Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School

[contrapunctus]

Through looking at past topics through the nifty search feature, I have determined that this is the first topic ever dedicated to the great Arnold Schoenberg. As you know he essentially invented serialism (or at least used it in is music first). Serialism is the use of tone rows to compose. His famous students were Berg and Webern. He founded the Seccond Viennese school. And, most importantly of all, Gould liked him. I would like to start a discussion thread about Arny and his music, so we can all learn more about him.
I haven't heard much at all so  I don't have many opinions about him, so I was hoping I could learn from you all.

[musik_man]

I love his early work.  Verklaerte Nacht is one of the most beautiful pieces ever written.  Pelleas und Mellisande is pretty good also; although it meanders a bit.  I don't however, like his 12-tone works with the exception of Survivor from Warsaw.  Even this is probably more from the text than the music.

BTW Schoenberg isn't a serialist in the strict sense of the word.(though lots of people use it for all 12-tone music)  Serialism involves having note values and dynamics decided by rows also.  Why anyone thought of such a stupid idea, I don't know, but at least poor Schoenberg isn't responsible for that one.

[mikey6]

BTW Schoenberg isn't a serialist in the strict sense of the word.(though lots of people use it for all 12-tone music)  Serialism involves having note values and dynamics decided by rows also.  Why anyone thought of such a stupid idea, I don't know, but at least poor Schoenberg isn't responsible for that one.

I was actually gonna say that but after consulting groves , serialism is a term applied to anything thing pre-arranged ie. dynamics, notes etc.  So an ordering of pitches does fall under the term of serialism and thus the second Viennese school. 
Total or complete serialism was developed by Messiaen in one of his his etudes of which the name escapes me.

[mikey6]

Oooh...and the reason why from what I gathered on my lectures was to totally remove the human element (emotion) out of music, with evreything pre-arranged by maths, emotion has very litlle say in the end result.
Serialism was of course adopted by Boulez and Stockhausen and others after Messiaen first demonstrated it in 1950 I think at a music school.

[apion]

And, most importantly of all, Gould liked him.

Yes, "most importantly of all".

[I Love Xenakis]

Yes, "most importantly of all".

Damn; beat me to it.


Yes, the fact that a psychopathic Bach advocate liked him is certainly more important than the fact that he completely changed music forever >>

[g_s_223]

Yeah, after Pierrot Lunaire he went bonkers: up to then he was OK.

[ravel]

schoenberg is awesome. i like his verklarte nacht, peleas und melisande, gurrelieder  ,( havent heard pierrot lunaire , except for bits of it), but  i i think my favourite schoenberg pieces are his  piano concerto, erwartung, 5 pieces for orchestra opus 11   i think, and his violin concerto. his solo piano pieces are a bit of a test for the ears, specially the "concise" ones, but i can still appreciate a few of them.
but i d say more than schoenberg , i like berg, from his seven early songs, to the altenberg lieder, to wozzeck ( i  dont like opera at all, this is one of the two i like, along with debussy's peleas et melisande), lulu, 3 orchestral pieces ( awesomeeeeeeee) , lyric pieces, der wein, violin concerto ( the first time i heard this piece, was live in concert, it did have quite an impact, so emotional a piece , tears the soul apart) ,  etcetctc.
but ofcourse his greatest masterpiece is wozzeck !!
about webern,  i really like his passacaglia for orchestra, which was the first piece of his i heard, and also im sommerwind, another piece from his early period , when his music was tonal, both are amazing pieces,  but from his later period,  i have only been able to apreciate few, although i respect all of them , he must be a genius,  ... six bagatelles, and 5 orchestral pieces, few more, i forget the name, but they are all short pieces , as are most webern pieces of the later period.    .... of all the three mentioned here, webern's music is the hardest to understand for me. but i still like quite a chunk of his pieces,  havent really heard his vocal pieces ( i should, considering i heard taht half of his pieces are vocal). ...  and ya about berg , again,  not too much into vocal stuff in general, but his 7 early songs, and altenberg lieder, are amazing,    whoever said that berg didnt have melody should listen to the 7 early songs, specially the 1st, nacht, and the 4th ,traumkegrnkt( i know this is really wrong spelling hehe, but it means "crowned in dreams") . beautiful songs !!!

[ramseytheii]

Oooh...and the reason why from what I gathered on my lectures was to totally remove the human element (emotion) out of music, with evreything pre-arranged by maths, emotion has very litlle say in the end result.
Serialism was of course adopted by Boulez and Stockhausen and others after Messiaen first demonstrated it in 1950 I think at a music school.

Someone taught that in lectures?  That is so loaded and incorrect.  Schoenberg first of all never used the word "serialism," instead he called his way of composing, "the Method of Composing with Twelve Tones."  For all that we hear about, "Oh my God, they can't use octaves!" "Oh my God, every note has to be played before any note is repeated!" "Oh my God, it is just all math!" (I don't know why people are still freaking out about this), take one look if you are open-minded enough at any of his scores, and you will find that none of them follow these theoretical rules.  Yes, he wrote that octaves should not be doubled, and yes, he wrote that notes should not be repeated, but then again, somebody wrote once that in a sonata, the recapitulation is always in the tonic, and the second theme is always in the dominant.  I think we all know what to think about that. 

