jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (07/09/84)
>> It's interesting that you find Webern more tonal than Schoenberg. I have >> always felt that if you looked hard enough at Schoenberg's "atonal" music, >> you could find tonal processes going on. There's an intended one in "ode to >> napoleon", of course, but I'm referring to more canonical things, like the >> "orchestra variations", for instance. After all, S. composed a lot of tonal >> music, and had a commanding grasp of traditional harmony, so do you think >> he could really completely escape it? > Just one final comment. Not to degrade Schoenberg, but you could probably > just as easily analyze the scribbling of chimpanzees as having hidden tonality > if you analyze "hard" enough. The point being: Just because you can analyze > something 'thoroughly' and say "Aha! See that note there? That PROVES it's > tonal!", doesn't mean that the result is HEARD as being tonal. > That's the crux. pardon me. I meant, and should have said, *listened* hard enough. I completely agree with you about the ridiculous possibilities of analysis which won't bear aural inspection. on the other hand, I'm humble enough (ha!) to think that someone may be able to hear the hidden tonality better than I, so just because I don't hear it doesn't mean it's not there. (I trust that substituting you for I will still result in a true statement.) Jeff Winslow