Schoenberg, Arnold (1874-1951)

[ahinton]

Jews in the The German Speaking Lands , particularly educated and Assimilated Jews, always viewed themselves as part of the German Cultural tradition. It was the likes of Wagner and the Nazis that rudely showed them that their assumption was not universally accepted.
As far as the Austrian Part goes, most Austrians Of that era realized that Austria-Hungary was an anachronism, and that long term incorporation into the Greater German Reichwas the key to preserving their German culture. The Hapsburgs of course could not accept this, and within the Reich there were reservations about incorporating Catholic Austria, with it’s large Galician Jewish minority that was universally unwanted.
At any rate, Schoenberg thinking of himself as part of a German Cultural lineage is not in the least bit strange

Well, it wasn't my idea but I still think that it has some credence.

[ahinton]

https://www.jstor.org/stable/832371

Many thanks for this, Jayne, which seems to endorse the likelihood that AS said this rather than wrote it; perhaps it might have had rather more traction had he said that there was still plenty of good music to be written in E flat minor...(!)...

[BBMmk2]

I only have that classic HvK set that he did for DG of Schoenberg's music, The Second Viennese School.

Any recommendations? I do rather like his VC and Variations for Orchesstra.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For an "instant" (and incredibly cheap) Arnie collection, Bbm, you can't go wrong with the Boulez SONY box:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pierre-Boulez-Conducts-Schoenberg-Arnold/dp/B00AK3X3U6

... to be complemented (chortle-chortle) by the La Salle Quartet's box of the 2VS S4tets:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-String-Quartets/dp/B001MUJSXW

... but my own favourite conductor of this Music is Robert Craft on NAXOS. His individual discs will end up costing you a lot more than both those excellent boxes combined (chortle-chortle), though.

For the Piano Music (including the Concerto) you shouldn't miss the Pollini:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Schoenberg-Piano-Concerto-Webern-Variations/dp/B00005RRXZ

[Richard Barrett]

It's nice to be reminded by S_A of all those piece I haven't heard in most cases for some considerable time. I do keep coming back to Moses though, I think it's a work in which so much comes together, for example the obvious parallels between its plot and Schoenberg's own situation as a sort of musical prophet in the cultural world of the early 20th century (with Schoenberg as Moses and Berg as Aron!), and by extension with every individual whose vision exceeds the understanding of their contemporaries, and whose lack of compromise prevents them from packaging it in an "accessible" way. The first scene is one of the most moving moments in music theatre, as far as I'm concerned, quite apart from its multi-textural complexity with the orchestra, vocal ensemble, speaking choir, and Moses suspended somewhere between ecstasy and weariness.

However, I'm at one with the postwar avantgarde bunch in being disappointed that Schoenberg's rethinking of pitch-relationships in music left everything else in more or less the state it was in when he found it. There's something about it that gives me a claustrophobic feeling, in distinction to the "emancipation" of all dimensions (not just of "dissonance") in for example Gruppen. Not to mention the way that Schoenberg's twelve-tone music so often falls back on neoclassical forms and symmetries. This again is a reason for my attachment to Moses, whose (incomplete!) form is so integrated with its urgent expressivity. I hear Erwartung in much the same sort of way.

And: I agree that the Boulez set is absolutely essential for anyone wanting to appreciate the breadth of Schoenberg's musical achievement (despite its fatal flaws... but one has to admire how high he was aiming). Many of the most memorable concert evenings in my first years as a student in London in the late 1970s involved Boulez conducting music by Schoenberg and his colleagues, like the also incomplete and almost impenetrable Jakobsleiter.

[Conchis]

I like Ode To Napoleon a lot and I enjoyed WNO's Moses Und Aron a couple of years back, despite a somewhat unhelpful production.

Verklaerte Nacht and Pelleas Et Melisande are Schoenberg for your Granny.....

[Richard Barrett]

Verklaerte Nacht and Pelleas Et Melisande are Schoenberg for your Granny.....

