Schoenberg: Gurrelieder at 100

[Serial_Apologist]

Thank you very much, JLW and teamsaint, for your thoughts and encouragement. I do agree with what you both say about the need to respond instinctively to the music, and for a musical illiterate like me that’s really the only course open. Actually, I do like some later Schoenberg – the Five orchestral pieces, op. 16, the Variations, op. 31 and the Chamber symphony no. 2, also some Webern, particularly the Six orchestral pieces, op. 6, the Six bagatelles, op. 9 for string quartet, and the Five orchestral pieces, op. 10 – so all is not lost. (I have the fine Rattle/CBSO version of Schoenberg op. 16, Webern op. 6 and Berg’s Lulu suite.) And I like pretty well all of Alban Berg, though I probably listen to him ‘as’ a late Romantic, despite the serialist trappings (guilty pleasure again?). I tend to think of his op. 6 as Mahler’s 11th.

@JLW: I like your story very much. There’s no substitute for discovering things for yourself, especially when people tell you something is ‘difficult’ or ‘impossible’!

@teamsaint: ‘what really helps is devoting time and concentration’. Very true – and thanks for the interesting link to the programme note on the Five orchestral pieces op. 16. Interesting that Schoenberg said ‘that is what they are all about – completely unsymphonic, devoid of architecture or construction, just an uninterrupted changing of colors, rhythms, and moods.’ And astonishing to think that they were first performed here by Henry Wood at a Prom!

These ramblings are possibly OT here, but, suitably encouraged, I shall have another go at the String Trio.

If you find the above-quoted Schoenberg works less difficult than the ones you previously mentioned, iimss your difficulties won't last much longer. It took me a while, in my 20s, to "get" the atonal and 12-tone Schoenberg; and some of Webern I still struggle with; less so Berg, for the same reasons you give. In the end it came down to repeatedly listening to the works from around the time of the tonal/atonal transition - the 2nd string quartet, "Das Buch der Hangenden Garten", the Op 11 piano pieces - until the new language suddenly "clicked".

The Suite Op 25 grows and grows on me - I think of it as AS's "Goldberg". May I strongly suggest the Violin Concerto - a work that never seems to exhaust what it has to offer the attentive listener?

[ahinton]

Well JFLL, I had the opposite problem

No, Jayne, you didn't; what you had was not a PROBLEM! Please!...

The rest of what you write is as welcome and interesting as usual, for which once again many thanks.

[ahinton]

The first of this year's major centenary celebrations. This Saturday, February 23 it is exactly 100 years since Schoenberg's mighty Gurrelieder had its first performance in Vienna. In so many ways it was the end of an era with the last of the great 19th century compositions being blown away, first by the premiere of the Rite of Spring ushering in the 20th century a mere 4 months later and then by the catastrophe of the Great War.

I don;t think that some of that is quite right, actually. Yes, it is indeed a mighty celebration of a mighty work, but let's not forget that the performance was delayed by around a decade from the completion of its composition (partly but by no means entirely because the orchestration was not completed immediately). Did Le Sacre - a phenomenal and seminal work, of course - really "usher in the 20th century" when some eight years earlier Strauss had already caused a considerably greater scandal than that which befell Stravinsky's work by reason of its various bans following the première of Salome? In any case, wouldn't an "ushering in the 20th century" seem abit like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted if it did not occur until well into its second decade?

[Serial_Apologist]

I don;t think that some of that is quite right, actually. Yes, it is indeed a mighty celebration of a mighty work, but let's not forget that the performance was delayed by around a decade from the completion of its composition (partly but by no means entirely because the orchestration was not completed immediately). Did Le Sacre - a phenomenal and seminal work, of course - really "usher in the 20th century" when some eight years earlier Strauss had already caused a considerably greater scandal than that which befell Stravinsky's work by reason of its various bans following the première of Salome? In any case, wouldn't an "ushering in the 20th century" seem abit like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted if it did not occur until well into its second decade?

Well, Salome definitely represented a head start.

[Nick Armstrong]

Well, Salome definitely represented a head start.

Very cutting, S_A

[ahinton]

It must have been peculiar for Arnie; this work from a bygone aesthetic and as misunderstood (for completely different reasons) by the cheering audience as his most recent work. He'd finished everything (save for the orchestral songs) in his "free" "Atonal" "style", and the last Music of his own that he heard before the War was this masterpiece. Astonishing.

It must indeed have felt like a strange experience but I think that his response had far more to do with turning his back on the clamouring Viennese audience following his having been consistently vilified by these self-same people for so long than it did about turning his back on the kind of music that he was writing in his late 20s and early 30s; one has only to remember that, although Gurrelieder's première was conducted by another composer, Schönberg continued to think sufficiently well of the work for years afterwards to be bothered to conduct it himself long after the première, its UK first performance in the later 1920s drawing forth praise from one critic who later told me that, had the composer taken conducting as his principal career activity, he'd have been at least as well thought of as Toscanini (which seems to run counter to some people's thoughts about Schönberg's conducting).

