Five
Schoenberg and the Origins of Atonality

Ethan Haimo

Seen from the vantage point of the 1990s, the birth of atonality is an accomplished and inarguable fact, one of the most significant events in the history of Western music. Placed as we are in time — after this complete transformation of musical thought — it is difficult to imagine that it could have been otherwise.

But, at least as far as the arts are concerned, I am no historical determinist. Atonality was not the ineluctable consequence of the development of musical style, not an inescapable historical necessity.^[1] To be sure, by 1900 many composers felt that tonality as it had been understood was at the point of exhaustion and that substantive changes in musical language were in store. Nonetheless, it is by no means certain that, without Arnold Schoenberg, we would have seen the emergence of music that we would define as atonal. Rather, we probably would have seen (and did, in fact, see) new scales or modes, new definitions of dissonance or methods of dissonance treatment, new procedures for voice leading, new kinds of harmonic progressions, and so forth. Nevertheless, however sharply the pre-World War I music of Stravinsky, Bartók, Debussy, Scriabin, and others diverges from tonality as it had been understood before the turn of the century, their music retained many significant aspects of tonal organization. It is reasonable to wonder whether without Schoenberg we would ever have seen anything like the Klavierstücke, op. 11. And it should not be forgotten how seminal that opus was. As Reinhold Brinkmann pointed out, op. 11 was the first Schoenberg work that Bartók got to know,^[2] and Stravinsky studied it while composing Le sacre du printemps.

If indeed the idea of atonality was not so much the product of anonymous historical forces as it was the specific notion of a single thinker, then we are faced with a basic problem in the epistemology of music: What was there in Schoenberg's thought that brought about the birth of atonality?

To answer this question, however, we must recognize that the birth of atonality was not sudden, did not emerge complete in all of its details. Schoenberg did not abandon all aspects of tonality between one composition and the next. Rather, there was an extended period in which the syntax and idioms characteristic of tonal music gradually disappeared and nontonal procedures began to take their place.^[3] Recognizing that there was such an evolutionary process is important for the understanding of the birth of atonality, for it is my central contention here that Schoenberg's idea of atonality emerged from his conception of tonality. Therefore the question might be reformulated as, What was there in Schoenberg's view of tonality that motivated the birth of atonality?

It is tempting to consider approaching the reconstruction of Schoenberg's compositional thought in the years roughly between 1900 and 1909 simply by examining the compositions, preferably in chronological order. And although the chronology of the compositions in the period leading up to World War I is hardly ironclad, there is relatively reliable chronological information about almost all of the most significant compositions of this period.^[4] But analysis of the compositions alone may not be completely satisfactory. It would be best if it were possible to support analytical observations with the composer's contemporaneous writings, diaries, letters, or polemics.

The problem is, however, that Schoenberg did not become an author until the period in question was already well under way. His first formal essays, a few short, angry responses to the ever intensifying tidal wave of criticism of his music, were not written until 1909, after the completion of opp. 11 and 15, and are in any event irrelevant to the topic under discussion.^[5] Most of Schoenberg's later (and usually rather general) comments on the subject in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s are necessarily colored by the complete transformation that had taken place in his artistic thinking in the intervening years, not the least of which was the evolution of the twelve-tone method. Furthermore, these later articles, like "My Evolution," "Wie man einsam wird" ("How One Becomes Lonely"), and others, were written, at least in part, in response to the many violent assaults on the legitimacy of his music.^[6] Slanted, as they necessarily were, by the exigencies of providing a defense for his musical style, these polemics may not be as reliable or useful as would testimony gathered during the period of Schoenberg's gradual turn toward a new kind of musical organization.

There is, however, one text from the period that has the potential to supply us with what is needed, though only if it is used carefully. I refer, of course, to Schoenberg's Harmonielehre.^[7] As Jan Maegaard has shown,^[8] Schoenberg began writing this massive theoretical/philosophical treatise in 1910 and finished and published it in 1911 — that is, after the George -

Lieder, op. 15, the Piano Pieces, op. 11, the Five Orchestra Pieces, op. 16, and Erwartung, op. 17.

