Musical Thoughts

Arnold Schoenberg

 "I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don't know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words." - Arnold Schoenberg 

"All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it." - Jean Cocteau 

Zemlinsky

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951), a native of Vienna, was forced to work at a bank from 1891 to 1895 after his father passed away, but he still found time to further his musical training through amateur chamber music performances and composition sessions with Alexander von Zemlinsky. The early String quartet in D from 1897, which was successfully performed, displays the influence of Dvorak and Brahms.

However, Schoenberg's subsequent piece sparked the controversy that would follow him throughout his career. The Vienna Music Association rejected the string sextet "Verklarte Nacht" (Transfigured night) due to certain uncomfortably discordant chords, despite its Romantic nature and emotional richness of harmony and color recalling Wagner and Richard Strauss. In 1901, Schoenberg wed Zemlinsky's sister and settled in Berlin. There, he orchestrated operettas in a cabaret theater to help pay for the composition of the symphonic poem "Pelleas und Melisande." On Richard Strauss's advice, he was hired to teach at Berlin's Stern Academy, saving him from this drudgery. This marked the start of Schoenberg's lengthy career as a renowned educator. 

He came back to Vienna in 1903 to give private lessons. The following year, he began teaching Alban Berg and Anton Webern, who would go on to form the "Second Viennese School" alongside Schoenberg.  This atmosphere of creative stimulation produced bold and rapid developments in Schoenberg's style, with the First chamber symphony pushing and the Second string quartet breaking the limits of tonality ( the traditional method of composing a piece of music in one particular key). The soprano that Schoenberg added to the quartet sings words that appear symbolic and significant: "I breathe the air from another planet."

"Pierrot lunaire", a setting of 21 poems for speaker and chamber ensemble, was premiered in Berlin in 1912 under the direction of Schoenberg, who had returned to the city. The surrealist writings of Albert Giraud, which portray the realms of latent brutality, lunacy, and desperate nostalgia that were implied in the musical worlds Schoenberg was investigating, served as the inspiration for this important work of the 20th century. Sprechgesang, a vocal production style that straddles singing and speaking, is highlighted throughout the piece. The methodology of serialism, an atonal approach in which the 12 notes of the chromatic scale are treated with equal emphasis, is the product of Schoenberg's creative experimentation. The Piano Suite and the Suite for Eight Instruments are two early examples of his compositions in this genre that date back to 1923.

The Birth of Modern Culture

Wittgenstein's Vienna 

by Allan Janik & Stephen Toulmin

"those who are ignorant of the context of ideas are . . . destined to misunderstand them. " - p 27.

Set in the hot bed of ideas at the end of the nineteenth century this book covers the man at the center of philosophic discussions, Ludwig Wittgenstein. But more than that this is a work of cultural history defining the meaning of the changes abounding from the preoccupations of a society undergoing profound changes. 

The arc of the books narrative takes the reader from Habsburg Vienna during the last days of empire through changes to language, culture, and philosophy. Leavened by references to art, music, and literature the book attempts to make a case for the intelligibility of these changes. 

One reads about the impact of the thought of Sigmund Freud; the music of Arnold Schonberg; and the art of Klimt, Kokoschka, and others. If you are interested in the roots of Robert Musil's early work or the impact of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer you should read this book. It is a seminal work in the history of ideas.

An Artistic Revolutionary

Arnold Schoenberg's Journey 

by Allen Shawn

"An artistic impression is substantially the resultant of two components. One what the work of art gives the onlooker - the other, what he is capable of giving to the work of art."  - Arnold Schoenberg



Rereading this book takes me back to the summer of 2007 when I first read it. As then I enjoyed every moment of its readable and even witty text. The author discusses Schoenberg's music and life together in a way that makes them both vivid and informative. He analyzes the music in detail, leaving the reader with an appreciation for the revolutionary impact of Schoenberg's passionate musical genius.

Along the way the cultural environment of the composer is explored and you learn about composers who influenced and helped Schoenberg. It was a revelation to this reader that Schoenberg was a painter as well. In this endeavor he benefited from his friendship with Gustav Klimt who also was interested in music. The book is organized into thirty essays in roughly chronological order. They cover major periods of development in the musical life of the composer, culminating with retrospective discussions of his impact on musical life and other composers. The discussion of Stravinsky was illuminating in its showing his development in comparison with Schoenberg. A bibliographic essay augments the value of this study for those who want to further explore Schoenberg's music and life.

