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Arnold Schoenberg (1874 – 1951)

144K views 1K replies 153 participants last post by  ThefirstTroubadour 
#1 ·
Such an intellectual composer - the only composer that frightens more or less all western society fifty years after his death.
 
#112 ·
Yes my opinions are fair game. But I think when you personalize your opposition to my opinions by basically calling my an idiot when it comes to music is the wrong way to disagree.

Please do not refer to my distaste for Schonberg as "ignorance." I can assure you, I have listened to enough Schonberg to "see what it's all about" and, despite by best efforts to allow this music to enter my heart and soul, I'm left feeling like I've wasted time. Why? Because to my "ignorant" ears, I don't hear touching music, I hear experimental, intellectual excercises take the place of lyricism and a more traditional humanism. That's right, "more traditional." I guess that makes me a little "old-fashioned", but certainly not "ignorant." (There is a difference.) Again, I think for you to make a judgement call against me PERSONALLY, someone you do not know, is presumptuous. I would never call into questions YOUR taste any any music or call you "ignorant" or anything else if you did not like any of my favorite composers. I would simply disagree with you, perhaps vigorously, but I would not call you ignorant.

Who cares if you don't like Arnold or Bax? I suppose no one would. Because, perhaps, they are not notorious, polarizing composers like Schonberg. So, again, in threads about especially contorversial figures like this, a little controversy should be expected. I think so, anyway. And why is it important for folks like me to say we don't like this composer? I don't know...perhaps because we are in a forum where an exchange of opinions and ideals is the reason why we're here. I guess everyone is supposed to march in lock-step in forums and uniformly shower praise on every composer who ever lived. While I am not familiar with every post you have ever made, Some Guy, I anticipate that somewhere in the archives, you've expressed a less-than-favorable opinion of a composer or two, which would fall in line, I'd say, with what one would occaisionally expect in a forum: an exchange or differing opinions.

Anyway, Some Guy, nothing personal against you...there never was. And I am done discussing this with you. We've both made our points and I will let you have the last word.
 
#116 ·
Because to my "ignorant" ears, I don't hear touching music, I hear experimental, intellectual excercises take the place of lyricism and a more traditional humanism. That's right, "more traditional."
"Ignorant" indeed! The quality of being experimental is not a sufficient critique of a work: I am sure, if examined, you tastes would not exclude 'experimental' tonal works.

And please tell me what is 'intellectual' about Schoenberg's music. The idea that there is no lyricism in Schoenberg is again pointless, because a lack thereof is still an insufficient reason for believing Schoenberg's music to be of poor quality. For what it's worth, one only needs to listen to the second movement of his op. 16 to hear his lyricism.

The idea that Schoenberg wasn't traditional enough need not be taken seriously, Schoenberg was very conscious of being part of a tradition, was saturated in his own tradition and his music makes this explicit by constant use of old forms. It is not for nothing that Schoenberg's post WWI music has been regarded as neoclassical.
 
#115 ·
That criticism isn't even applicable.. I can summon many of Schoenberg's melodies and motifs to the forefront of my imagination on demand.. "duh duh duh duh - duh duh duh duh" String Quartet No. 3 "Duuuuuh duh duh daah daah duh duh daaaaaaa duh daaa daaa doooooo" String Quartet No. 1
 
#118 · (Edited)
Quite.

I don't understand those who don't hear the great wealth of emotion in Schoenberg's music - whether as insignificant as a witty, satirical gibe or as overwhelming as his sorrow and pain - I always hear the abundant humanism of Schoenberg's art - thinking about it - 'human' is such a fantastic word for Schoenberg (I might explain when I have more time to think it though - I'm certainly touching upon something though). Far greater humanism than the superficiality and materialism I hear in much 20th century tonal music.
 
#124 ·
I just asked him as well (see the .. what was it.. 10 Greatest Symphonists thread, I believe) - seemed to ignore me too. Silly boy. Naughty. Probably studies music tech at some poly.. *gasp* what a snob.

