Atonality

In particular, the Cantata for Makronisos, a pioneering piece in which Mikroutsikos experimented with atonality was extremely well received in international music festivals and an interpretation of particular note was recorded by Maria Dimitriadi.

Ambient house tracks generally lack a diatonic center and feature much atonality along with synthesized chords.

Atonality emerged as a pejorative term to condemn music in which chords were organized seemingly with no apparent coherence.

Donald Jay Grout similarly doubted whether atonality is really possible, because "any combination of sounds can be referred to a fundamental root".

Free atonality The twelve-tone technique was preceded by Schoenberg's freely atonal pieces of 1908–1923, which, though free, often have as an "integrative element.

He had also believed the atonality of serialized music to run counter to his desire to reach a wide audience.

In many art forms this often meant startling and alienating audiences with bizarre and unpredictable effects, as in the strange and disturbing combinations of motifs in Surrealism or the use of extreme dissonance and atonality in Modernist music.

Notably from Tristan und Isolde onwards, he explored the limits of the traditional tonal system, which gave keys and chords their identity, pointing the way to atonality in the 20th century.

Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern.

The 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism ( Schoenberg and Berg ), Neoclassicism ( Stravinsky ), and Minimalism ( Philip Glass and John Adams ).