If a note is changed in a Mozart serenade, most listeners will notice; if a performer plays a "wrong note" in an atonal serial composition, only a few highly trained listeners will detect it.
Philippe Manoury (who had worked with serialism) and Pascal Dusapin (who is well versed in music history) immediately responded sharply, almost echoing Schoenberg's declaration: "There is no longer any good music left to compose in C major!"
Such controversies were thought to have died out long ago: atonal music has earned its stripes, but it does not reign supreme. Karol Beffa even believes that it will die out of its own accord once public funding and subsidies for serialist artists dry up (Les Coulisses de la création, with Cédric Villani, Flammarion, 2015). Tonal composers, meanwhile, are doing quite well: Steve Reich, one of the pioneers of minimalist music, helped launch an entire movement of repetitive music. Arvo Pärt captivates audiences with an archaizing modal idiom. Étienne Perruchon unfailingly moves listeners with his grand suite Dogora (Naive, 2004) and all his other "Dogorian suites."
Can't we appreciate both Alban Berg, happily at home with the tone row, and Henri Dutilleux, averse to any system?