JTech, you love Verklarte Nacht, so to draw you into mature Schoenberg - can I openly recommend his first string quartet. It's written in a chromatic idiom (similar to VN) but with a little bit more tonality knocked off. An excellent 'bridge' work. It's not serialist or twelve tone so you may enjoy it with a bit of effort. Certainly not light listening, but put something in and you'll get something fantastic in return.

Mahler famously said of it: "I have conducted the most difficult scores of Wagner; I have written complicated music myself in scores of up to thirty staves and more; yet here is a score of not more than four staves, and I am unable to read them."
 
#125 ·
I just asked him as well (see the .. what was it.. 10 Greatest Symphonists thread, I believe) - seemed to ignore me too. Silly boy. Naughty. Probably studies music tech at some poly.. *gasp* what a snob.
The reason he's avoiding the questions is simple: he doesn't have the necessary credentials to evaluate and give an educated analysis of why he dislikes something in particular music.

My questions are as simple as basic math, but it's quite funny to me that he is running away from them.
 
#136 ·
Herzeleide, it's so sad that you can't even answer simple questions, but I guess diminishing your credibility isn't that important to you.

I'm sure you'll pass remedial math one day. Perhaps you can cheat off the 9 yr. old child sitting next to you. :D
 
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#143 ·
You know at the end of the day I'm not worrying about if I like Schoenberg or not. It's not important to me. What is important is listening to what I enjoy and not what everybody else enjoys and unfortunately Schoenberg doesn't make my listening list.

For all who like Schoenberg, listen to him and enjoy him. Who cares if somebody doesn't like him or understands him the way you do. That will never change and trying to change people's opinion of a composer who they obviously do not like is their own prerogative.

Listen to what inspires and moves you. Screw what people think. We can play this little intellectual game of why I might like dislike him and then have somebody come back at me with a counter argument, but is it really going to change that person's perception or opinion? No of course not and nobody should expect it to. We can argue until we are blue in the face, but the only thing that stands are two opinions and two opinions only.

I'm done with this thread. It's lived past it's life-expectancy already.
 
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#144 ·
You know at the end of the day I'm not worrying about if I like Schoenberg or not. It's not important to me. What is important is listening to what I enjoy and not what everybody else enjoys and unfortunately Schoenberg doesn't make my listening list.

For all who like Schoenberg, listen to him and enjoy him. Who cares if somebody doesn't like him or understands him the way you do. That will never change and trying to change people's opinion of a composer who they obviously do not like is their own prerogative.
I agree with this.

Schoenberg is definitely an acquired taste, so some people are bound to not like his atonal works. I''m in the category who like him, but he is definitely not one of my favourite composers, who would probably be Prokofiev or Bartok. I suppose those composers didn't have to stick to a system, such as what Schoenberg did. All three were revolutionaries, & particularly Prokofiev & Schoenberg were iconoclasts. I find the other two's approach more engaging, but all three were responding to the crisis of tonality that presented itself around 1900. Music would never be the same.

When I hear Schoenberg's Violin Concerto, I think that he has deconstructed the genre almost totally. It's like he's put it in a blender and mixed it up. But this, perhaps, reflects the nature of the human condition from the C20th on: ambiguity, restlessness, agitation, uncertainty, uprootedness, exile - both in their emotional, social and physical aspects.

I think his music is meant to sound that way. If people don't like it that's fine, but as JTech suggests, don't act as if this is the only view or response. Look at what I said about the Violin Concerto earlier, Hilary Hahn had been packing houses with it in Europe prior to making the recording I mentioned in 2007. So his music still has resonance with audiences today.
 
#154 ·
Back to Schoenberg & not these rather futile arguments...

I think there is something very Germanic about his music. Much like what I wrote about Hindemith in that thread, but for different reasons.

