
Arnold Schoenberg: Beauty and horror - hoffmannesque
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/arnold-schoenberg-beauty-horror-grace-notes/
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pianoraptor
I spent several years studying and playing the piano works of Schoenberg. I
loved it, so much so that I got the barcode from a CD of his piano concerto
tattooed on myself (Emanual Ax was the pianist).

I remember thinking early on, how can anybody possibly memorize this? But the
more I listened to it, the more the "melodies" stuck, and this was a break
through for me. There is beauty in his music, and the more time spent with it,
the more it really shines. Still to this day I can hum along to Op. 25 (the
Suite for piano) -- something I never thought possible upon first listening.

I believe this is what distinguishes Schoenberg from later "atonal" composers.

As a pianist, my recommendations for approachable Schoenberg are the Piano
Concerto (the first movement is a waltz!), Op 19, and Op 25, the two latter
works being digestible in small pieces. Op. 33 is magical, and Op 11 is just
plain difficult.

------
antognini
Schoenberg's music is admittedly hard to get into. But it is well worth
spending some time with it because there is nothing quite like it.

For a bit of context, Schoenberg's atonal style was the culmination of
centuries of development of Western harmony. From the Baroque/Classical era
onward, the direction of Western music was towards greater chromaticism
extending harmonies further and further away from the simple major and minor
chords. Some composers came very close to complete atonality, particularly
Scriabin and Stravinsky, but Schoenberg was the first to dive into completely
atonal music.

While it may sound like someone randomly plonking on the keyboard, he had to
work quite hard to get the atonal sound he wanted since harmonies are so
ingrained in the way we hear music (especially for composers!). He developed
the "twelve-tone system" in which each note had to be played exactly once in a
theme so as to guarantee that no tonality was accidentally introduced by
stressing particular notes.

The result is a style that is very cerebral, but enjoyable once you let go of
the idea that music should contain traditional harmonies. Personally, I think
the music world got a little obsessed about the idea and continued to develop
it for maybe four decades longer than it should have. (His twelve tone
technique was later extended to "serialism" which generalized the process to
rhythms, dynamics, and instruments, and wasn't really abandoned by "serious"
composers until maybe the 1980s.)

Incidentally, Schoenberg may have scared himself to death. He was intensely
superstitious, particularly of the number 13. When he was 76 he was contacted
by an astrologer who told him that this was a dangerous year since the digits
of his age added up to 13. Later in the year, on Friday, July 13th, he spent
the day extraordinarily anxious and died shortly before midnight.

~~~
spacechild1
> Some composers came very close to complete atonality, particularly Scriabin
> and Stravinsky, but Schoenberg was the first to dive into completely atonal
> music.

Atonality can already be found in some late piano pieces of Liszt, e.g.
"Nuages gris", which is largely based on augmented triads
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYKl41e_hoU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYKl41e_hoU)).

Before that, the music of Wagner already shook the foundations of Western
tonality with its excessive chromatisism where any notion of a tonal center is
often lost. Schönberg just continued where others have left and went to the
extreme. It is also worth pointing out that he first composed in the so called
"free atonal" style and only then, after a long hiatus, he developed his
twelve-tone-system. By the way, there have been other people who developed
similar systems around the same time, notably Josef Matthias Hauer.

Fun fact: Stranvinsky turned towards twelve-tone-technique in the fifties.

~~~
qmmmur
You can find a tone row in Bach even. Whether or not he consciously aimed to
construct one is a debate that has no end, but it's interesting to challenge
the conception that old = more traditional/harmonic, when in fact music
history is much more wobbly than that.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The original chromatic series is in Lasso in the very late 16th century -
Carmina Chromatico from Prophetiae Sybillarum.

It's decorated with smooth triads and moments that sound like cadences, but
the progression as a whole is completely atonal.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al41WvDW-
OA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al41WvDW-OA)

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zengid
As a music student, I was always amazed at the irony of Schoenberg's thesis
about the "Liberation of the Dissonance", when 12 tone Equal Temperament is an
arbitrary intonation system that limits the actual potential for freedom when
creating harmony.

