Paris: Another Approach

· As in Vienna, French composers perceived a crisis in music, specifically a crisis with the tonal system: it was worn out, too predictable, no longer valid.

· There was consensus on problem but not solution. Two fundamental approaches arose:

· Discard tonality or in fact any system (Schoenberg and Webern’s approach). This created a type of musical anarchy that caused problems with musical coherence. Second Viennese School composers recognized the problem

· Come up with a system to replace tonality. The French took this approach in late 19th century, with works of Liszt as model. Before Schoenberg ever thought of atonality, Debussy was breaking with the tonal system. Debussy’s approach included composing music using different kinds of scales than the Major and Minor scales, scales such as Modes, Pentatonic, Whole-Tone, and various artificial scales