Having dismissed other post-1909 texts as unsuitable for revealing important features of Schoenberg's compositional thinking in the period of the birth of atonality, it might seem illogical that I now suggest examining a 1911 treatise for that purpose. But the Harmonielehre has some crucial differences from the other writings. If we except some of the later chapters and various scattered passages in which Schoenberg self-consciously attempts to describe and justify some of his latest compositional developments, the book is in no sense designed as a primer for Schoenberg's emergent style. Rather, it represents a species of music-theory textbook that fundamentally no longer exists: a text designed to teach a beginning pupil how to become a composer of tonal music.

The very fact that this is a textbook makes it particularly effective as a vehicle to help us re-create Schoenberg's compositional thinking. It can be used in much the same way that Walter Frisch used Schoenberg's pedagogical writings to good effect for the clarification of Schoenberg's concept of developing variation.^[9] Because he is writing a text for a beginning student interested in learning how to compose tonal music, Schoenberg is forced to begin at the beginning, with fundamental principles. Examination of the practical details of his instructions for voice leading, chord formation, and harmonic progression enables a reconstruction of some of the most significant underpinnings of Schoenberg's idea of tonality. And it is in Schoenberg's conception of tonality that the most useful clues for the origins of atonality can be found.

I would like to preface my analysis of the evidence I believe to be most useful by describing some material from the Harmonielehre that contributes to the overall picture, though I suspect it may not be completely reliable. I refer to passages such as the extended discussion of consonance, dissonance, and the overtone system in chapter 3. This discussion includes Schoenberg's assertion that the difference between the closer and more remote overtones is a matter of degree, not of kind. If this view of the overtones was indeed a determinant of Schoenberg's thinking before circa 1908, it would be an obvious source for the origins of atonality. A compositional method grounded on the notion that the distinction between dissonance and consonance is artificial would provide much of the appropriate philosophical/acoustical background for the birth of atonality. And it would not be the first time that theories of consonance and dissonance — credible or not — had determined the direction of musical style.

But these remarks — and there are other, similar ones — seem suspiciously like ex post facto justifications, appeals to history and the laws of nature to justify a musical transformation that had already taken place,

thus perhaps reflecting the concerns of the composer of 1910 rather than the composer of earlier tonal compositions.^[10] Therefore I intend to restrict my discussion to the practical material of the Harmonielehre, of which there is more than enough for my purpose.

There are at the very least three basic ways in which Schoenberg's theory of tonality, as expressed in the practical sections of the Harmonielehre, can cast light on the origins of atonality: through his concept of harmonic progression, through his notion of the hierarchy of the diatonic collection, and through his procedures for chord formation.

In chapters 4 and 5 — the first chapters in which he gets down to the nitty-gritty of practical musical, as opposed to philosophical or acoustical, details — Schoenberg shows the beginning student how to form all of the diatonic triads, seventh chords, and their inversions. After enunciating basic principles of voice leading, Schoenberg demonstrates how to connect chords one to another. It is quite remarkable that the emphasis is exclusively on connections from chord to chord. Absent from this extended discussion (which lasts nearly a quarter of the entire book and includes sixty-nine musical examples) is any systematic discussion of harmonic progression. This entire stretch of the book includes no theoretical framework to organize the successions of harmonies into progressions directed toward a tonic, as opposed to merely ending on the tonic. The omission is also reflected in the musical examples, many of which include harmonic successions that wander about rather aimlessly.^[11] Moreover, although Schoenberg several times employs the useful pedagogical technique of introducing a new concept with an example containing an error, he defers until the beginning of chapter 7 any mention of the possibility that these aimless harmonic progressions need improvement.

When he finally does get around to this topic, he introduces his theory of harmonic progressions — a theory that, as Robert Wason has shown, is distantly related to Simon Sechter's (and Anton Bruckner's) theories of chord progression.^[12] Schoenberg's theory is founded on three types of chord progressions: strong (or ascending), weak (or descending), and over-skipping (or superstrong). He formulates his theory of chord progressions as a dictum: "in planning our root progressions we shall give absolute preference to the ascending progressions and shall use the descending ones primarily in those chord connections where the total effect is still that of ascent."^[13]

The generally negative verdict that subsequent musical theorists have expressed regarding this theory of harmonic progressions is irrelevant here. I am interested in this theory not so much for its own sake but for what it reveals about Schoenberg's view of tonality. As a matter of fact, his theory is uncommonly revealing, for it does virtually nothing to address the issue of what other theories of tonality would consider to be the harmonic aimlessness of Schoenberg's progressions. Indeed, using Schoenberg's in-

structions one can readily produce progressions that express no functionally integrated, tonic-defining structure. As a result, his theory of strong/weak/superstrong progressions is no different in kind or focus from the ideas in the preceding one hundred pages of his text; just as chapters 4 and 5 placed their emphasis on chord-to-chord connections, so too is Schoenberg's theory of progressions, in the final analysis, largely a refinement of that idea.^[14]

