Editing Atonality (section)

== Reception and legacy ==

=== Controversy over the term itself ===
The term "atonality" itself has been controversial. [[Arnold Schoenberg]], whose music is generally used to define the term, was vehemently opposed to it, arguing that "The word 'atonal' could only signify something entirely inconsistent with the nature of tone... to call any relation of tones atonal is just as farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or acomplementary. There is no such antithesis".{{sfn|Schoenberg|1978|p=432}}

Composer and theorist [[Milton Babbitt]] also disparaged the term, saying "The works that followed, many of them now familiar, include the ''[[Five Pieces for Orchestra]]'', ''[[Erwartung]]'', ''[[Pierrot Lunaire]]'', and they and a few yet to follow soon were termed 'atonal,' by I know not whom, and I prefer not to know, for in no sense does the term make sense. Not only does the music employ 'tones,' but it employs precisely the same 'tones,' the same physical materials, that music had employed for some two centuries. In all generosity, 'atonal' may have been intended as a mildly analytically derived term to suggest 'atonic' or to signify 'a-triadic tonality', but, even so there were infinitely many things the music was not".{{sfn|Babbitt|1991|pp=4–5}}

"Atonal" developed a certain vagueness in meaning as a result of its use to describe a wide variety of compositional approaches that deviated from traditional chords and [[chord progression]]s. Attempts to solve these problems by using terms such as "pan-tonal", "non-tonal", "multi-tonal", "free-tonal" and "without tonal center" instead of "atonal" have not gained broad acceptance.

=== Criticism of the concept of atonality ===
Composer Anton Webern held that "new laws asserted themselves that made it impossible to designate a piece as being in one key or another".{{sfn|Webern|1963|p=51}} Composer [[Walter Piston]], on the other hand, said that, out of long habit, whenever performers "play any little phrase they will hear it in some key—it may not be the right one, but the point is they will play it with a tonal sense.&nbsp;... [T]he more I feel I know Schoenberg's music the more I believe he thought that way himself.&nbsp;... And it isn't only the players; it's also the listeners. They will hear tonality in everything".{{sfn|Westergaard|1968|p=15}}

Donald Jay Grout similarly doubted whether atonality is really possible, because "any combination of sounds can be referred to a fundamental root". He defined it as a fundamentally subjective category: "atonal music is music in which the person who is using the word cannot hear tonal centers".{{sfn|Grout|1960|p=647}}

One difficulty is that even an otherwise "atonal" work, tonality "by assertion" is normally heard on the thematic or linear level. That is, centricity may be established through the repetition of a central pitch or from emphasis by means of instrumentation, register, rhythmic elongation, or metric accent.{{sfn|Simms|1986|p=65}}

=== Criticism of atonal music ===
Swiss conductor, composer, and musical philosopher [[Ernest Ansermet]], a critic of atonal music, wrote extensively on this in the book ''Les fondements de la musique dans la conscience humaine'' (The Foundations of Music in Human Consciousness),{{sfn|Ansermet|1961}} where he argued that the classical musical language was a precondition for musical expression with its clear, harmonious structures. Ansermet argued that a tone system can only lead to a uniform perception of music if it is deduced from just a single interval. For Ansermet this interval is the fifth.{{sfn|Mosch|2004|p=96}}

In France, on December 20, 2012, French pianist Jérôme Ducros gave a conference at the [[Collège de France]] entitled ''Atonalism. And after?''<ref>{{Cite web |date=2012-09-12 |title=L'atonalisme. Et après ? {{!}} Collège de France |url=https://www.college-de-france.fr/fr/agenda/seminaire/musique-art-technique-savoir/atonalisme-et-apres |access-date=2024-08-17 |website=www.college-de-france.fr |language=fr}}</ref> as part of [[Karol Beffa]]'s chair of artistic creation. He compares the discursive properties of tonal language and non-tonal languages, largely giving the advantage to the former, and considers the return of tonality as inevitable. This conference sparked a heated controversy in the French musical world.