At the Yahoo Answers website I read the following question:
Do you like atonal music? If so, why?
In my opinion this question is completely irrelevant. Atonality is not something you enjoy, like a nice warm bath. You don’t put on Schoenberg’s music while cleaning, eating dinner, reading or studying (except when you are about to read about Schoenberg’s music in you music history syllabus).
So, do I like (or enjoy listening to) atonal music? No. Do I find it interesting? Yes (although that’s isn’t always the case with Schoenberg).
Why do so many people attend a performance of Ligeti’s ‘Le Grand Macabre’ (I went to see the very last performance in Brussels last week, and the place was absolutely full)? It’s not because the opera is full of Mozartian tunes that you’re still silently humming days after the performance. It is because people appreciate the idea behind this opera en they draw a parallel with our own situation. And because Ligeti manages to express the hysteria of the (fake) apocalyps through the music. And because he uses such surprising combinations of the timbres in the orchestra. And because he asks of every individual voice type to completely give themselves. And maybe it’s also because of the exceptionally original ‘car horn prelude’, that will put a smile on your face every time you hear it.
Anyway, the conclusion to all this is that I (and alongside with me probably lots of people) don’t like atonality or am able to enjoy it, but that I appreciate it very much, just because it can be so enormously interesting if you take the time to explore the piece and the meaning within.
it’s all about meaning. Ppl are used to a tonal language …. anything that strays from that is like speaking Chinese in a CNN broadcast … no message is conveyed. A barrier for sure.
I agree that it’s all about meaning. That’s why I think atonality is interesting. But I also think that the barrier you talk about is there to stay, because atonal music was meant to express hysteria and people tend to turn away from hysteria.
I’m not at all against atonality, I’m just for eclectism. Atonality is fine for me, as long as it has a use and is used in combination with tonality.