Tonality, Musical Form and Aesthetic Value

Walter Horn
Forthcoming in Perspectives of New Music
(Abstract)
It has been claimed by Diana Raffman, that atonal (and in particular serial)
music can have no aesthetic value, because it is in an important sense
meaningless.

This

worthlessness

is

claimed

to

result

from

cognitive/psychological facts about human listeners that have been confirmed

by empirical investigations such as those conducted by Lerdahl and
Jackendoff. Similar assertions about the necessary inferiority of 12-tone music
have been made by, among others, Taruskin, Cavell, and Goldman, some of
whom echo Raffmans suggestion that both composers and performers of
atonal music are committing a kind of fraud. This paper responds to all of
those allegations. In particular, it points out that even if the empirical claim
about human cognitive capacities with respect to the discernment of local
structure in atonal works is assumed to be correct (which is actually quite
doubtful), all the arguments brought by the prosecution against atonal music
that rely on this claim are invalid. It is noted that such arguments by tonality
advocates somewhat ironically rely on their own variety of what Taruskin has
called the poietic fallacy, a gaff which he has frequently accused serialists
(and perhaps alea supporters) of committing. Readers are reminded that the
main basis for claims of aesthetic worth (or worthlessness) can never be
primarily theoretical, but must be principally based on the experiences of
beholders.