Formal Tension Research Articles

Aaron Copland's Nonet: Two Views

UN DOUBTEDL Y, there are composers of distinction somewhere who are still writing in a good, sound neo-tonal idiom. One of the most striking developments in recent musical history, however, has been the fact that those who had formerly been the leading practitioners of this type of composition have taken their business elsewhere. Questions of style and fashion apart, there seems to be at least one good reason for the widespread abandonment of a vocabulary that had, after all, a good deal in its favor: Harmony, within the neo-tonal system, was becoming less and less functional. Now it is difficult to make convincing large-scale pieces using a nonfunctional tonal idiom; but the neo-tonal composers, often following the example of the Classical composers, were particularly interested in symphonic scope. Historically, the predilection for large formal structures was precisely coincidental with the growth of functional tonality and its potential for incorporating significant small-range motion and detail into a system of vital long-range relationships, and for making structural tensions and resolutions result from harmonic delay. Similarly, the tonal system provided extensive possibilities for tonal contrast and reinforcement, rhythmic and contrapuntal extension, and interconnection of linear and vertical events. In the Classical symphony large areas of tension may be articulated through the elaboration of a suspended or harmony that delays resolution while ultimately reinforcing it. In the nonfunctional, neoclassical idiom, however, such an elaboration is likely to suggest merely the establishment of the secondary harmony as a new tonic area, so that the Classical formal tensions are lost.