histmus blog

26/12/2010

Toque de classe na música brasileira

. artigo publicado em 25.12.2010

. . autor : Gilberto Mendes

. . . fonte : jornal O Estado de São Paulo

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GILBERTO MENDES – O Estado de S.Paulo

Já escrevi sobre a surpresa que tive ao ouvir no cinema a bela inglesinha, que é Keira Knightly, numa cena no metrô de Londres, sob pesado bombardeio alemão durante a guerra, cantando deliciosamente o tema musical de Ódio no Coração, composto por Alfred Newman. Uma das músicas de minha vida! E agora minha querida amiga Tereza Vasquez me traz de presente um DVD com exatamente essa paradisíaca história dos mares do sul, comoção de minha juventude.

Oceânica, devoradora, uma história que me seduziu de maneira incomum: fiquei literalmente apaixonado pela Gene Tierney naquele papel de uma adorável nativa de olhos claros, cor do céu. Coisas que só pode entender gente ligada ao mar, a Conrad, Somerset Maughan, como somos eu, a amiga Tereza e um inesquecível companheiro de andanças musicais que já partiu para sua derradeira viagem. Sim, estou falando do compositor José Antonio Almeida Prado, nascido em Santos, “porto mítico, cidade de forte vanguardismo cosmopolita, que iria definir seu futuro universalismo estético”, conforme bem explica o escritor Flávio Amoreira. Onde ele viveu por um largo tempo, no feérico, trepidante Gonzaga, do saudoso Parque Balneário Hotel, e também do aristocrático solar da sua família, “paulistas de 400 anos”, renomados exportadores de café.

E um dia, quem me pergunta se poderia levar à minha casa certo jovem compositor que gostaria muito de conversar comigo? Sempre Tereza, no seu eterno elan de costurar ligações culturais. Já o conhecia de vista, e de nome, como um dos mais promissores alunos de Camargo Guarnieri. Nossa intimidade foi imediata, o que acontece com velhos marinheiros, apesar de eu ser vinte anos mais velho. Como ainda bem observa Flávio Amoreira, “unía-nos o sentimento atlântico do mundo, que nos torna brasileiros da costa, abertos a experimentos que nos chegam como exotismos flutuantes.”

Mar, belo mar selvagem de nossas praias solitárias, escreveu Vicente de Carvalho em uma de suas canções praieiras. Era o que nos irmanava, desde o começo de nossa amizade. Mas havia uma pedra em nosso caminho, diria outro poeta. Almeida Prado queria apresentar uma obra sua no Festival Música Nova. Expliquei pacientemente que teríamos o maior prazer, mas ele precisaria mudar a linha estética que vinha seguindo. A ansiedade sua era tal que ele mudou, rapidamente, compondo uma peça para violino e piano já dentro da linguagem musical que caracterizava nosso festival. Uma ruptura fatal que iria mudar fundamentalmente o que ele iria compor dali para a frente.

Muito gentilmente, Almeida Prado gostava de dizer que estudou comigo. Não é verdade, ele não precisava disso. Eu é que deveria ter estudado com ele, já que, na verdade, estudei pouco música, comecei tarde. Ainda componho de ouvido, muitas vezes. O que eu fiz foi colocar todos os meus livros, revistas e partituras à disposição dele. Além de conversarmos muito sobre música, o que muitas vezes funciona como verdadeiras aulas. E neste caso, eu também aprendi muito com ele.

Grande conversador, era delicioso seu humor, suas provocações, a finura com que compreendia a natureza musical de seus amigos. Tanto ele como eu tínhamos muita atração pelas citações, pelo kitsch musical cinematográfico. Uma vez ele me deu de presente um LP com as músicas do filme Rapsódia, grande sucesso de público, insistindo para que eu fizesse uma sonata para piano e violino citando, como temas, as obras tocadas no filme pelos dois intérpretes que disputavam o amor de Elizabeth Taylor, um deles Vitório Gassman. Achava que fazia o meu gênero. Fiquei devendo.

Como colegas, iríamos nos encontrar algumas vezes em festivais de música no exterior. Não me esqueço daquela viagem muito louca de Madri a Toledo, num velho carro encrencado do saudoso compositor português Jorge Peixinho. Depois eu ainda me encontraria com Almeida Prado em Paris, só para algumas caminhadas pelo Boulevard Saint-Germain des Près e un café crème avec croissant no Les deux magots. Num restaurante em Colônia, Alemanha, lembro-me bem da sua ansiedade, recém casado, para conseguir falar pelo telefone com sua admirável esposa, a mãe futura de suas igualmente admiráveis filhas.

