New Tonality

In the 1970s, a stylistic shift emerged within contemporary Western classical music composition to counteract the Modernist aesthetic practiced by the post-Webern generation. This New Tonality aesthetic (originally called New Romanticism) asserts the rights of composers to choose from all musical styles and techniques, including a reinvention of tonality in the wake of Modernism, and advocates a return to expression, emotion, communication and accessibility. This book examines the development and characteristics of New Tonality, as well as research and composers’ comments on the style. The book also examines two New Tonal works - James Hopkins’ Songs of Eternity, and Paul Moravec’s Songs of Love and War - and considers the musical elements and compositional techniques that place them within the style. Finally, After Death: Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, an original New Tonal work composed by the author, is presented and discussed. This work represents the author’s reflection and interpretation of the historical and contemporary influences currently at work in Western classical music, as well as his view of what it means to compose serious art music in the early twenty-first century.