Learning Schoenberg's works for piano solo

[iumonito]

I am wondering whether any of you has had the inclination and passion to learn these five works, and would share about your experience and impressions.

I have other projects at the moment, but am toying with the idea of starting to learn these with the goal of playing all 5 of them maybe in a couple of years.

Op. 19 seems the best one to start with.  Any journey companions?

[ramseytheii]

I learned op.11, 19 and 23, also I have played the piano concerto and violin fantasy.
My approach with learning any composer is to get as deep into their musical style as I can, so I always tend to learn several works by the same person at a time, and also listen to a lot of different things.

It's hard to say generally what helps to learn this music, but one thing is a strong poetic idea, a narrative, that goes through the whole piece.  Schoenberg changes the color so fast and so unpredictably, you have to be able to give definition and meaning to all of the variety.  If you don't, you can either gloss over it, or it will be chaotic.

Learning the notes requires you to think of intervals, especially how chords can be broken up into melodic pieces, because he does that all the time.  I suggest improvising on two or three chords pulled out of context to get a deeper appreciation of his style.

Also remember that Schoenberg and his students practiced the theory of octave displacement, that is, if a note in a melodic line is an octave or more away, it helps to think of it as only a step or whatever away, just subtract the octave from the interval.

Think orchestrally and get a good fingering to properly voice the chords, and bring out different instruments!

Good luck
Walter Ramsey

[principe7613]

I had once one of my most deep playing experiences performing the whole of opus 11 in concert. That is a really good cycle, for me personally very interesting because Schönberg is not fixed yet in his dodecafonic dogma. It is sometimes expressionistic, sometimes romantic, sometimes scriabin like, very rich in texture, but...not so easy...especially nr. 3

Maybe you like to read them once...

greetings, Joost

[iumonito]

I took a quick look.  Here are some obvious observations, so maybe you would care to elaborate or express you disagreement.

I feel Op. 11 is very close in texture to Brahms' Op. 116 and Op. 117.  The recordings I have listened to don't seem to pick up on this.  Interestingly, so far I have detected only one performer recording from both sets (Gould).  I like his Brahms, but his Op. 11 seems a little unromantic.  Closer to Krenek and Hindemith than to Brahms.

Op. 25 is very close in texture to Bach. [edit: It seems now to me that the texture is not Bachian at all.  Op. 25 certainly is a post-baroque suite: Prelude, Gavotte (Bach would always have an Allemande and a Courante  here instead), Mussette, Intermezzo (Bach would not have had something called this in a suite), Minuet, with trio, and a Giga.  The names of the movemnets, though, are somewhat removed from their dance models, as if Schoenberg decided to follow their Schenkerian outlook without embracing their characteristic "takt" or beat (least true in the Mussette, most true in the Giga).  A most interesting divorce between form and content.  Very much unlike the Picasso paintings on Las Meninas of Velazquez, which in turn are quite well integrated, IMO.]

Op. 19 is very concentrated.  It still appears to me to be the best entry point.  More atmospheric than expressionistic.

I still need to understand better Opp. 23 and 33.  Op. 23 seems the densest of the group. [edit: after looking a little more at Op. 33, it appears Schumannesque to me.  Quite beautiful, once you let it be].