Do you mean to discover whether you're a diatonic dinosaur?
I'm sticking with dear old dad. :)

I do think there is an anti-chromatic conspiracy afoot. Just another pendulum swing.

It's trite, but apt: every action begets a reaction, which, as MaryAnn notes, results in a pendulum swing. The styles you describe may very well represent a reaction to a period in which, literally, not a note on any page appeared without an accidental, and in which not a single note or chord predicted (to me, at least) what was to come after it, or was the implied result of what went before it. (And yet, miraculously, one knew a 'right' note from a 'wrong' one.) This all began in the romantic era and ended with our dear friend Messiaen (whose music I love, and love to play, but absolutely hate to learn). Your characterisation of this music as Schenkerian is quite apt. Some of it is quite compelling. Most of it is quite boring. The first time I heard Arvo Part's music was via radio very late one night in the mid-1990's. My first impression of it was that it was early organum, though it soon became apparent that that was not the case.

Just this last Sunday I attended the ballet. First on the program was Tchaikovsky's Serenade as choreographed by Balanchine. This, I have always thought (not thought, but knew) to be one of the most boring pieces ever written. It occurred to me at the time that this was a late XIXth century precursor of the sort of music under discussion here. (The second offering was much better, profound, actually. It was set to Poulenc's Gloria and choreographed thematically to a poem about the First World War - a stunning juxtaposition of hope and praise in the midst of utter pain and destruction.)

To return, though, to your subject: much of this music is refreshingly clean even while it often seems harmonically and thematically rudderless. Some of Hovhaness' sacred music, of which I am rather fond, exhibits these stylistic characteristics. Looking through my library the other night in a search for a Transfiguration motet-anthem I rediscovered his 'And as They Came Down From the Mountain'. I commend it to any here who might want a really fine piece for this feast, which, to my mind, ought to be a solemnity.

It is good that Charles has brought this subject up. We should have much more to say about it.

I premiered it on my junior recital and haven't played it since. It could be used in a non Catholic setting I suppose.

Yes, Passion Sunday could be, but then again, instrumental music is not allowed during Lent.

Marvelous, Chuck!
Comforting, too!

chromaticism invokes pathos

I just put a V/V in a four-voice work I started today. Chromaticism isn't dead, at least not for me, but I'm judicious about how I use it. I think the use of chromaticism as a key tool of atonality spoiled it for many, as much atonal music is very difficult to understand for the average listener. I tell the students (warn is more like it) when we begin studying the 20th century era of music that they will hear music they don't like, and they will hear music I don't like, and it's ok that we don't like it, but it still teaches us something about music.

@Francis: can we see the score, too, please?

Thanks to Fr. Ron for suggesting an underlay change in the Latin "orphanos" (the accent is on the first syllable); consequently, I've made a minor revision of the underlay (including on the word "comfortless" which actually was previously somewhat awkwardly underlaid). The revised PDF of "Non vos reliquam orphanos"/"I will not leave you comfortless" is attached.