Reframing the theorizing activity on twentieth-century multi-layered harmony

Twentieth-c. polytonality is one of the most “under-theorized” and contested labels for a compositional practice, attributed to significant passages or movementsin music of Bartók, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Falla, among others. Despite recent investigations into the structure of polytonal compositions, the reception of the contested label reflects the tension between the constructionist and inclusive aspects of the style, in which composers combine distinct layers resonant with tonality vs. interpretative and exclusive claims, in which listeners-as-analysts resist and argue for perceptual and logical limitations of split and concurrent tonal systems or centers. A more serious challenge posed by polytonality lies in inviting distinct conceptual entities into a composition, whose diverging systemic forces undermined the coherence and completeness of “masterworks.” In contrast, this paper approaches polytonality by revisiting theoretical and analytical discourse by e.g., Koechlin, Milhaud, Casella and Bartók in the 1920s to 40s, which has subsequently been either dismissed or appropriated by the post-Schenkerian and set-theoretical analytical approaches developed in the later part of the 20th c. It is argued that notions of polytonality draw from inclusive compositional phenomena, which originally explored new multi-layered arrangements and listening strategies. The paper inventories early accounts of the practice (transpositions, modal combinations, extended harmonies, layered dissonances, modulation in simultaneity), proposes a geometrical analytical method (called scalar dissonance), and argues that polytonality casts a much wider net on compositional practice than traditionally granted, which could be applicable to works of composers such as Lutoslawski.