In the next section of the chapter, when at long last he brings cadences into the picture, Schoenberg's approach finally begins to yield harmonic progressions that resemble those of more traditional theories of harmony. When one limits the number of chords in a progression to a relatively small number; when one begins and ends a phrase in the tonic, preparing the close with one of the traditional cadential formulas; when one chooses chords utilizing only tones of the diatonic collection; and when one follows Schoenberg's dictum that strong progressions are to be given absolute preference — the resultant harmonic progressions, as shown in Schoenberg's examples, are virtually indistinguishable from progressions one would find by theorists or figured-bass authors as diverse as Hugo Riemann and Paul Vidal.

But in Schoenberg's post-1900 music few of these restrictions hold. The cadence was — in true late-Romantic style — unlikely to be found in unambiguous form at the end of every phrase or period. Rather, it was a device of some rarity, avoided entirely or deferred to the very end of a composition or important section. Similarly, the tonic triad (or dominant chord) was not always clearly demarcated at the beginnings or endings of phrases. Nor did Schoenberg limit himself to the diatonic tones of a scale or to relatively short harmonic progressions. Therefore, even when Schoenberg gives absolute preference to strong progressions in his connections from chord to chord, his harmonic progressions frequently lack any strong sense of tonal identification. They become not tonic-defining progressions with a directional push toward the tonic but successions of chords, each of which is related most strongly to its immediate predecessor and successor, and absent of any clear tonal goal — exactly as we might conclude from his theory of progressions. Therefore, the tonic definition of a phrase or passage (if it exists at all) is likely to be established not so much by the underlying harmonic progressions as by other factors — frequently by beginning or ending a phrase or section on a chord that by agogic emphasis or temporal placement seems like the tonic, or sometimes by the melodic points of emphasis in the outermost voices. This is not to say that Schoenberg never wrote phrases whose progressions begin on the tonic, move to a dominant preparation chord, continue on to a dominant, and return to the tonic. But it is clear that in his tonal thought, progressions of this sort were not regarded as normative, nor even necessary for what he saw as tonic definition.

Given the unique character of virtually every one of his works, it is a risky

business to cite examples and present them as representative of Schoenberg's compositions. There is the real danger that whatever examples one chooses might be — at least in some dimension — representative only of that work and of no others. With this caution in mind, I would like to cite an example that I believe is illustrative of the view of tonic definition that emerges from Schoenberg's Harmonielehre.

The song "Mädchenlied," op. 6, no. 3 (1905), begins with a fairly clear expansion of an E-minor triad in measure 1 (see example 1). By virtue of its placement as the first chord of the composition and its comparative agogic emphasis, we can — even on first hearing — take E to be the tonic, a judgment that is confirmed by the song's conclusion. Schoenberg begins the second stanza of the poem (measure 9) again in E minor, reestablishing E by the same temporal and agogic emphases that were used at the beginning of the song. Between these two comparatively unambiguous tonal reference points there is a plethora of identifiable triads, seventh chords, augmented triads, and so forth. And the successions from chord to chord are invariably structured to move primarily by strong or superstrong progressions, faithfully following the principles of chord progression and voice leading outlined in the Harmonielehre.

If, however, one were presented with only measures 2 through 7, it would be impossible to identify E minor (or any other sonority) as the tonic of this passage, or to anticipate the return of E minor at the beginning of measure 8. Nothing in the intervening harmonic progressions defines E minor as the tonic, nor does any other tone suggest a tonic lasting beyond one chord.

Although this is but a single example, I believe it to be highly representative of Schoenberg's approach to tonality. It is frequently the case in his works that the tonic is neither established by, nor deducible from, the harmonic progressions. Instead Schoenberg normally establishes the tonic by temporal placement or agogic emphasis. Without such emphases or placement it is difficult or impossible to identify the tonic.

