ABSTRACT
A piece of music will always have to be tonal, at least in so far as a relation has to exist from tone to tone by virtue of which the tones yield a perceptible continuity. The ‘other people’ to whom Michael Finnissy is happy to leave the task of providing labels are likely to include music theorists, many of whom in recent times have given little credence to ‘pantonality’ as a useful concept, despite or because of its Schoenbergian provenance. By using Newman’s ‘atonal tonal’ dichotomy in the context of the declaration that it is ‘the hierarchies’ that make tonality ‘interesting’, Finnissy dramatises the terminological and conceptual problems that bedevil attempts to devise consistent technical language valid for critical accounts of present-day music. Finnissy needs pantonality to sustain a kind of expression that is affectingly poignant rather than merely sentimental, acknowledging from the beginning that this is a work of art and not a drama-documentary or fundraising appeal.
