"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.
“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.”
Prokofiev’s piano sonatas : a guide for the listener and the performer (2008), Prokofiev: His Life and the Evolution of His Musical Language
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Boris Berman 16
Russian/American musician 1948Related quotes
“Music is the tonal analogue of emotive life.”
Feeling and Form, ch. 1, p. 27, Scribner (1953)
“I don't think that American audiences would accept the tonal character of my music.”
As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview I" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1992)
Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 4 : Formal Interlude
Quoted in Reich, Willi (1971). Schoenberg: A Critical Biography, p. 34. Translated by Leo Black.
Si ces expériences sont rares, elles n’en donnent pas moins sa tonalité fondamentale au mode de vie plotinien, puisque celui-ci nous apparaît maintenant comme l’attente du surgissement imprévisible de ces moments privilégiés qui donnent tout leur sens à la vie.
Qu'est-ce que la philosophie antique? (1995)
Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners Tristan (1920), p. 273.
Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 93, note 24
McClary, Susan (1991). Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816618984.
Prokofiev’s piano sonatas : a guide for the listener and the performer (2008), Prokofiev the pianist