[amateur51]

If you find the above-quoted Schoenberg works less difficult than the ones you previously mentioned, iimss your difficulties won't last much longer. It took me a while, in my 20s, to "get" the atonal and 12-tone Schoenberg; and some of Webern I still struggle with; less so Berg, for the same reasons you give. In the end it came down to repeatedly listening to the works from around the time of the tonal/atonal transition - the 2nd string quartet, "Das Buch der Hangenden Garten", the Op 11 piano pieces - until the new language suddenly "clicked".

The Suite Op 25 grows and grows on me - I think of it as AS's "Goldberg". May I strongly suggest the Violin Concerto - a work that never seems to exhaust what it has to offer the attentive listener?

Me too S_A - three outstanding recordings, by Pollini, Paul Jacobs and Shai Wosner

[JFLL]

If you find the above-quoted Schoenberg works less difficult than the ones you previously mentioned, iimss your difficulties won't last much longer. It took me a while, in my 20s, to "get" the atonal and 12-tone Schoenberg; and some of Webern I still struggle with; less so Berg, for the same reasons you give. In the end it came down to repeatedly listening to the works from around the time of the tonal/atonal transition - the 2nd string quartet, "Das Buch der Hangenden Garten", the Op 11 piano pieces - until the new language suddenly "clicked".

The Suite Op 25 grows and grows on me - I think of it as AS's "Goldberg". May I strongly suggest the Violin Concerto - a work that never seems to exhaust what it has to offer the attentive listener?

Thanks, SA, I'll have a listen again to the Violin Concerto, which I do have a CD of (Amoyal and Boulez), and also the Suite op. 25.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks, SA, I'll have a listen again to the Violin Concerto, which I do have a CD of (Amoyal and Boulez), and also the Suite op. 25.

Not, IMO, the best introduction to the work: Amoyal's tone is rather "scratchy" and isn't helped by the very bright recording. If you have access to Spotify, I'd urge you towards the Hilary Hahn DG recording with the Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen - the Bach/Beethoven/Brahms inheritance radiates the whole performances. (Craft on NAXOS brings out the detail and dancing precision of the orchestral accompaniment better than any, but his soloist struggles to keep up: not necessarily a bad thing in this work. But Hahn ... !)

[amateur51]

Not, IMO, the best introduction to the work: Amoyal's tone is rather "scratchy" and isn't helped by the very bright recording. If you have access to Spotify, I'd urge you towards the Hilary Hahn DG recording with the Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen - the Bach/Beethoven/Brahms inheritance radiates the whole performances. (Craft on NAXOS brings out the detail and dancing precision of the orchestral accompaniment better than any, but his soloist struggles to keep up: not necessarily a bad thing in this work. But Hahn ... !)

Top notch suggestion ferney

[JFLL]

Not, IMO, the best introduction to the work: Amoyal's tone is rather "scratchy" and isn't helped by the very bright recording. If you have access to Spotify, I'd urge you towards the Hilary Hahn DG recording with the Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen - the Bach/Beethoven/Brahms inheritance radiates the whole performances. (Craft on NAXOS brings out the detail and dancing precision of the orchestral accompaniment better than any, but his soloist struggles to keep up: not necessarily a bad thing in this work. But Hahn ... !)

OK, thanks for the tip. I'm ashamed to admit that the Amoyal has been unplayed on my shelves for a long time, from before H. Hahn came on the scene. It's a two-CD set with the Variations, Pelleas & Melisande and the Piano Concerto. I think I bought it mainly for the Variations, and because it was cheap.

[Bryn]

OK, thanks for the tip. I'm ashamed to admit that the Amoyal has been unplayed on my shelves for a long time, from before H. Hahn came on the scene. It's a two-CD set with the Variations, Pelleas & Melisande and the Piano Concerto. I think I bought it mainly for the Variations, and because it was cheap.

Likewise, though my first recording of the Schoenberg Violin Concerto was that played by Hyman Bress (Supraphon). I don't think it ever made it to CD. The Hahn is on a whole different level of musicality to either the Bress or the Amoyal.

[ahinton]

Likewise, though my first recording of the Schoenberg Violin Concerto was that played by Hyman Bress (Supraphon). I don't think it ever made it to CD. The Hahn is on a whole different level of musicality to either the Bress or the Amoyal.

It is indeed. My immense admiration of and love for Schönberg never extended to his Violin Concerto until I heard it played by Hahn; it resolutely refused to make any sense to me for many years until Hahn's utter revelation about which I had the gall to write to the distinguished Schönberg scholar and biographer Malcolm MacDonald to say that she makes it sound like a piece of music - and a really fine one. As far as I know, Mr MacDonald and I are still on cordial speaking terms...

[hedgehog]

Has anyone any thoughts about how the recording with Gielen of Gurre-lieder compares to that of Chailly and/or Salonen?

I can imagine that Jeruasalem in fine fettle might swing it for Chailly, but I really like Gielen's interpretation of Mahler (and beyond) so am wondering about it.

It's a SACD recording too which might be a bonus.