Schoenberg's music sounds very serious & profound, it garners all of your attention, much like the works of earlier composers in the Germanic tradition, like Beethoven, Brahms & Mahler. Perhaps this is part of the baggage that he inherited & is really apparent in his earlier works like Verklarte Nacht & the Gurrelieder. Even in his atonal works, like the Violin Concerto & Chamber Symphony No. 2, there is a sense of this stolidness and seriousness. One can't fail to notice that he mainly stuck to the old forms (symphonies, concertos, string quartets & operas), much like Hindemith, & unlike someone like Edgard Varese, who went in completely other directions. So he was still somewhat of a traditionalist, which many people don't give him credit for.
 
G
#155 ·
Back to Schoenberg & not these rather futile arguments...

Schoenberg's music sounds very serious & profound, it garners all of your attention, much like the works of earlier composers in the Germanic tradition, like Beethoven, Brahms & Mahler. Perhaps this is part of the baggage that he inherited & is really apparent in his earlier works like Verklarte Nacht & the Gurrelieder. Even in his atonal works, like the Violin Concerto & Chamber Symphony No. 2, there is a sense of this stolidness and seriousness. .
Just out of curiosity where would you place his "Chamber Sym #2 Op38", I have this work and find it quite Bland an uninteresting, I suppose this will encourage all the wrath of his admirers and they will have a go at me, I will add that I find this particular piece a bit more accessible than some of his other works that I have heard in the past.
 
#157 ·
I'll be objective here and say that Schoenberg was a pioneer, of course he was completely out of his mind, but he ushered in a new kind of music. A music that I happen to not enjoy, but I respect him for his innovations as a theorist. He is only one of a handful of composers who literally created a new genre of composition and threw the musical world upside down with his radical musical vision.

To be subjective, does this mean I enjoy his music, of course not, but to hear "Verkarte Nacht" is a thing of pure beauty. Anyone and I mean anyone who does not like this piece I think aren't really fans of classical music to begin with. It has all the essentials in music: rhythm, harmony, melody, and structure and it shows an incredible beauty that I believe anyone interested in classical music will enjoy. This piece also shows a great sense of drama and I'll even go as far to say despair.

Does anyone know the philosophical ideals behind this piece? I already know the technical origins of the piece. It had been arranged from his string quartet, but I'm anxious to know more about it philosophically.
 
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#158 ·
To be subjective, does this mean I enjoy his music, of course not, but to hear "Verkarte Nacht" is a thing of pure beauty...Does anyone know the philosophical ideals behind this piece? I already know the technical origins of the piece. It had been arranged from his string quartet, but I'm anxious to know more about it philosophically.
I looked on Wikipedia, and it gives some info about the content of Verklarte Nacht, based on Richard Dehmel's poem of the same name. You might already know this, but at least this post is about Schoenberg, unlike some of the convoluted arguments we have seen above:

Wikipedia said:
Dehmel's powerful poem is about a man and a woman walking through a dark forest on a moonlit night, wherein the woman shares a dark secret with her new lover; she bears the child of a stranger. The mood of Dehmel's poem is reflected throughout the composition in five sections, beginning with the sadness of the woman's confession; a neutral interlude wherein the man reflects upon the confession; and a finale, the man's bright acceptance (and forgiveness) of the woman: O sieh, wie klar das Weltall schimmert! Es ist ein Glanz um Alles her (see how brightly the universe gleams! There is a radiance on everything).
 
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#163 ·
I have a 2CD set in the Golden Classics series, I know they are not the best, but for the purpose that I wanted it for it was adequate, it contains works by Hindemith, Berg and Schoenberg, I was determined to listen to it so last night I played the 1stCD ‘all Hindemith’
1st was Symphonien Mathis, der Maler. It started ok but did not hold my interest, the 3rd mov sounded just like Film Music to me.
Next came “Pittsburgh” It did sound ‘Industrial’ to me with no discernable melody, I thought the voicing sounded a bit “Richard Strauss” at times. The 2nd mov was a great improvement with some humour at the end. The 3rd mov being Ostinato was more enjoyable. I guess I must be a minimalist. Still I enjoyed it.
The last on the CD was “Metamorphosen” The 2nd mov had a distinctly Scottish sound at times? At the 3rd mov I found I was enjoying it quite a bit. I also played his Violin Son which will probably be more acceptable on the next hearing.
I guess that I am just saying that I do try some of this music but really have to be in the mood.
 
