“I think the origin of all this clamour for tonality is not so much the need to sense a relationship to the tonic, as a need for familiar chords: let us be frank and say "for the triad"; and I believe I have good reason to say that just so long as a certain kind of music contains enough such triads, it causes no offence, even if in other ways it most violently clashes with the sacred laws of tonality.”

— Alban Berg

Quoted in Reich, Willi (1971). Schoenberg: A Critical Biography, p. 34. Translated by Leo Black.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Jan. 14, 2023. History

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Alban Berg 2

Austrian composer 1885–1935

Ernst Kurth

Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners Tristan (1920), p. 273.

“The achievement of such a change of register through a sequential progression is a familiar procedure in the music of the "common practice." The significant distinction is that where Berg subdivides the registral span into equal, i. e., cyclic, intervals, his tonal predecessors subdivide it, in changing register through sequential transference, into the unequal intervals of the diatonic scale. As I pointed out in my last lecture, however, the qualitative transformation in the language of music which we have experienced in our century has a long prehistory. Beginning with Schubert, we occasionally find normal diatonic functions questioned in changes of key that progress along the intervals of the whole-tone scale, or the diminished-7th chord, or the augmented triad. An even more radical example of a cyclic progression in a tonal composition is…from Wagner”

George Perle (1915–2009) American composer

Die Walkure, Act III
Page 96
The Listening Composer

“The relation of tonic to dominant is the foundation of Western triadic tonality. The attempt of the early nineteenth century to substitute third or mediant relationships for the classical dominant amounted to a frontal attack on the principles of tonality, and it eventually contributed to the ruin of triadic tonality. This ruin was accomplished from within the system, however, as mediant relationships were essential to tonality as conceived in the eighteenth century.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 4 : Formal Interlude

“Our peasant music, naturally, is invariably tonal, if not always in the sense that the inflexible major and minor system is tonal.”

Béla Bartók (1881–1945) Hungarian composer and pianist

"The Folk Songs of Hungary" in Pro Musica VII (October 1928)
Context: Our peasant music, naturally, is invariably tonal, if not always in the sense that the inflexible major and minor system is tonal. (An "atonal" folk-music, in my opinion, is unthinkable.) Since we depend upon a tonal basis of this kind in our creative work, it is quite self-evident that our works are quite pronouncedly tonal in type. I must admit, however, that there was a time when I thought I was approaching a species of twelve-tone music. Yet even in works of that period the absolute tonal foundation is unmistakable.

“I don't think that American audiences would accept the tonal character of my music.”

Akira Ifukube (1914–2006) Japanese composer

As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview I" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1992)

“Well anyone can make a 'weird' [chord] progression by randomly picking triads.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Static Line interview, 1998

“For some reason we have a certain chemistry — or whatever. Let's see what happens. We have a long way to go. But I'm in no rush... So, I just want to say that we are going to be heading out to the DMZ and it's something I planned long ago but had the idea yesterday to maybe say hello, just shake hands quickly and say hello.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

press conference, Blue House, Seoul, South Korea, quoted in * 2019-06-30

Trump: Kim and I "have a certain chemistry"

CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-dmz-kim-live-intl-hnk/h_8b23e071903b007d8ff1934be8457d2c
2010s, 2019, June

“Prokofiev’s music is usually based on a firm sense of tonality. Whatever tonal uncertainty and ambiguity one experiences, mainly in developmental passages, they are mostly short-lived.”

Boris Berman (1948) Russian/American musician

Prokofiev’s piano sonatas : a guide for the listener and the performer (2008), Prokofiev: His Life and the Evolution of His Musical Language

“The reality is that you're entitled to believe what you want as long as you're not imposing your beliefs on other people. …I don't think [atheists] need to shut up. The reason why I don't think they need to shut up is because there's a whole bunch of people in this world that we can look at and say they need to shut up and they certainly don't. You got everybody fighting for their own individual cause. This is their cause. We might not like it. I don't agree with it at all, but they do have a right.”

Stephen A. Smith (1967) sports journalist

Interview on Paula Zahn Now http://atheism.about.com/b/a/258728.htm (January 31, 2007).

“I haven't heard honesty in music for so long and this is how I feel, and this is what I think. You don't even have to say words … I was just being as raw as possible. I wanted to make music that you felt in your gut.”

M.I.A. (1975) British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director

Archive Interview http://tamilnation.co/diaspora/unitedkingdom/mia.htm to Eye Weekly (January 2005)
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