List of atonal compositions

This is an incomplete list of atonal musical compositions. Pieces are listed by composer.

B

• Béla Bartók
  • Eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, Op. 20^[1]
  • Three Etudes for Piano, Op. 18^[1][2][3]
  • First Sonata for Violin and Piano (1921)^[4]
  • Second Sonata for Violin and Piano (1922)^[1][4]
• John J. Becker
  • Symphonia brevis (1929)^[5]
  • Concerto arabesque (1930)^[5]
• Alban Berg
  • Lulu^[6][7]
  • Wozzeck^[6][7]
  • Chamber Concerto (1925)^[8]
• Johanna Beyer
  • Clusters (1936)^[9]
• Chester Biscardi
  • At the Still Point (1977)^[10]
• Henry Brant
  • Ghost Nets (1988)^[11]

C

• John Cage
• Julián Carrillo
  • Symphony No. 3 (1940)^[12]
• Elliott Carter
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1950)^[13]
• Ruth Crawford Seeger
  • Nine preludes for piano (1925–28)^[14]
  • Piano Study in Mixed Accents (1930)^[14]

D

• Mario Davidovsky
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1954)^[15]
  • Concertino for Percussion and String Orchestra (1954)^[15]
  • Noneto (1956)^[15]

E

• Duke Ellington
  • The Clothed Woman (1947)^[16][17]

F

• Vivian Fine
  • Four Polyphonic Pieces for Piano (1931)^[18]
  • Four Songs (1933)^[18]
• Lukas Foss
  • Time Cycle (1960)^[19]
  • Echoi (1963)^[19]

G

• Miriam Gideon
  • The Hound of Heaven (1945)^[20]
  • String Quartet (1946)^[20]
  • Symfonia Brevis (1953)^[20]
  • Mixco (1957)^[20]
  • Of Shadows Numberless (1966)^[20]

K

• Leon Kirchner
  • Piano Trio No. 1 (1954)^[21]
  • String Quartet No. 3 (1966)^[21]
  • Lily (1977)^[21]
  • Music for Twelve (1985)^[21]
  • Music for Cello and Orchestra (1992)^[21]
• Ernst Krenek
  • Symphony No. 2 (1922)^[22]

L

• Franz Liszt
  • Album-Leaf 'Prélude omnitonique', S.166e^[23]
  • Bagatelle sans tonalité (1885), S.216a^[24]

M

• Nicholas Maw
  • Essay (1961)^[25]
  • Scenes and Arias (1962)^[25]

P

• Zoltan Paulinyi
  • LUME 1 + 2 for solo viola pomposa and 2 orchestras (2018)
  • Biblioteca (alias Library): chamber opera (2011)
  • Preço do Perdão: chamber opera (2012)
• Henri Pousseur
  • Exercices (1956)^[26]
• Krzysztof Penderecki
  • Emanationem
  • Partita per harpsichord

R

• Dane Rudhyar
  • Pentagrams Nos. 1-4 (1924–26)^[14]
  • Three Paeans (1925–27)^[14]
  • Granites (1929)^[14]
• Carl Ruggles
  • Angels (1921)^[14]
  • Vox clamans in deserto (1923)^[14]
  • Portals (1926)^[14]
  • Sun-Treader (1933)^[14]

S

• Arnold Schoenberg
  • George Lieder [The Book of the Hanging Gardens] (1909), Op. 15/1^[27]
  • Erwartung (1909), Op. 17^[28]
  • String Quartet No. 2 (1907), Op. 10, last movement^[29]
  • Five Pieces for Orchestra (Fünf Orchesterstücke) (1909), Op. 16^[30][31]
  • Pierrot lunaire (1912), Op. 21^[32]
  • Drei Klavierstücke (1909), Op. 11^{[33][34][35][36][37][38]}
  • Four Orchestral Songs (1916), Op. 22^[39]
  • Die glückliche Hand, Op. 18^[40][41]
  • Herzgewächse (1911), Op. 20^[42]
  • Die Jakobsleiter^[43]
  • Sechs kleine Klavierstücke (1913), Op. 19^[44][45]
  • Five Pieces for Piano, Op. 23^[46]
• Igor Stravinsky
  • The Rite of Spring (1913)^[47][48]

T

• Louise Talma
  • Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (1979)^[49]
  • The Ambient Air (1981)^[49]
  • Full Circle (1985)^[49]

V

• Edgard Varèse
  • Density 21.5 (1936)^[50]
  • Offrandes (1922)^[14]
  • Intégrales (1925)^[14]
  • Arcana (1927)^[14]
  • Déserts (1954)^[51]

W

• Anton Webern
  • Five Movements (1909), Op. 5^[52]
  • Six Pieces (1910), Op. 6^[52]
  • Six Bagatelles (1913), Op. 9^[52]
• Stefan Wolpe
  • Enactments (1953)^[53]
  • Symphony (1956)^[53]

Other composers

Other composers with atonal pieces include Harrison Birtwistle & Peter Maxwell Davies,^[54] Jacob Druckman, Barbara Kolb,^[55] Henry Cowell, Claude Debussy, Brian Ferneyhough,^[56] Alexander Goehr,^[57] Lou Harrison, Mårten Hagström, Paul Hindemith, Karel Husa, Charles Ives, György Ligeti, Witold Lutosławski, George Perle,^[58] Sergei Prokofiev, David Raksin,^[59] Nikolai Roslavets,^[60] Hermann Schroeder, Alexander Scriabin, Charles Seeger, Igor Stravinsky, Fartein Valen, Tyshawn Sorey, and Iannis Xenakis.

