Atonality

Lore & Background

Their music arose from what was described as the 'crisis of tonality' between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in classical music, due to the increasing use of ambiguous chords, improbable harmonic inflections, and more unusual melodic and rhythmic inflections.

Reader's Guide

Atonality emerged as a pejorative term to condemn music in which chords were organized seemingly with no apparent coherence. In Nazi Germany, atonal music was attacked as 'Bolshevik' and labeled as degenerate (Entartete Musik) along with other music produced by enemies of the Nazi regime. Many composers had their works banned by the regime, not to be played until after its collapse at the end of World War II. The first phase, known as 'free atonality' or 'free chromaticism', involved a conscious attempt to avoid traditional diatonic harmony. The second phase, begun after World War I, was exemplified by attempts to create a systematic means of composing without tonality, most famously the method of composing with 12 tones or the twelve-tone technique. After Schoenberg's death, Igor Stravinsky used the twelve-tone technique. Iannis Xenakis generated pitch sets from mathematical formulae, and also saw the expansion of tonal possibilities as part of a synthesis between the hierarchical principle and the theory of numbers.

Did You Know?

• In Nazi Germany, atonal music was attacked as 'Bolshevik' and labeled as degenerate (Entartete Musik).
• The twelve-tone technique was preceded by nondodecaphonic serial composition in the works of some composers, but Alexander Scriabin used non-serial pitch sets, Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók adopted serial techniques la

Defining the Boundaries of Atonality

Atonality, at its broadest, refers to music that operates without a tonal center or key. In practice, the label most often applies to compositions from the early twentieth century onward in which no single triad serves as a gravitational anchor and the notes of the chromatic scale behave as independent entities rather than members of a hierarchical structure. A narrower reading limits the term to works that reject the tonal hierarchies that governed European classical music from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. The resulting repertory is marked by pitches appearing in novel combinations, as well as by familiar combinations placed in unfamiliar harmonic surroundings. The term is also applied, in a looser sense, to music that is neither strictly tonal nor serial—most notably the pre-twelve-tone output of the Second Viennese School, including Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern. As a categorical label, however, "atonal" essentially signals that a piece belongs to the Western tradition and is not tonal; it does not extend to medieval, Renaissance, or modern modal music, which operate under different organizational principles.

The Crisis That Made Atonality Necessary

Although music lacking a tonal center had appeared before—Franz Liszt's Bagatelle sans tonalité of 1885 being a notable early example—the term "atonality" was not coined until 1907, when Joseph Marx introduced it in a scholarly study of tonality that he later expanded into his doctoral thesis. The concept gained particular force in connection with Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School. Their emergence was rooted in what has been called the "crisis of tonality," a condition that developed gradually across the nineteenth century. As composers increasingly employed ambiguous chords, improbable harmonic inflections, and unconventional melodic and rhythmic gestures, the boundary between the exceptional and the ordinary grew ever more blurred. The synthetic bonds that had tied tones and harmonies together loosened. Even the most basic chord-to-chord connections became uncertain, and long-range harmonic implications grew so tenuous that they barely functioned. At best, the felt probabilities of the tonal system had become obscure; at worst, they approached a kind of uniformity that offered few reliable guides for either writing or listening.

From Free Atonality to Twelve-Tone System

The first phase of atonal composition, often called "free atonality" or "free chromaticism," was characterized by a deliberate effort to sidestep traditional diatonic harmony. Landmark works include Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire (1912) and Berg's opera Wozzeck (1917–1922). Schoenberg's freely atonal pieces of 1908 to 1923, though free in structure, frequently contained a "minute intervallic cell" that could be expanded or transformed much like a tone row, with individual notes serving as pivotal elements linking overlapping statements of a basic cell. The decay of tonal sense brought three consequences: elements previously secondary to tonal form became autonomous; the absence of tonal coherence spurred a search for alternative unifying principles; and the replacement of diatonic logic gave rise to new concepts of form. After World War I, the second phase sought systematic means of composing without tonality, most famously the twelve-tone technique. Schoenberg was the principal innovator, producing works such as his Piano Concerto, the oratorio Die Jakobsleiter, and his last two string quartets. Berg contributed Lulu and the Lyric Suite. Serialism arose partly to organize the relations found in pre-serial free atonal music more coherently, and many crucial insights about strictly serial music still depend on basic atonal theory.

Persecution, Prohibition, and Post-War Expansion

Atonality was not merely a technical category; it carried strong negative connotations from its inception. The term originally emerged as a pejorative, used to condemn music in which chords appeared to be organized with no discernible coherence. This hostility reached its most extreme form in Nazi Germany, where atonal music was denounced as "Bolshevik" and classified as degenerate (Entartete Musik) alongside other works produced by the regime's enemies. Many composers saw their compositions banned from performance, and those works remained silenced until the collapse of the Nazi state at the end of World War II. In the post-war period, the atonal and serial traditions continued to evolve. After Schoenberg's death, Igor Stravinsky turned to the twelve-tone technique, while Iannis Xenakis generated pitch sets from mathematical formulae, viewing the expansion of tonal possibilities as part of a synthesis between the hierarchical principle and the theory of numbers—principles he traced back to at least the time of Parmenides. Meanwhile, a wide range of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century composers, including Scriabin, Debussy, Hindemith, Bartók, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Varèse, had written music described, in whole or in part, as atonal, underscoring how broad and varied the phenomenon truly is.