#164 ·
Transfigured Night (Verklärte Nacht)

by Richard Dehmel (1863-1920, written in 1896)

Two people walk through a bare, cold grove;
The moon races along with them, they look into it.
The moon races over tall oaks,
No cloud obscures the light from the sky,
Into which the black points of the boughs reach.
A woman's voice speaks:

I'm carrying a child, and not yours,
I walk in sin beside you.
I have committed a great offense against myself.
I no longer believed I could be happy
And yet I had a strong yearning
For something to fill my life, for the joys of
Motherhood
And for duty; so I committed an effrontery,
So, shuddering, I allowed my sex
To be embraced by a strange man,
And, on top of that, I blessed myself for it.
Now life has taken its revenge:
Now I have met you, oh, you.

She walks with a clumsy gait,
She looks up; the moon is racing along.
Her dark gaze is drowned in light.
A man's voice speaks:

May the child you conceived
Be no burden to your soul;
Just see how brightly the universe is gleaming!
There's a glow around everything;
You are floating with me on a cold ocean,
But a special warmth flickers
From you into me, from me into you.
It will transfigure the strange man's child.
You will bear the child for me, as if it were mine;
You have brought the glow into me,
You have made me like a child myself.

He grasps her around her ample hips.
Their breath kisses in the breeze.
Two people walk through the lofty, bright night.

Verklärte Nacht

Zwei Menschen gehn durch kahlen, kalten Hain;
der Mond läuft mit, sie schaun hinein.
Der Mond läuft über hohe Eichen;
kein Wölkchen trübt das Himmelslicht,
in das die schwarzen Zacken reichen.
Die Stimme eines Weibes spricht:

Ich trag ein Kind, und nit von Dir,
ich geh in Sünde neben Dir.
Ich hab mich schwer an mir vergangen.
Ich glaubte nicht mehr an ein Glück

und hatte doch ein schwer Verlangen
nach Lebensinhalt, nach Mutterglück

und Pflicht; da hab ich mich erfrecht,
da ließ ich schaudernd mein Geschlecht
von einem fremden Mann umfangen,
und hab mich noch dafür gesegnet.
Nun hat das Leben sich gerächt:
nun bin ich Dir, o Dir, begegnet.

Sie geht mit ungelenkem Schritt.
Sie schaut empor; der Mond läuft mit.
Ihr dunkler Blick ertrinkt in Licht.
Die Stimme eines Mannes spricht:

Das Kind, das Du empfangen hast,
sei Deiner Seele keine Last,
o sieh, wie klar das Weltall schimmert!
Es ist ein Glanz um alles her;
Du treibst mit mir auf kaltem Meer,
doch eine eigne Wärme flimmert
von Dir in mich, von mir in Dich.
Die wird das fremde Kind verklären,
Du wirst es mir, von mir gebären;
Du hast den Glanz in mich gebracht,
Du hast mich selbst zum Kind gemacht.

Er faßt sie um die starken Hüften.
Ihr Atem küßt sich in den Lüften.
Zwei Menschen gehn durch hohe, helle Nacht.

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/66223-Richard-Dehmel-Transfigured-Night--Verkl-rte-Nacht-
 
#166 ·
Transfigured Night (Verklärte Nacht)
by Richard Dehmel (1863-1920, written in 1896)
Thanks for providing the poem, msegers. I think JTech will appreciate it too, since he has been enjoying Schoenberg's work so much. It also brings this thread back to focus, as it unfortunately seems to have become a forum to air people's differences about eachother in a very unsavoury way (it was even locked down for a while, as I recall...)