With its focus on the listener's point of view it is one of the best books on music and artistic culture that I have encountered. The survey of both music composition and the life of musical genius is deep enough to inform without too much esoteric detail. I would recommend it to all who want to better understand both Schoenberg and the development of early twentieth century culture.

Sicilienne

Pelleas and Melisande

"The score of Pelleas and Melisande by Debussy, heralds that which will lift man from the earthly to the celestial, from the mortal to the immortal. Once again the ways of the artist and healer are merging."   -   Corinne Heline



Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80 is a suite derived from incidental music by Gabriel Fauré for Maurice Maeterlinck's play of the same name. 
Fauré wrote this music for the London production of the original drama by Maurice Maeterlinck in 1898. To meet the tight deadline of the production, Fauré reused some earlier music from incomplete works and enlisted the help of his pupil Charles Koechlin, who orchestrated the music. Fauré later constructed a four-movement suite from the original theatre music, orchestrating the concert version himself.  My favorite movement is the "Sicilienne" with its haunting melody that evokes the romantic mystery of music.  The movement although in the traditionally sad key of G minor, represents the one moment of happiness shared by Pelléas and Mélisande. 

The play that inspired Faure, Pelléas and Mélisande by Maurice Maeterlinck, is about the forbidden, doomed love of the title characters. It was first performed in 1893.  The work was very popular. It was adapted as an opera by the composer Claude Debussy, and in addition to Faure it inspired both Arnold Schoenberg and Jean Sibelius.  Faure was the first of the four composers to write music inspired by Maeterlinck's drama. Debussy, Schoenberg and Sibelius followed in the first decade of the 20th century.

Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande contains five acts.  The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's play and it premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 30 April 1902 with Jean Périer as Pelléas and Mary Garden as Mélisande in a performance conducted by André Messager, who was instrumental in getting the Opéra-Comique to stage the work. The only opera Debussy ever completed, it is considered a landmark in 20th-century music.  About the same time Arnold Schoenberg was composing a symphonic poem, Pelleas and Melisande, Op. 5, that he completed in February 1903. It was premiered on 25 January 1905 at the Musikverein in Vienna under the composer's direction .  The subject was suggested to him by Richard Strauss. When he began composing the work in 1902, Schoenberg was unaware that Claude Debussy's opera, also based on Maeterlinck's play, was about to premiere in Paris.

Jean Sibelius also wrote incidental music in ten parts in 1905 , for Maurice Maeterlinck's 1893 drama Pelléas et Mélisande. Sibelius later on slightly rearranged the music into a nine movement suite, published as Op. 46, which became one of his most popular concert works.
While Maeterlink won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911 his symbolist plays are not as popular today.  His masterpiece Pelleas and Melisande lives on more through the music it inspired. 

Three "Classical" Composers

Clementi, Brahms, and Schoenberg

"I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don't know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words." - Arnold Schoenberg 
"All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it." - Jean Cocteau 

Today as I was listening to recordings of piano sonatas by Muzio Clementi and three piano trios by Johannes Brahms I was  reminded of the arc of classicism that stretched from Clementi through to Brahms and in turn was evidenced even in the twentieth century in the work of Arnold Schoenberg who, as a young student of composition, was influenced by the work of Brahms.  What follows are brief comments about each composer whose combined lifetimes spanned almost two hundred years.

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) was a child prodigy in an era that produced Mozart among others.  By the age of seven he was receiving organ lessons, and in open competition with adults was appointed the local church organist. At the age of 14 he went to study in England, after the Englishman Peter Beckford heard him play and was impressed enough to become his patron. Clementi made his first London appearance in 1775. In 1779 he published his six Piano sonatas Opus 2; these established the piano sonata as distinct from the harpsichord sonata and made Clementi's reputation.  His 1781 trip to Europe allowed him to engage in public competition with other pianists, including the famous "piano duel" with Mozart, in which each player improvised upon his own compositions. Neither was declared outright winner: Mozart considered Clementi "a Charlatan - like all Italians", while Clementi was more gracious about Mozart's gifts.
Clementi continued his travels in Europe and wrote more sonatas (his final tally was over 100).  He innovated by adding a third movement to the two that were typical of the Italian style, and in doing so Clementi brought the sonata to a new level of development. He settled in London in spring 1785 and remained there for the next 20 years, re-establishing old links with the Hanover Concert series and enjoying rising status as a soloist and conductor. He turned his attentions to composing symphonies, but his works suffered from comparison with those of the hugely revered Haydn, who visited London in 1791 and probably contributed to Clementi's lack of success. None of his own efforts was published during his lifetime.