Actually they're Schoenberg for me too. I find it a shame in a way that the expressive and textural world of Verklärte Nacht seems to have been of less interest to Schoenberg after he moved on from it in terms of harmony. (My granny preferred Frank Sinatra anyway.)

[BBMmk2]

I think Conchis's post is a bit of an insult myself. I find that the compositional style of Schoenberg in that period very interesting indeed. For example, as mentioned above Pelleas & Mellissande and Verklarter Nacht.

[Richard Barrett]

I think Conchis's post is a bit of an insult myself. I find that the compositional style of Schoenberg in that period very interesting indeed.

Yes but Conchis's granny no doubt finds that this is the only period of Schoenberg's music which is interesting, and that everything he wrote afterwards went horribly wrong. She wouldn't be alone in this of course. While I find Verklärte Nacht beautiful in every way, I think Pelleas und Melisande is quite a problematic piece, particularly as regards its often murky and overloaded orchestration, something it shares with Zemlinsky's Die Seejungfrau which was premiered at the same concert in 1905 and which I had the opportunity to hear the other day. Both composers subsequently found ways to make their orchestral textures clearer; if not to the point of transparency then at least to the point that everything that's played can be heard and things aren't getting in each other's way.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes but Conchis's granny no doubt finds that this is the only period of Schoenberg's music which is interesting, and that everything he wrote afterwards went horribly wrong. She wouldn't be alone in this of course. While I find Verklärte Nacht beautiful in every way, I think Pelleas und Melisande is quite a problematic piece, particularly as regards its often murky and overloaded orchestration, something it shares with Zemlinsky's Die Seejungfrau which was premiered at the same concert in 1905 and which I had the opportunity to hear the other day. Both composers subsequently found ways to make their orchestral textures clearer; if not to the point of transparency then at least to the point that everything that's played can be heard and things aren't getting in each other's way.

Yes I've felt this more and more about Pelleas, having found it a useful way into understanding more than I before discovering it about how Schoenberg was expanding the harmonic and expressive language in some of the directions that would lead to the greater clarity and transparency of his post-1907 music.

[ahinton]

Yes I've felt this more and more about Pelleas, having found it a useful way into understanding more than I before discovering it about how Schoenberg was expanding the harmonic and expressive language in some of the directions that would lead to the greater clarity and transparency of his post-1907 music.

To me, Pelleas is but a single example of an orchestral work whose impression of "murky and overloaded orchestration" might be down to the conductor rather than the composer who, in this instance, conducted it himself on several occasions; just saying...

[Barbirollians]

To me, Pelleas is but a single example of an orchestral work whose impression of "murky and overloaded orchestration" might be down to the conductor rather than the composer who, in this instance, conducted it himself on several occasions; just saying...

Wondering if Gurrelieder would also appeal to the hypothetical granny

[Serial_Apologist]

To me, Pelleas is but a single example of an orchestral work whose impression of "murky and overloaded orchestration" might be down to the conductor rather than the composer who, in this instance, conducted it himself on several occasions; just saying...

If it's the Craft version with the CBCSO on Columbia to which you're referring, yes that was my intro to the work; but I have yet to here the version to dispel my criticisms of the orchestration. I often wonder if it was Strauss's Ein Heldenleben Schoenberg was referring to when he ironically mentioned having learned things from Strauss he'd subsequently forgotten; orchestration might have been one of those things, if not the only one. My take on the issue is that after Pelleas Schoenberg started absorbing much more from Mahler in this matter of orchestral pallette, as well as in other areas of expression and idiom - as I think did Zemlinsky, btw.

[Serial_Apologist]

Wondering if Gurrelieder would also appeal to the hypothetical granny

As with advancing age I get to sleep more and more during the daytime, I would tend to support this hypothesis, regardless of gender!

[Conchis]

I think Conchis's post is a bit of an insult myself. I find that the compositional style of Schoenberg in that period very interesting indeed. For example, as mentioned above Pelleas & Mellissande and Verklarter Nacht.

Not meant to be insulting. They are, because of their tonality, supposed to be his most approachable works. A concert of the two pieces at the RFH some years ago was described, in the pre-concert talk as 'a warm bath.'