Cobham evolved from a progressive rhythm-and-blues drummer to a deft jazz writer-arranger. His music, often danceable, reflects Caribbean and Latin American rhythmic and tonal influences. Solarization, a 10½-minute elaboration of a five-note motif, is sometimes ruminative, but at other times radiates sizzling sensuality...