See also

• List of dodecaphonic and serial compositions
• List of music students by teacher
• List of tone rows and series

References

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2. Antokoletz and Susanni (2011), p. 244.
3. Antokoletz and Susanni (2011), p. 247.
4. Antokoletz and Susanni (2011), p. xxvii.
5. Gagné (2012), p. 30
6. Crutchfield, Will (December 17, 1989). "Wozzeck Speaks to Us by Mixing Two Musical Modes", The New York Times. "Alban Berg's Wozzeck was the first atonal opera to get anywhere near standard repertory status, and it is still the only one. (Berg's second opera, Lulu, is the only other remote contender.)"
7. Steib, Murray (2013). Reader's Guide to Music: History, Theory and Criticism, p. 77. Routledge. ISBN 9781135942625. George Perle, "explains Berg's musical language as a great mixture of devices and techniques—some carried over from atonal style of Wozzeck, other reflecting an idiosyncratic approach to twelve-tone composition that owes relatively little to the ideas of Schoenberg."
8. Carpenter, Alexander (2005). "Alban Berg", All Music Guide to Classical Music: The Definitive Guide to Classical Music, p.140. Hal Leonard. ISBN 9780879308650. "...marking the near-end of the composer's freely atonal period...and is notable for the manner in which Berg combines atonal and 12-tone music in the same work with ease."
9. Gagné (2012), pp. 36–37.
10. Gagné (2012), p. 38.
11. Reed, Peter Hugh (1991). American Record Guide, vol, 54, issue 2; vol. 54, issues 4-6, p. 41.
12. Gagné (2012), p. 57.
13. Gagné (2012), p. 58.
14. Gagné, Nicole V. (2012). Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music. p. 4. ISBN 9780810867659.
15. Gagné (2012), p. 72
16. Gagné (2012), p. 90.
17. "1947-1948", AllMusic.com. "...and his nearly atonal piano exploration on the intriguing 'The Clothed Woman'." ,
18. Gagné (2012), p. 100
19. Gagné (2012), p. 104
20. Gagné (2012), p. 114
21. Gagné (2012), p. 150
22. Gagné (2012), p. 153.
23. Massey, Drew. "Liszt, Franz. (1811–1886)". Schubertiade Music & Arts. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
24. Searle, Humphrey, ed. Stankey Sadie, "Liszt, Franz", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 20 vols. 11:11:39. (London: Macmillan, 1980). ISBN 0-333-23111-2.
25. Gagné (2012), p. 169
26. Gagné (2012), p. 212.
27. Forte, Allen (1977). The Structure of Atonal Music, p. 1. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-02120-2.
28. Haimo, Ethan (2006). Schoenberg's Transformation of Musical Language, p. 3. ISBN 9780521865425.
29. Smith, Quentin (2010). Felt Meanings of the World: A Metaphysics of Feeling, p. 7. ISBN 9781557535986. Contains typo: refers to quartet no. 4.
30. Forte, Allen (1973). The Structure of Atonal Music. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
31. Rahn, John. "Analysis Two: Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra: Farben, Op. 16, no. 3". In his Basic Atonal Theory, 59–73. New York and London: Longman, 1980. ISBN 0-582-28117-2.
32. Winiarz, John (2000). "Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire: an Atonal Landmark", LSM Online.
33. Brinkmann, Reinhold. 1969. Arnold Schönberg: Drei Klavierstücke Op. 11: Studien zur frühen Atonalität bei Schönberg. Supplement to the Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 7. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
34. Forte, Allen. 1972. "Sets and Nonsets in Schoenberg's Atonal Music". Perspectives of New Music 11, no. 1 (Tenth Anniversary Issue (Fall–Winter): 43–64.
35. Malhomme, Florence. 1997. "Les Trois pièces pour piano op. 11 de Schoenberg: principes d'organisation de l'espace musical atonal". Musurgia 4, no. 1, Dossiers d'analyse): 84–95.
36. Perle, George. 1977. Serial Composition and Atonality, fourth edition, revised. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03395-7.
37. Straus, Joseph N. 2000. Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory, second edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-014331-6.
38. Kostka, Stefan and Payne, Dorothy (1995). Tonal Harmony, p. 513. ISBN 0073000566.
39. Palmer, John. "Orchestral Songs (4) Op. 22", AllMusic.com.
40. Simms, Bryan R. "The Operas Erwartung and Die glückliche Hand", OxfordScholarship.com.
41. "Robert Craft: Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 2; Die glückliche Hand; Wind Quintet, Op. 26", AllMusic.com.
42. Carpenter, Alexander. "Herzgewächse, song for soprano, celesta, harp & harmonium, Op. 20", AllMusic.com.
43. "Die Jacobsleiter (Jacob's Ladder), oratorio", AllMusic.com.
44. Taruskin, Richard (2008). The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays, p. 369. ISBN 9780520942790.
45. Benjamin, Thomas; Horvit, Michael; and Nelson, Robert (2008). Techniques and Materials of Music, p. 214. ISBN 9780495189770. Op. 19, No. 2.
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47. Simms, Bryan R. (1996). Music of the twentieth century: style and structure, p. 191. ISBN 9780028723921. "The Rite of Spring is atonal despite the diatonic content of its folk tunes."
48. Young, Percy Marshall (1969). Stravinsky: Masters of Music, p. 43. Benn. "...the composer of the atonal The Rite of Spring..."
49. Gagné (2012), p. 270
50. Perle, George (1990). The Listening Composer, p. 83. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06991-9.
51. Gagné (2012), p. 12.
52. Gagné (2012), p. 290
53. Gagné (2012), p. 7
54. Gagné (2012), p. 37.
55. Gagné (2012), p. 152.
56. Gagné (2012), p. 97.
57. Gagné (2012), p. 116.
58. Gagné (2012), p. 205.
59. Gagné (2012), p. 98.
60. Gagné (2012), p. 228.