Word: tonally
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...explanation for this personal kind of writing begins with the basic row, which is full of fourths and conspicuously low on highly dissonant intervals like minor seconds, thereby permitting continual suggestions of tonality, while orthodox twelve-tone theory axiomatically excludes anything tonal. (Concerning Threni, Stravinsky has mentioned the "triadic references in every bar.") Also, the series is fragmented, transposed and otherwise manipulated so that lines recall Oedipus Rex and the Canticum instead of Schoenberg. The rhythm and scoring is all Stravinksy; in particular the reserved, consciously archaic Stravinksy of the past few years; more reflective, less apparently expressive than...
...evening's novelty was Tucker's own Suite for Violin and Piano (1956). This four-movement work is a good deal more serious in character than most suites; it even dares to end with a slow movement. Though modern in style, it is still quite tonal, and its varied timbres are always fascinating...
...musical teachings of the past." Thompson is no conservative, however. He says quite firmly that, "Modern music and, specifically, atonal composition seems to me to be a logical development from the experimentation of Wagner and Strauss. After all there are many passages in Wagner where there is extended tonal ambiguity. From this, it is just a small step before one asks, as Schoenberg did, 'Why not do away with the concept of a key altogether...
Despite the advance beyond tonality in the early years of this century, the power of this great organizing force has been strong enough to dominate most of the production of Bartok, Stravinsky, and Hindemith. It dominates a good deal of the music being written today. The atonalists have not found it easy to resist. How can a piece of music be held together without the familiar tonal relationships? Some composers (Elliott Carter, for example) have attempted highly individual and cerebral ways of unifying a large work. Others have seen a revivifying solution in the twelve-tone system, from which...
...basis of this system is the row--the twelve tones of the tempered scale set in a particular order by the composer. Once he picks a row, he can manipulate it in countless ways and at the same time avoid any suggestion of tonality, since each note is equal, i.e. none of them is emphasized as tonality emphasizes its main tone, its resting point. A substantial part of the system's appeal to composers lies in its highly organized nature: the destruction of the complex system of tonal relations seems to demand another complicated set of rules. Schoenberg, the twelvetone...