Anyway, it's a very powerful poem, seems very impressionistic. I'm not that well read in poetry, but it is the best impression of night that I have ever read in a poem. It also seems to be quite radical for it's time as regards subject matter - bringing in the topic of the woman's unfaithfulness. No wonder it inspired Schoenberg. The last time I heard the music was more than a decade ago, but I remember it made an impression on me with it's painting of that nocturnal, mysterious picture. The string orchestra seems particularly well suited to this kind of thing, and Schoenberg was a master of orchestration (anyone who doubts this, listen to his orchestration of Brahms' Piano Quintet).

I have just remembered, anyone who likes this work will probably enjoy Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn & Strings. The text comes from various English poets, from the Renaissance to the C20th, and it too has a nocturnal feel. A bit more out-there is Edgard Varese's Nocturnal, a work for soprano & orchestra based on the poetry of Anais Nin. Some very wierd text (eg. she says at one stage, "I kissed his shadow") but also a very good evocation of this type of night-time mood.
 
#167 · (Edited)
Yes, Andre I do appreciate him providing the poem very much. :) It brings a lot to the discussion at hand.

Here is my own personal take on Arnold Schoenberg and please realize these are my own views:

He started composing music as a late German Romantic, but he started disliking the Viennese musical establishment due to their very strict, conservative "our way or the highway" philosophy about composers. It turned Schoenberg against that establishment and he became disgusted with the politics involved with this establishment. He basically came to the conclusion "I'm going to compose music my own way and the hell with what they think of me."

That's my take on Schoenberg. He was a man who started out influenced by the very culture he was brought up in, but he turned his back on them when that culture demanded he make music the way they wanted instead of the way he wanted to make it, so he developed a new way of composing music and went in his own direction.

For better or for worse, he impacted classical music forever. I admire him because he made music his own way. I may not like everything he composed, but I respect that he challenged more people's ears than any other composer in history.
 
#168 ·
...That's my take on Schoenberg. He was a man who started out influenced by the very culture he was brought up in, but he turned his back on them when that culture demanded he make music the way they wanted instead of the way he wanted to make it, so he developed a new way of composing music and went in his own direction.
I agree that he departed very significantly from his earlier style once he established the atonal system. But, as I said earlier, there still seems to be something stolidly Germanic in his mature works. They still sound very serious & Teutonic to me, much more than Berg, who let in a bit more light into his orchestration, or Webern, who was more technical, or Eisler, who was more concerned with left wing politics. Out of all those contemporaries (or disciples, really), it is in his works that I still hear traces of where he came from. I suppose it's still relatively slight, say, in a way a Brahms symphony sounds German. But it's still there, to my ears, anyway. I think his style was still attached to his European roots, at least somewhat more than Stravinsky or Varese.
 
#171 · (Edited)
The String Trio Op. 45 is a work of intense passion and power. Written late in his career in a strict serialist fashion - Andre says: "I agree that he departed very significantly from his earlier style once he established the atonal system." but compare the Trio to Verklarte Nacht - undeniably and highly recognisably the work of the same composer.
 
#172 ·
I agree with this. He just changed his musical language. His musical voice was always intact in everything he wrote.

One of the interesting things about Schoenberg was the fact he was mostly a self-taught composer. He studied Beethoven scores and taught himself to read through a series of books about the sonata form. He studied all of these. Most self-taught musicians/composers develop their style very quickly, because they don't have the influence of teachers, but they do have the influence of the music they like and try to emulate.

I still love Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms Piano Quartet No. 1. Have you heard this Bach? It's fantastic.
 
#174 · (Edited)
Schoenberg

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.
 
#179 ·
I was just wondering what all you lovely people of Schoenberg's music.
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.
 
#175 ·
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.
 
#180 · (Edited)
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.
 
#178 ·
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 ;-)

 
#181 · (Edited)
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.
 
#207 ·
Nice complex analysis. For me the problem with much mature Schoenberg is that it doesn't sound well. The textures are not particularly interesting in themselves; rarely does he produce sound which captivates me, or even interests me. Webern seems to have a better ear for interesting textures.
 
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