Alban Berg “What is Atonality” (1930/36)0 Aufsite her die zetgendstiche Musk und Konzertherichte aus. Budapest, COMPOSERS ON MODERN MUSICAL CULTURE Documenta urtkina 5 (1977): 92-100] 1 2 (Or in any class ofan even lower level of elture, As it might be supposed that poetry can draw upon a similar source in popular songs and ballads i shoul be explained that flk songs appear to lack che significance for poetry tha folk music as for art- mesic. Folk poetry] lacks more especialy the infinite variety that we musicians find in fll msc 3. Aida Téth in the periodical Nougat, July 1920. injo Saver Kuhat, ed, Juénoslvenskenarodne popevke [South Slavic Folksong}, 4 volumes (Zagreb, 1878-81). The collection contains about sixteen hundred Croatian, Slovenian, and Serbian melodies . These musical examples were omitted in the fist edition in The Suck They are returned here as they appeared in Bartk’s original German text.) r 6 ALBAN BERG (1885-1935) ‘Alban Berg's “What Is Atonalty?” originated as an interview given on Radio, Vienna (called RAVAG) on 23 April 1930. The opportunity for the tak was, arranged by Berg's friend Anton Weber, who was then working as a program supervisor forthe radio, and it was intended to create publicity for and explain aspects ofthe musical language of Berg's opera Wozzeck, which would have ts Viennese premiere a month later: The interview was conducted by the con servative crc ulus Bistron, to whom Berg gave in advance a preliminary ver- sion of his ideas to guide the formulation of questions. Following the broadcast, Berg tured over a transcript ofthe interview to is student Will Reich, for use in Reich's journal 23: Eine Wiener Zeitschrift, where it was published in 1936, ‘Shonty thereafter an abbreviated English trarlation was published inthe appen- ix of Nicolas Slonimsky’s Music Since 1900. It appears here forthe frst time in 1. complete Engish translation, Bers subject inthis tak is a style of music, then commonly caled aton- al with which he and others from his circle had been associated for more than two decades. His purpose i twofold to assert the similares of this type of music to traditional musial styles and to reject decisively the term ise. The ‘word atonal had guined a foothold in German journaltic writing around the ‘end of World War fin 1918, and, as Berg notes, it took on a broad mearing and a strongly pejorative connotation—any music that used nontradtional har- rmonie, melodic, or rhythmic elements was often dismissed as atonal, suggest- ing that it was irregular, arbitrary. and devoid of beauty in any trations sense, For these reasons Berg dismisses the term as “diabolical.” ‘Composers outside of Schoenberg's acle were more incined to accept ‘the term as a suitable designation for their new music. In his 1920 essay “The Problem of the New Music’ (essay no. 4), Béla Bartok used the term approv- ingly, finding atonal music to be characterized by an equality ofall weve tones and to be the outcome of along historical evolution. The Viennese composer Josef Matthias Hauer used the term from 1920 to describe his own music which utiized a rudimentary form of twelve-tone composition. Nether Berg nor his teacher, Amold Schoenberg, ever agreed upon a satisfactory term for their own music that others called atonal. For Schoenberg such works exhibited a style characterized by a free and pevasive use of 80 rant chords, which ruled out the traditional triadic harmonic progressions that, festablshed a keynote. In a 1941 lecture entiled "Composition With Twelve “Tones,” Schoenberg characterized the style as one that “treats dssonances Bke ‘consonances and renounces atonal center” In his racio interview, Berg followed a62 COMPOSERS ON MODERN MUSICAL CULTURE THE ORIGINS OF MODERNISM, 1900-1930 ) the ideas of his teacher. Atonal music, he says, dfs form traditional music only in a new harmonic language, lis other salentfeatures—counterpoint, irregular Phrasing, traditional forms, proselie rhythens, and lyrical melody—are all appar tent in the music of such esteemed composers as Brahms. Music that exempliies Berg's discussion is readily found in his own ‘works, as well asin those of Schoenberg and Weber, vier between rough ly 1908 and 1922. Berg's opera Wozzeck is especially apposite, since it is his ‘best-known “atonal” work, and, since it was soon to be premiered in Vienna, t as no doubt on his mind during his interview. Inthe fist scene of Act 3, for ‘example, the counterpoint that he sees as typical of new music is prominent, there in the strict and tradtonal form of the fugue. Other traditional forms