The theory of harmonic progressions in the Harmonielehre is not a fluke, not an error, not even a pedagogical simplification. Rather, it represents an essential aspect of Schoenberg's thinking. As such it is one of the most significant clues in our search for the origins of atonality, for it yields a musical style employing the traditional vocabulary of tonality (triads and seventh chords) and traditional syntax (no parallel fifths, proper resolution of sevenths, and so forth) without defining or establishing the tonic as the referential sonority by means of harmonic progression.

A further source of the idea of atonality can be found in a second basic aspect of Schoenberg's view of tonality. In most other theories of tonality, both before and since Schoenberg, the diatonic scale is accorded a special hierarchical standing. The diatonic collection is normally considered to be

Example 1.
Arnold Schoenberg, "Mädchenlied," op. 6, no. 3, mm. 1-8

potentially key defining, and thus relatively stable. It follows that the remaining five tones of the chromatic scale are less stable; they must normally resolve to, be seen as elaborators of, or be heard in reference to one of the seven diatonic tones. In the beginning stages of his treatise Schoenberg restricts himself to chords built only on the diatonic degrees, and it might appear that he too is respecting the hierarchical standing of the diatonic collection. However, in a telling passage from chapter 10, Schoenberg reaches back to the church modes as the justification to explain the presence of tones outside of the referential diatonic collection. In so doing, he draws a distinct line in the sand between his theories and those of his contemporaries and predecessors:

I have already mentioned that peculiarity of the church modes wherein variety was produced in the harmony through accidentals (sharps, flats, naturals, which momentarily and incidentally alter diatonic tones of a scale). Most textbooks commonly try to replace this richness with a few instructions pertaining to chromaticism. That is not in itself the same thing, however, nor does it have the same value for the pupil since it is not sufficiently systematic. What took place in the church modes happened without chromaticism, so to speak, diatonically, as we can still see in our minor mode. . . . Now, should our major and minor actually contain the entire harmonic wealth of the church modes, then we must include these characteristics in a manner consistent with their sense. It becomes possible thereby to use in a major key all the nondiatonic tones and chords that appeared in the seven church modes.^[15]

To be sure, had Schoenberg recommended forming specific passages solely with the elements of a given church mode, there would not necessarily have been a challenge to tonality. But that is not what he is suggesting. Rather, he is justifying the use of the five chromatic tones as functionally equivalent replacements for any of the seven diatonic tones at any time and in any place, a procedure that — if employed freely — would make it impossible to identify a specific seven-tone diatonic collection as the referential collection.

This is not Schoenberg's only justification for extensive chromaticism. In another passage, where he shows how to connect distantly related chords to one another, he remarks:

There is a means that is always appropriate for making such chord connections smoothly and convincingly: chromaticism. Formerly, when we were dealing with simpler connections, with the most immediate relationships, a diatonic scale segment from the fundamental key or a related key assumed the responsibility for what happened harmonically. Here, more and more, a single scale assumes all such functions: the chromatic scale.^[16]

The potential consequences that these two approaches have for tonality should be clear. Schoenberg's view of the modes, and of the voice-leading

Example 2.
Arnold Schoenberg, "Traumleben," op. 6, no. 1, mm. 1-7

connections necessary to connect distantly related harmonies, encourages both equal standing for and the constant circulation of all twelve tones. That being so, a key cannot be defined by its collection, nor can a move from key center to key center be effected through changes in the referential collection: all "keys" have the same basic collection, all twelve tones.

Although the previously cited Schoenberg passage about modes might be read to imply that free use of the chromatic (that is, "modal") tones was normative, such an interpretation is not entirely borne out by Schoenberg's tonal music, at least not by his early tonal music. Initially — that is, before about 1904-1905 — he tended to use chromatic tones more in the way he describes in the second passage cited earlier: as segments of chromatic scales. For instance, the four-measure phrase that begins the song "Traumleben," op. 6, no. 1 (1903), even concludes with the tonic chord, prepared by a root-position dominant-ninth chord (see example 2). As is often the case, all twelve tones appear within this phrase, mostly as segments of chro-

Example 3.
Arnold Schoenberg, "Jane Grey," op. 12, no. 1, mm. 1-3

matic scales. One could certainly argue that the referential collection of E major is deducible from this phrase, thus permitting us to describe the nondiatonic tones not as tones of equivalent standing (as the first quotation would suggest) but as chromatic elaborators of relatively stable diatonic tones, originating from the connection of distantly related chords.

