Dr Faustus of Modern Physics - Department of Speech, Music and ...

68 CHAPTER 13. FALLS OF MUSIC AND PHYSICS
13.2 Second Fall: Atonal Music
A Second Fall occurred in the early 20th century with the emergence of the
atonal 12-tone scale without any key signature, developed in a new (mathematical)
theory of composition by Arnold Schoenberg.
Schoenberg was not only a very serious composer but also enjoyed recreation
and humor, and got a second youth by marrying a 24 years younger
woman after his first wife passed away.
The First Fall can be seen as a parallel to the Galilean invariance of
Newtonian mechanics against a background of absolute space, while the Second
Fall reflects the loss of absolute space in Lorentz invariance of relativity
theory.
12-tone music peaked in the mid 20th century and contemporary composers
have largely escaped from its artificial tonal relativity, while physicists
trapped by a relativity theory which refuses any combination with quantum
mechanics, are getting increasingly desperate.
Figure 13.3: Schoenberg writing formulas on the blackboard: Whether one
calls oneself conservative or revolutionary, whether one composers in a conventional
or progressive manner, whether one tries to imitate old styles or is
destined to express new ideas - one must be convinced of the infallibility of
one’s own fantasy and one must believe in one’s own inspiration.