Só nos resta agora olhar para cima, como experientes comandantes, e através das “Cartas Celestes” de nosso saudoso amigo, descobrir por sobre quais ondas sonoras ele vai navegando, vai temperando, à espera dos amigos …

GILBERTO MENDES É COMPOSITOR, CRIADOR DO FESTIVAL MÚSICA NOVA E AUTOR DE, ENTRE OUTRAS OBRAS, UMA ODISSEIA MUSICAL (EDUSP)

08/09/2010

Deutsche Welle : Berg : Concerto para violino

. publicado na Deutsche Welle

. . em : 01.05.2009

Alban Berg (1885-1935) compôs o Concerto para violino em seu último ano de vida e o dedicou “à memória de um anjo”, referindo-se a Manon Gropius, filha do arquiteto Walter Gropius e Alma Mahler. Trata-se possivelmente de sua obra mais popular, após a ópera Wozzeck.

Nele, o austríaco alia a avançada técnica dodecafônica, de seu mestre Arnold Schoenberg, à expressividade romântica e a um grande virtuosismo instrumental. Na tentativa de descrever a personalidade da homenageada, a obra inclui diversas citações, como ritmos de dança, uma melodia popular da Caríntia ou, ao final, o coral Es ist genug (Basta! Leva meu espírito, Senhor), de J.S. Bach.

Os dois movimentos são: Andante – Allegro; O violinista Christian Tetzlaff é o solista desta gravação ao vivo, ao lado da Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester.

01/09/2010

Artigo : Ensaio de orquestra

. artigo sobre o Ensaio da Orquestra Filarmônica de Berlim no festival de Salzburg, Áustria

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Ensaio de orquestra

Estado acompanhou com exclusividade trabalho do maestro Simon Rattle com a Filarmônica de Berlim

31 de agosto de 2010 | 0h 00

João Luiz Sampaio / SALZBURG – O Estado de S.Paulo

Caos sonoro sobre o palco da Grande Sala do Festival na manhã de domingo. Pouco antes das dez horas, instrumentos são afinados, músicos conversam, riem alto, arrastam cadeiras. Não dão muita atenção ao inspetor que, na frente da orquestra, chega para avisar que o ensaio não contará com a solista, a soprano Karitta Mattila e, que portanto, apenas as demais peças serão repassadas. Mais barulho, brincadeiras, partituras sendo procuradas nas mochilas. Até que do canto do palco surge a figura discreta, de roupa toda preta, em contraste com a longa cabeleira branca. Partituras na mão, sobe no pódio. Feito o silêncio, anuncia, suavemente: “Schoenberg, por favor.”

A orquestra é a Filarmônica de Berlim e a figura à sua frente, o maestro inglês Simon Rattle, diretor do grupo, para muitos o melhor conjunto sinfônico do mundo, rivalizado apenas pelos filarmônicos de Viena. Encarregados do concerto de encerramento desta edição do festival, tocariam naquela noite um programa ambicioso: além das Quatro Últimas Canções de Strauss, três pilares da música do século 20: as Seis Pecas para Orquestra, de Schoenberg; as Cinco Pecas para Orquestra, de Alban Berg; e as Três Pecas para Orquestra, de Anton Webern.

Se há uma genealogia da música contemporânea, no topo da árvore, diz Rattle, devem estar estas peças, escritas antes dos anos 20. Ainda hoje soam revolucionárias. E Rattle, em um misto de alemão e inglês, pede à orquestra que esteja atenta a detalhes. “Mais vibrato nas cordas, especialmente vocês, violoncelos”, diz. Puxa o spalla de lado e corrige a articulação das cordas. “Ta, ta, ta, ra, ta, ta, ta. Se não for assim, vocês não vão dar conta de acompanhar os metais, simples assim. Eles são o modelo aqui.” Rattle parece trabalhar em especial a arquitetura sonora. Corrige os sopros, batendo com a batuta na estante. “Um, dois, três. Precisão aqui é fundamental, marquem as notas. Evitem essa diminuição de andamentos, senão cada um vai chegar no final em momentos diferentes. A essência está aqui.” Volta às cordas. “O desafio, para vocês, é justamente o contrário. O esboço de melodia aqui não pode estar tão evidente. Apenas insinuem uma atmosfera etérea. Como ondas – o movimento é perceptível, mas o que leva a ele não precisa ser mostrado.”

Silêncio ensurdecedor. Mais interessante que ver Rattle construindo a interpretação, passagem a passagem (“ensaio bom e difícil”, comenta um músico depois), é perceber a reação da orquestra a suas orientações. Na obra de Alban Berg, encasqueta com o andamento em determinada passagem. “De novo”, pede simplesmente. “Vocês sabem.” E o som que surge em seguida articula toda a orquestra em um todo orgânico, brilhante. Sim, eles sabem. E como.

