I was just wondering what all you lovely people think of Schoenberg's music.

I ask because of Daniel Barenboim's recent series of concerts in London that paired Beethoven's Piano Concertos with the music of Schoenberg (being repeated on BBC Radio 3 over the next few days).

In Barenboim's initial interview for the series, he said, "People wouldn't come if [the programme] was just Schoenberg" - that's certainly true of me! I'm not well acquainted with his music, but you probably already know what a dyed-in-the-wool Romantic I am. Still, Barenboim said that part of his responsibility as a well-renowned conductor who is bound to get large audiences is to promote music people normally steer clear of, such as that of Schoenberg. And, at least in the first performance, it kind of worked for me (it was Pelleas und Melisande).

Of course, I recognise that this is an early work and, though it heralds his later music, it is closer in style to the music of his immediate predecessors (Brahms and Wagner being major influences). It definitely takes a more active listen than other music, and I'm still very doubtful about enjoying his later pieces, but Barenboim's performance opened up a new perspective.

__________________
me

Wow.. what can I say...
I regard Schoenberg up there as one of the greatest composers. His music is brilliant and genius.

Maybe serialism is a bit of a silly convention or dogma to adhere to.. but the rest... fantastic!

Try the 5 orchestral pieces or the accompaniment to a cinematographic scene.

I'm starting to like Webern, after I become a real fan o him, then I will move to Schoenberg (he's less handsome [not handsome at all to be honest], so he must go second).

I like some early Schoenberg. I adore Verklarte Nacht and quite like Pelleas und Melisande. I also am drawn to works like Pierrot and Erwartung. Expressionist music is very interesting I think - intense and moving. Also the 6 little piano pieces are wonderful. This was real ground-breaking music.

I don't so much like his serial music. Well, I like the violin concerto as performed by Hilary Hahn but not so much the piano concerto.

As we are on the subject, I strongly recommend this disc of Transfigured Night and Pelleas. The string sound is so awesome that if this recording doesn't transfigure your night, then you are beyond redemption ;-)

__________________
KL

I happened to listen to the two R3 broadcasts you refer to. It was mainly to hear the three Beethoven Piano Concertos played by Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Staatskapelle. I already have most of Schoenberg's best rated works, so it was no surprise to me to hear the two that were played: Pelleas und Melisande and Five Orchestral Pieces.

I admit that I acquired most of my Schoenberg collection a while back mainly because I was getting asked about this composer, what I thought of him etc. I didn’t want this to be based on second-hand reports so I decided to invest in some of his works.

My collection contains only a selection of his works but I think I have most of the best known among them. In addition to the two above-mentioned works, I have Verklarte Nact, Pierrot Lunaire, String Quartet 2, Chamber Symphony No 1, Five Piano Pieces, Moses und Aron, Gurrelieder, Violin Concerto, plus a few others.

I have come more recently to like some of his works. Verklarte Nacht is by far the best among the more accessible of them, and is is an early work from his Romantic period, as too were the two pieces played on the R3 programmes. The Violin Concerto which came much later (1935/6) is also very good, and is well inside his serial period. Not to get too carried away, overall I don't rate Schoenberg all that highly in my own hierachy of composers. He is definitely worth a listen to, and was influential, but there's a lot better on offer from earlier times.

I really enjoyed Pelleas und Mellisande, the Chamber Symphony and Transfigured Night. I'm not too crazy about his twelve-tone works, but don't mind A Survivor from Warsaw, the string quartets or the Violin Concerto.

It's interesting you say you'll move on to Schoenberg after Webern. It's Webern and his followers such as Boulez that I have had the most difficulty with.

Schoenberg created a hyperbolic and sometimes violent expressive world perhaps closer to the raw unconscious than any other music.

The harmony usually stays at a high level of dissonance, partly for expressive reasons, partly to avoid familiar chords with their tonal implications. (Nothing in the scheme requires steady dissonance, however. Some later composers used tone rows to write sweet-sounding pieces with clear tonal centers. Part of the reason for the system's later success, in fact, was that it does not dictate style but rather allows room for a composer's personality.)

Schoenberg himself said "I can't utter too many warnings against overrating these analyses of my music...my works are twelve-tone compositions, not twelve-tone compositions." Some treat it as the end, when the system is simply another tool and a means to an end.

