Dominique Pagani places Schoenberg in Wagner's wake: the Second Viennese School emerges from the harmonies of Tristan and inherits the loosening of Wagnerian writing, while also breaking with it1. He considers the young Schoenberg of the Gurre-Lieder and Verklärte Nacht "paroxysmally romantic." He then describes the abandonment of tonality, followed by the twelve-tone row, which forbids any privileged note. He sees Pierrot lunaire as strictly unheard-of music, "like a dance in weightlessness"2. He compares him to Bach for the rigour and complexity of his writing3 and contrasts him with Stravinsky. He reads Moses und Aron closely: Moses holds the truth of an unrepresentable God but cannot speak to men, whereas Aaron can4. He regards Die Jakobsleiter as one of the great vocal masterpieces of the twentieth century. He also mentions the exile of this Jewish composer, expelled from a Germanness he lived from within. He says he likes this music, but notes that it has lost contact with the people and drifted away from the general public5.
Summary produced automatically from 56 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.
Who is this?
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and American modernist composer, music theorist, and teacher associated with developing variation, the emancipation of the dissonance, and twelve-tone composition. He taught composition in Vienna and at the Prussian Academy of Arts (1925–1933), resigning in anticipation of Nazi Germany's civil–service restrictions. He defiantly reaffirmed his Judaism before immigrating to the United States, where he taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (1936–1944). […]
16:57The only one with a writing of complexity comparable to Bach's.
24:47The second Viennese school effects a total break, opposed to Stravinsky's.
47:41Pierrot LunaireStarts from the most recent thing, the diluted tonality of Tristan, and suppresses it: strictly unheard-of music, like a dance in weightlessness.
1:27:58Gurre-LiederThe young Schoenberg, of the Gurre-Lieder and Verklärte Nacht, is paroxysmally romantic but ignores national schools.
Series · 3 Dec 2020Musicosophy 3. What is called modern music?