Nonetheless, the virtually constant use of chromatic segments in all of the voices, both in this example and in many others like it, makes it very difficult to identify a referential diatonic collection and, consequently, to establish a clear tonal hierarchy. It might be possible to make such distinctions if a clear diatonic collection at the beginning were the norm, or if the tonic could easily be inferred from the harmonic progressions. But that is rarely the case in Schoenberg's tonal music.

Another example shows how difficult it is to decipher which are the diatonic tones; it also serves to demonstrate what Schoenberg might have meant in justifying the chromatic tones through recourse to the modes. Example 3 presents the first three measures of the 1907 ballad "Jane Grey," op. 12, no. 1. Although the tonality with which the work concludes is D, the first measures are difficult to reconcile with D minor or, for that matter, with any key. In these first three measures all twelve tones appear. Unlike the example cited from op. 6, no. 1, here the chromaticism is not the product of chromatic-scale segments within the strands of polyphony. But the very complexity of the formations makes it impossible to identify a referential diatonic collection that is stable. Is the B-natural in the right hand a chromatic tone or a diatonic tone? Is it B-natural or C-flat? Which of the two tones, D-flat or D-natural, is the structural tone in the bass?

Passages of this sort are hardly atypical in Schoenberg's tonal music, and they reflect precisely what his theories suggested we would find — twelve

tones being used in free circulation, without any firm hierarchy or even distinction between the seven diatonic tones and the remaining chromatic tones.

Another source for atonality that I can trace to ideas in the Harmonielehre concerns Schoenberg's method and procedures for chord formation. A substantial proportion of the book is devoted to identifying and classifying chords — hardly unusual for a book on harmony, to be sure, but I know of no other treatise that is more exhaustive in its search for all possible variants.

Schoenberg is careful in the initial stages of the book to make a clear distinction between chordal types — consonant chords and those that contain a dissonance. When he introduces the VII-chord, for example, he makes it clear that unlike the other diatonic chords, this one contains a dissonance, and chords with dissonances have special voice-leading requirements. In this respect Schoenberg's approach, for all of its philosophical musings about dissonance, is rather traditional. In regarding sevenths, for instance, as essential dissonances that need resolution and demand a change of harmony, he is following a well-trodden path that can be traced back to Kirnberger. In the simpler chords — the diatonic sevenths, for example — it is of course a relatively trivial matter to identify the dissonance, and as a result Schoenberg's instructions for voice leading do not differ appreciably from previous approaches.

However, the more complex the chromaticism and the more alterations in the chord, the greater the difficulty in discriminating between dissonance and consonance, and the greater the possibilities for ambiguous results. It is not that it is impossible to identify whether a chord is (or is not) dissonant according to the rules of tonal theory. It simply becomes difficult or impossible to determine which of the tones in the chord is the unstable tone, and which are the stable ones. When the dissonance cannot be identified, its resolution cannot be directed. And when that happens the emancipation of the dissonance is at hand — not as the result of theoretical speculation about the more remote overtones of the harmonic series but as a consequence of the extension of the methods of chordal formation to include multiple altered and elaborative tones.

Here, too, the theories implicit in the practical sections of the Harmonielehre are amply reflected in Schoenberg's music. Dissonance treatment in Schoenberg's post-1900 music is not suddenly abandoned; rather, it is gradually made so complex as to cease to have a functional role. The conjunction of two chords both of which contain dissonances but in neither of which it can be ascertained which of the tones are the dissonances eventually leads to the nonfunctionality of dissonance. "Emancipation of the dissonance" is a marvelous slogan, carrying subtle undertones of a kind of musical-liberation theology. The practical facts were probably far more

Example 4.
Arnold Schoenberg, First String Quartet, op. 7, mvt. 1, mm. 8-10

mundane: Schoenberg was not searching for stable intervals when he reached toward the more remote overtones of the harmonic system; instead, his principles of chord formation made it impossible to identify which tones needed resolution. The consequences of this are profound. If dissonance cannot be identified, it cannot be resolved. And if it cannot be resolved, then the very notion of consonance and dissonance becomes moot.