Ben Johnston, an American composer who studied with Harry Partch, used
extended Just Intonation, which is a system of unlimited harmonic
capabilities, for several serialist pieces [1][2]. I feel like he was able to
achieve striking dissonance unlike anything capable within the confines of
Equal Temperament.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ujeXlFP7p0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ujeXlFP7p0)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5HIPRuYdjA&list=OLAK5uy_mn3...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5HIPRuYdjA&list=OLAK5uy_mn3eBJYDso4Hth49IZySEWnEv2itGSYmE&index=7&t=0s)

~~~
odyssey7
Schoenberg gave the scale some decent discussion in his Harmonielehre in the
section on the major mode and diatonic chords. Overall, he was liberal and
encouraging about the directions that music could go, and he led by example in
producing his own compositions in his own way.

"And above all; this scale is not the last word, the ultimate goal of music,
but rather a provisional stopping place. ... Whether there will then be
quarter tones, eighth, third, or (as Busoni thinks) sixth tones, or whether we
will move directly to a 53-tone scale that Dr. Robert Neumann has calculated,
we cannot foretell. Perhaps this new division of the octave will even be
untempered and will not have much left over in common with our scale. ...
Probably, whenever the ear and imagination have matured enough for such music,
the scale and the instruments will all at once be available."

I'd say that last prediction was very prescient!

~~~
zengid
Great quote, thanks for sharing! Maybe I have misplaced my frustration on
Schoenberg, when he doesn't deserve it. The hordes of academic composers who
came after him and pumped out soulless 12-tone serialist pieces probably do
deserve the scorn, though. :)

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thanatropism
I would recommend to anyone who has some basic musical education (like can
play tunes or improvise a little on the piano/guitar) to try playing with tone
rows. It's a brain expander on its own -- the discipline of tone rows makes
evident the obscure role that tonality or even common chord progressions play
even in something by e.g. Eric Dolphy or Sonic Youth (different brands of
"experimental music")

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cannam
I'd like to speak in support of Schoenberg's (only) piano concerto as a
genuinely enjoyable piece of music to listen to.

Although strictly atonal using a tone-row method, it uses quite traditional
phrasings that are fairly easy to latch on to mentally, resulting in something
quite sympathetic, _almost_ hummable, only one step ahead of your mind, and
it's a light step. Nothing portentous or self-regarding about it.

There's an excellent recording of it played by Mitsuko Uchida, with Boulez
conducting the Cleveland orchestra.

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jstewartmobile
This music will destroy you. He barely survived it himself.

Very skilled though... Hit it a time or two on YouTube, then move on. Don't
linger!

~~~
andrewflnr
That sounds like a challenge. Are there any particular pieces you would
recommend I don't spend too long on?

~~~
jstewartmobile
The early works alone were enough to gain him a loyal and devoted gang of
students.

Start at opus 1, no encore. Terrible philosophy--like cyanide in a candy
shell.

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p1esk
For those who don't know who Schoenberg is: he's a composer of "abstract"
music. Think of a musical equivalent to the abstract art.
[https://youtu.be/2V-qmC6xUW8](https://youtu.be/2V-qmC6xUW8)

~~~
spacechild1
It is worth noting that Wassily Kandinsky reached out to Schönberg because he
saw parallels in Schönberg's music to his own abstract art. But I think this
parallel only exists in terms of breaking with the conventions and traditions
of the medium, i.e. mimesis in visual arts and tonality in (Western) music.
One could argue that music is always "abstract" in the sense that there is no
real model in nature which it can abstract from. After all, music is always
artificial.

~~~
p1esk
_music is always "abstract"_

To me, the difference between the atonal or serial music and traditional
classical music is in the amount of structure or order (that I can recognize
and process). Bach's or Chopin's music has a lot more of it than Schönberg's.
Also, classical music feels "natural", and is pleasant to listen to (for the
most part), while atonal music feels "artificial" or "weird", and for the most
part is not pleasant.