The year after Clementi died Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was born.  He would go on to create Classical musical structures in a Romantic age. His writing is notable for its rich textures resulting from a dense fabric of interwoven melodies. It gives his music an emotional depth quite different from the passionate intensity of Tchaikovsky, for example; in the Clarinet quintet he beautifully conveys a sense of autumnal melancholy.  His influence was wide but one young student who admired him would found a "Second Viennese School" of classical music and revolutionize the way music would be composed in the twentieth century.

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was born in Vienna and, after his father's death, he was obliged to work in a bank from 1891 to 1895, but found time to pursue his musical development through amateur chamber music performance and composition lessons with Alexander von Zemlinsky. The early String quartet in D from 1897 shows the influence of Dvorak and Brahms, and was performed with success. But his next work initiated the controversy that was to dog Schoenberg throughout his career. The string sextet Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured night) — whose Romantic character and impassioned richness of harmony and colour are reminiscent of Wagner and Richard Strauss - was turned down by the Vienna Music Association because of some unacceptably dissonant chords.  Schoenberg married Zemlinsky's sister in 1901 and moved to Berlin, where he subsidized composition of the symphonic poem Pelleas und Melisande by orchestrating operettas in a cabaret theatre. He was rescued from such drudgery when on Richard Strauss's recommendation he was appointed to teach at Berlin's Stern Academy. This was the beginning of Schoenberg's long career as a great teacher. In 1903 he returned to Vienna to teach privately. Alb an Berg and Anton Webern — who would, along with Schoenberg, form the "Second Viennese School" — became his pupils the following year.  This atmosphere of creative stimulation produced bold and rapid developments in Schoenberg's style, with the First chamber symphony pushing and the Second string quartet breaking the limits of tonality ( the traditional method of composing a piece of music in one particular key). The soprano that Schoenberg added to the quartet sings words that appear symbolic and significant: "I breathe the air from another planet."

Schoenberg returned to Berlin in 1912 to conduct the premiere of Pierrot lunaire, a setting of 21 poems for speaker and chamber ensemble. In this piece, a key work of the twentieth century, the composer drew on the surrealist poems of Albert Giraud, which express the worlds of subconscious violence, madness, and desperate nostalgia that were implicit in the musical worlds Schoenberg was exploring. The work makes a feature of Sprechgesang, a type of vocal production between singing and speech. Schoenberg's compositional experiments culminated in the technique of serialism, an atonal method where the 12 notes of the chromatic scale are used with equal emphasis. His first works in this style date from 1923, two early examples being the Piano suite and the Suite for eight instruments.
Schoenberg's arrangement of the vigorous Piano Quartet, Op. 25 by Brahms (1937) has often been criticized for unidiomatic touches, such as the chromatic writing for brass (a style of orchestral thinking which never became a part of Brahms' musical vocabulary although it became technically possible even before he wrote his First Symphony). Purists object to the uncharacteristic use of coloristic percussion, such as xylophones, in the final movement.  These criticisms lose sight of the main issue, which is that the orchestrated work brilliantly presents in new garb a major chamber work which too few people would otherwise get to know. The overall orchestral sound, moreover, has the burnished richness and thickness we would expect from Brahms -- never mind that Schoenberg achieves it by use of heavier reliance on brass doublings than Brahms would have used.  The composition is a vigorous and attractive version that does carry Brahms' message very well into a new medium.  


Johannes Brahms: A Biography by Jan Swafford. Alfred A. Knopf, 1997
Clementi, His Life And Music by Leon Plantinga. Da Capo Press, 1977
Arnold Schoenberg's Journey by Allen Shawn. Farrar, Strus, & Giroux, 2002.

