How do we perceive atonal music? Suggestions for a theoretical approach

In the discussion that follows, I will attempt to formulate some propositions for a model of the perception and mnemonic encoding of atonal music. These propositions aim to address the psychological paradox on which, at least at the outset, Schoenberg and his pupils founded their theoretical work, that of the suppression of hierarchical tonal functions at the heart of musical structure. It is a psychological paradox to the extent that today we know that there is no visual or auditory perception without there being a hierarchical organisation of the information, which at the same time allows for economical storage in memory regardless of the complexity of the information. We must then suppose that in the case of an atonal work the listener himself constructs new hierarchical rules which are substituted for tonal rules, and the coherence of the musical work depends on the listener's capacity to treat the musical information outside the conventions he has acquired by listening to tonal works. More exactly, it is a question of knowing how, in the absence of defined structural referants, the listener manages to reduce the musical surface in order to be able to reconstitute a network of very general temporal relations which can be applied beyond the present listening event.