The real problems with people having problems enjoing Schoenberg's mature music are probably not so much dissonance (gloriously dissonant pieces by Bartok have become popular) or lack of melody (much Beethoven is hardly more melodic than Schoenberg). The problem may be that Schoenberg is unpredictable: the music develops constantly, repeating almost nothing literally; the rhythm wanders, only occasionally having a steady pulse; the texture is often densely contrapuntal; and the atonal language erases the usual tonal expectations. The result is that his music, by denying us expectations about the future, forces us into the present.

First works by Webern are quite romantic/expressionist and not difficult to listen to, even though atonal.

Can't say I listen to any Austrian music at all

What am I missing then

Well I keep on meaning to re-trial his string quartets. And it will be quite a trial....

I thought it was interesting that Daniel Barenboim said that rather than the Five Orchestral Pieces being music for the head or for the heart they were really music for the nerves. In most of Schoenberg's twelve tone music there seems to be a tonal piece trying to get out. The opus 23 and 25 piano pieces are inspiring, as are the string quartets - but would I rather listen to Beethoven? The Schoenberg violin concerto in my view is a better piece than the Berg violin concerto, and yet everyone wants to record Berg.

I always thought the music of Arnold, Anton and Alban would be too difficult to get into, but Schoenbergs Drei Klavierstücke op 11 was a real ear-opener for me. It felt like it was "balanced", leaving all other music "unbalanced", if that makes any sense. I remember someone dismissing it as "just random notes", though.

So, I will definitely listen to more of Schoenberg's works in the future.

What little tonal Schoenberg I've heard is pretty enjoyable...but after that - there isn't too much I enjoy. I remember liking the Piano Suite the first time I heard it, but really didn't care for it the second time around.

I think Schoenberg was trying a little too hard to be controversial and cutting edge. I, for one, think that comes naturally...maybe with a little self promotion, but Schoenberg took that to a whole new level. Webern really got serialism right. Do I care for Webern? Not particularly. I prefer Berg's and Stravinsky's serialist works to both of them - but they were both non-traditionalists in different ways.

I know some people compare Schoenberg to the modern Beethoven - but Beethoven gradually developed his unique style. He didn't up and leave everything he already worked on to form his new style, essentially what Schoenberg did. So, personally, I don't think they're comparable.

__________________
B.M. Music Theory (in progress)
My Soundclick Page - feel free to browse my compositions I post up there

In the early-1970s Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange stunned everyone into shock and awe (and garnered an 'X' rating at the time).
Like everyone else I was fascinated, and turned to Anthony Burgess' novel of the same name.
Burgess was also a composer, and in his novel A Clockwork Orange he mentions Mozart, Beethoven, Orff, and Schönberg.
The first time I saw Schönberg's name I became very curious about him.
I obtained Karajan/BPO's reading of the Variations for Orchestra (Op.31) and on first audition I was hooked. (The dreamy Magritte-ish cover art is totally bonus as well!)

http://www.amazon.com/Arnold-Schoenb...1294372&sr=1-1

To anyone who wants to know this composer, I would recommend the canon of five String Quartets (it's important to catch No. 0 as well as the four 'official' works).

http://www.amazon.com/Arnold-Schönbe...1294695&sr=1-1

And then I would suggest his lieder and magnum opus, Moses und Aron:

http://www.amazon.com/Schoenberg-Lie...1294803&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Schoenberg-Mos...1294905&sr=1-1

These will give the essentials of this fascinating composer's art.

I'm the opposite of most people here, I'm not very interested in Schoenberg's earlier "tonal" works, I'm more into his "atonal" & serialist stuff. To understand Schoenberg one must get a grip on what had happended before him. Chromaticism had produced works of monstrous proportions, often with bits that had no relation to eachother. Looks at R. Strauss' Thus Spake Zarathustra - everyone remembers the first two minute theme, but what of the rest? It bears little resemblance to the initial theme. As another member here has said elsewhere, in these works the composer "shoots his load" & quickly grabs the attention of the listener, and there's little point to the whole thing, it's incoherent & confusing. Compare that with Schoenberg's "atonal" & serialist works, and he's completely different - he develops themes in a rigorous, "holistic" way, it's all related. No wonder that the composers which Schoenberg admired most weren't people like R. Strauss or Wagner, but Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms. All of these were in a way "classicists," they wrote music that was highly integrated & more compact, thematic development was well thought out. So I think Schoenberg was a traditionalist at heart, even though his style differed greatly from these composers.

__________________
"Contrary to general belief an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs" - Edgard Varese