From Beethoven to Schoenberg

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Concert

"I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don't know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words." - Arnold Schoenberg

Saturday evening I attended a concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  The concert was led by Michael Tilson Thomas as guest conductor and featured Jeremy Denk performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto in c, Op. 37.  The concert also included "Blumine" an andante for orchestra that was briefly included as the second movement of Mahler's First Symphony.  The piece was a perfect light romantic opening for the evening, providing ten minutes of "innocent, uncomplicated lyricism" according to the concert notes by Phillip Huscher.
The evening continued with a concerto from the first decade of the nineteenth century, Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, performed by Jeremy Denk in his Orchestra Hall debut.  This is considered Mozartean in spirit and sounds somewhat classical with occasional rebellious touches by Beethoven, who would go on to break most of the rules of formal classical music in his late works.  The concerto was ably performed by both soloist and orchestra.  It was a delight to hear one of my favorites in Orchestra Hall.
After the interval the final work of the evening, unusual if only that Arnold Schoenberg orchestrated the Piano Quartet No. 1 in g, Op. 25 of Johannes Brahms, a chamber composition that was more than seventy years old.  The orchestration goes to extremes that hint at a Mahlerian tinge to Brahms that could only be added by his musical descendant, Arnold Schoenberg.  At least Schoenberg considered himself the heir to Brahms legacy and this work from the 1930s is anachronistic enough to demonstrate the point.  Schoenberg composed this work as a "gesture of honor, homage and love" according to the program notes.  It is a perfect piece to highlight the talents of the CSO with a lush orchestration utilizing all of the strengths they bring to the concert hall, and they ripped and roared through the melodies and the harmonies that Schoenberg drew out of the original quartet.  

Silence and Slow Time:

Studies in Musical Narrative

by Martin Boykan

For much of the twentieth century, the musical world seemed divided between Schoenberg and Stravinsky. It was a neat pairing: the German versus the Franco-Russian, the presumed Dionysian versus the presumed Apollonian, and it continued a tradition that pitted Gluck against Piccini, Wagner against Brahms (or Verdi). At one point Stravinsky himself took note of the pairing and compared it to the old argument between Tolstoyans and Dostoyevskians, wickedly adding that he was a Dostoyevskian (though it must be said that at that time he had already become a serial composer). (p 129)

Beginning with an essay on the lied this volume studies the nature of musical narrative. Musical analysis and time in music are also themes in the essays in this illuminating volume that suggests ways of thinking about music that is true to the nature of performance. While the book explores musical examples from a wide range of Western music the chapters devoted to twentieth century music proved most helpful and interesting. The exploration of the Schoenberg Trio and discussions of Stravinsky, Webern and twelve-tone theory are incisive. Both the importance of narrative in music and the interrelations of time and music and its impact on those passionate about serious music are given a thoughtful presentation in this valuable volume.

Silence and Slow Time by Martin Boykan. Scarecrow Press, Oxford, UK. 2004.



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Koeppen Redux

Death in Rome
by Wolfgang Koeppen

I am once again reading Wolfgang Koeppen's masterpiece, Death in Rome. I am impressed even more, as I reread it, with the way Koeppen uses every line and page to build the tension that explodes at the end of the novel. Death permeates this book in a way that few other novels rival. I think of Death in Venice, another twentieth century masterpiece, but Mann's enterprise is more Nietzschean than Koeppen's. While Tolstoy comes to mind also, in The Death of Ivan Ilych he seems a nineteenth-century precursor to the existentialism that would blossom a few decades later.

No, Koeppen is more at home in the post-war dilemma of Europe and Germany in particular. And the world he depicts is brutal and dark. It is as if, at least for some of the characters, the war has not ended. This is particularly true of Gottlieb "Gotz" Judejahn who is at the center of the novel. Having disappeared he is tried in abstentia at Nuremberg and is effectively a ghost (as is his wife Eva) who haunts Germany, not directly but from a distance - in Rome. The other theme that haunts this reader is the 'new' music of Siegfried Pfaffrath - best described as a latecomer to the atonal style whose priest was Arnold Schoenberg. Late in the novel Siegfried meditates on the nature of music:

Music was an enigmatic construction to which there was no longer any access, or just a narrow gate that admits only a few people. Whoever sat inside couldn't communicate to those on the outside, and yet they felt that this enigmatic, invisible construction, built by magic formulae, was important to them.

The structure of this novel and the thoughts of the characters, their communication or lack thereof, seems to mirror this image of music and its relation to those who hear and do not understand. Perhaps the only answer is to act out your lack of understanding - to end the dark, unbearable world with death.


Death in Rome by Wolfgang Koeppen. W.W. Norton & Company, New York. 2001 (1954).