Schoenberg knew the rules were theoretical and never followed them in his music.  Many times he uses octaves in the piano music, and also, his usage of the rows is so free, that you rarely get twelve notes with no repetitions.  Look at the piano concerto; in the first 7 notes you already have F twice.  All he said was that the twelve tones could be arranged in a certain way, from which many different approaches follow.  His reasoning was sort of an uber-Beethoven approach, where he developed tiny motives from the rows and used those to build the piece.  But by doing that, he wrote by motives rather than purely and stricly by rows, so there is a lot of freedom in the pitches, and it is very difficult to trace every pitch in his pieces back to a row.  Which one?  The original?  The original retrograde?  The 5th transposition of the retrograde inversion?  And for how long?   These two notes?  These 5 notes?  It doesn't even make any sense that people are still repeating this blabber.  It just happens to be the easiest thing to grab onto when thinking about his music.

Second of all, sorry for the digression, math can be expressive and mystical and fascinating.  Look at any piece by Bach.

Third of all, that statement about removing the heart from music is just plain wrong and ignorant.  Schoenberg believed the way he developed to compose would be able to express all the emotions, and that that had been possibly exhausted in more traditional music language.  People basically seize on his theories, without any investigation of the music.

Walter Ramsey

[soliloquy]

BTW Schoenberg isn't a serialist in the strict sense of the word.(though lots of people use it for all 12-tone music)  Serialism involves having note values and dynamics decided by rows also.  Why anyone thought of such a stupid idea, I don't know, but at least poor Schoenberg isn't responsible for that one.

No.  That's Absolute Serialism, used most famously by Barraque and Boulez.

[steve jones]

I must admit, I have mixed feelings about this type of music. I love it in filmscore, and find it quite fascinating. Yet I also find it painful to listen to! Schoenberg isnt to bad, but others like Ligeti are just plain wrong, lol.

So yeah, I do have a lot of time for Schoenberg's. But I would probably say I respected it more than I 'liked' it - I think this is music you are surposed to 'like', in the sense that find it aesthetically 'pleasing'. Kind of like modern art!

SJ

[mikey6]

Someone taught that in lectures?  That is so loaded and incorrect.  Schoenberg first of all never used the word "serialism," instead he called his way of composing, "the Method of Composing with Twelve Tones."  For all that we hear about, "Oh my God, they can't use octaves!" "Oh my God, every note has to be played before any note is repeated!" "Oh my God, it is just all math!" (I don't know why people are still freaking out about this), take one look if you are open-minded enough at any of his scores, and you will find that none of them follow these theoretical rules.  Yes, he wrote that octaves should not be doubled, and yes, he wrote that notes should not be repeated, but then again, somebody wrote once that in a sonata, the recapitulation is always in the tonic, and the second theme is always in the dominant.  I think we all know what to think about that. 

Schoenberg knew the rules were theoretical and never followed them in his music.  Many times he uses octaves in the piano music, and also, his usage of the rows is so free, that you rarely get twelve notes with no repetitions.  Look at the piano concerto; in the first 7 notes you already have F twice.  All he said was that the twelve tones could be arranged in a certain way, from which many different approaches follow.  His reasoning was sort of an uber-Beethoven approach, where he developed tiny motives from the rows and used those to build the piece.  But by doing that, he wrote by motives rather than purely and stricly by rows, so there is a lot of freedom in the pitches, and it is very difficult to trace every pitch in his pieces back to a row.  Which one?  The original?  The original retrograde?  The 5th transposition of the retrograde inversion?  And for how long?   These two notes?  These 5 notes?  It doesn't even make any sense that people are still repeating this blabber.  It just happens to be the easiest thing to grab onto when thinking about his music.

Second of all, sorry for the digression, math can be expressive and mystical and fascinating.  Look at any piece by Bach.

Third of all, that statement about removing the heart from music is just plain wrong and ignorant.  Schoenberg believed the way he developed to compose would be able to express all the emotions, and that that had been possibly exhausted in more traditional music language.  People basically seize on his theories, without any investigation of the music.

Walter Ramsey

I did not mention Schoenberg removing emotion from music. If you read my quote from groves

after consulting groves , serialism is a term applied to anything thing pre-arranged ie. dynamics, notes etc.  So an ordering of pitches does fall under the term of serialism and thus the second Viennese school. 
Total or complete serialism was developed by Messiaen in one of his his etudes of which the name escapes me.

I realise Schoenerg did not call his music serial, Debussy did not call his music impressionistic. I realise he falls under the expressionist category (even romantic!) which has anything but no heart.
I'm not an expert on 20th music but I was referring more to the serialists and their worshiping of Webern.  From what I gathered they were afraid after the war of subjective feelings rousing patriotic feelings and sought a way to eliminate emotion from music - hence serialism where every thing is pre-determined.