One example can stand for many. In the First String Quartet, op. 7 (1904-1905), a succession of complicated sonorities appears in measures 8 through 10 (see example 4). On the last beat of measure 8 the chord consists of the tones E-flat, A, C-sharp, and F. This chord is followed on the first beat of measure 9 with a chord that includes A-flat, C, F-sharp, and (eventually) E-flat, and on the second beat with the sonority C, B-flat, F-sharp, and D. All three of these chords contain dissonant intervallic relationships — in some cases, many such dissonant intervals. But which tone is the dissonance? In the first chord the orthography might suggest that the E-flat is the seventh of the chord and C-sharp the raised fifth, and that those tones might be identified as the dissonances in the harmony. But this is belied by the part-writing connections to the next chord. In any event, Schoenberg stated clearly that in complicated chords he would choose his spelling for the convenience of the performer, not the analyst.^[17] But even respelling this sonority in various ways does not produce an unambiguous harmonic structure with both clearly defined stable tones and identifiable dissonances.

The same situation obtains for the remaining chords in this phrase, up

to and including the chord that, introducing a dramatic pause, closes the phrase (F-sharp, D, B-flat, G-sharp). One after another, the chords seem to be composed of four elements — that is, they seem to be types of seventh chords. But each of these chords is so constructed as to make it impossible to determine which tone might be the root, seventh, ninth, raised fifth, lowered fifth, or other traditional dissonance.

This, in conjunction with the two previous concepts, reveals that some of the essential pillars of tonality have been pulled down: the lack of directed harmonic progressions throws the existence of a tonic into doubt; the lack of hierarchy abolishes the diatonic scale as a referential collection; the inability to identify the dissonance erases the distinction between consonance and dissonance. Indeed, the challenges to tonal coherence posed by the three concepts are, in many senses, interrelated. If it were possible to identify an unambiguous referential collection, it might be possible to determine which tones in a chord were structural and which elaborative. If the tonic could be identified from the harmonic progressions, it might be possible to identify a referential collection. If the chords could be deciphered, perhaps the tonic could be identified. Rarely in Schoenberg's tonal music is any one of these steps possible, let alone all three together.

I have identified three important technical features in Schoenberg's view of tonality that I believe were essential in providing the conceptual basis for his idea of atonality. Of course, these features in and of themselves would not have led to atonality were it not for some other very important aspects of his intellectual makeup. Let me conclude by briefly sketching some of these features.

Schoenberg was, as is readily seen in both his compositions and his writings, very much taken with the idea of progress in the arts. He saw artistic value not merely residing in immanent aesthetic qualities, but also stemming from the historical importance of the work, which, in his thought, is often tied up with chronological precedence; witness Schoenberg's controversy with Hauer over the twelve-tone system,^[18] and with Webern over Klangfarbenmelodie.^[19] Because he was so concerned that his compositions be at the cutting edge of modernity, it was essential that each new composition be in some manner innovative. It is no wonder that each new composition had the effect of pushing back the frontiers of what was possible in tonal organization.

The second essential character trait relates to Schoenberg's commitment to organicism. Schoenberg, like many late-nineteenth-century German composers and theorists, was strongly influenced by the idea that in order to have merit, a composition must be constructed so that all events are derived from a fundamental idea stated at the beginning of the work; in Schoenberg's case this was seen primarily in motivic terms. One consequence of organicism in his late tonal music was to make normative within

a composition whatever harmonic/motivic event was the first to occur in the work. Thus when, as in the case of op. 14, no. 1, a composition began with two chords, neither of which was a stable, classifiable, tonal sonority, the concept of organicism dictated that this harmonic succession become the structural foundation of the entire composition. The consequences of this for the destabilization of tonality are clear.

Finally, the consequences of Schoenberg's pedagogical background for the idea of atonality should not be underestimated. It was not, as one wag has suggested, that the problem with autodidacts is that they have such terrible teachers. In Schoenberg's case it might be more accurate to say that the advantage of autodidacts is that they do not have overbearing teachers. Because he was largely self-trained, Schoenberg was capable of seeing possibilities that might have been suppressed had he had a more traditional education.

The birth of atonality was the result of a single composer's intellectual and artistic makeup. It was not alone the fact that Schoenberg was an organicist, or that he believed in and acted upon the notion of progress in the arts, or that his training was informal. Rather, the combination of all of these factors — together with a view of tonality in which harmonic progressions no longer aimed for a tonic, hierarchical distinctions disappeared between diatonic and chromatic tones, and dissonances could no longer always be identified and resolved — resulted in the possibility of a new and unprecedented idea of musical organization.