Chegamos então à peça de Anton Webern, seis rápidos movimentos que mobilizam um enorme efetivo orquestral. A percussão explode em um caos sonoro… uma, duas, três vezes. Rattle interrompe a orquestra calmamente. Há um caminho a ser construído aqui, diz. “Esqueçam a música por um instante. E se perguntem: para que serve a pausa que vem logo em seguida? Ele fala baixo, não desvia o rosto um só instante da centena de instrumentistas da filarmônica. “Atenção à dinâmica. O que exatamente estamos construindo aqui? Não é música, é silêncio. Mais um estouro da percussão. “Ainda não. A questão é a seguinte. Depois da música, vem o silêncio. Mas este silêncio precisa ser ensurdecedor. Barulhento.” Rattle termina o ensaio assim, regendo o silêncio. “Obrigado”, diz; cumprimenta o spalla. E deixa o palco rapidamente.

INTERVALO

Shakespeare musical

Depois de intensa negociação,

o diretor artístico da edição do ano que vem do Festival,

Markus Hinterhäuser, fechou com o maestro Riccardo Muti a ópera que ele vai apresentar em Salzburg no ano que vem: será o Macbeth de Verdi.

Hinterhäuser garante que vai aproveitar o gancho para apresentar pela cidade outras obras musicais inspiradas na peça de Shakespeare.

Disco novo

A violinista americana Hillary Hahn aproveitou a passagem por Salzburg, onde tocou com a Sinfônica Jovem Gustav Mahler o concerto de Brahms, para apresentar seu novo disco, com o concerto para violino e orquestra de Tchaikovski, que chega às lojas no próximo mês.

Realeza do canto

Foi um italiano que se destacou no concerto da Orquestra Real de Amsterdã: o veterano baixo Ferruccio Furlanetto, que interpretou as Canções de Dança e Morte do russo Mussorgsky.

fonte :

O Estado de São Paulo

31/08/2010

Elektra : Richard Strauss

fonte :

Blog de João Luiz Sampaio

Diário de Salzburg: Elektra de alta voltagem

por joaosampaio

31.agosto.2010 12:49:48

É o cenário que entrega desde a abertura das cortinas o caráter vertiginoso da história a ser narrada. As rampas e plataformas sinuosas, as paredes altas, a luz que parece vinda de lugar algum, os buracos no chão – tudo serve de metáfora à mente da personagem principal da “Elektra” do compositor Richard Strauss, com libreto de Hugo Von Hoffmanstahl a partir da narrativa mitológica. O tema é o desejo de vingança. Elektra nos revela sua obsessão com a morte do pai, Agamenon – e o ódio que direciona contra sua mãe, Clytaemnestra, e seu novo marido, Aegysth. Ela permanece todo o tempo sobre o palco. Mas há muitas tintas em sua obsessão – e a riqueza da música de Strauss vem em parte de sua capacidade de criar ambiente sonoros para cada uma delas. De certa forma, o libreto se articula em torno dos confrontos de Elektra com os demais personagens da história: desde as damas que comentam sua vida à margem da casa de sua família depois da morte do pai até o encontro com o irmão Orestes, em quem ela deposita a esperança de vingança contra a mãe. A música é angulosa, ganha cores fortes no diálogo com a irmã Chrysothemis, que tenta devolver a ela alguma esperança de vida; é sinuosa quando sua mãe a procura e narra os sonhos que a tem perturbado; lírica quando reconhece na figura do cavaleiro anônimo seu irmão; irônica quando envia Aegysth para dentro da casa onde a morte o espera; e resignada na mistura de desejos de morte e vida com que a personagem vê sua vingança realizada. Não foi por acaso que a Unitel Classics mandou correndo a Salzburg uma equipe com a missão de filmar a produção, encabeçada pelo diretor alemão Nikolas Lenhoff e o maestro italiano Danielle Gatti, para o lançamento em DVD, que deve acontecer até o primeiro semestre de 2011. Da mesma forma que o cenário único oferece múltiplas s possibilidades de interpretação, também a leitura musical de Gatti, à frente da Filarmônica de Viena, é eficiente na recriação dos momentos psicológicos da personagem. Gatti identifica no caos diversos sentidos e direções musicais. E faz isso com a ajuda de um time de estrelas como solistas. Iréne Theorin é uma Elektra repleta de matizes. Eva-Maria Westbroek dá a Chrysothemis uma voz própria, carregada de urgência. Waltraud Meier é um espetáculo à parte como Clytaemnestra, a voz de enorme alcance recriando as sombras que se abatem sobre a personagem; por sua vez, o Orestes de René Pape tem vigor sem perder um certo sentimento de ternura com relação à irmã. No todo, o mais fascinante é a maneira como as vozes se misturam ao tecido orquestral. Gatti não tem medo de jogar a orquestra para o alto e sabe retroceder nos momentos de primazia vocal. O resultado é um jogo vertiginoso de altos e baixos, crescendos e decrescendos.

30/08/2010

Schoenberg : biografia e links

. textos e links sobre Schoenberg

. . sobre Schoenberg, em português, um bom livro é:  Segunda Escola Vienense, citado neste blog na página bibliografia em português

. . . o artigo abaixo foi extraído da Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia em inglês

. . . . para quem não lê inglês, acesse a tradução pelo google

. . . . . ou leia o artigo da wikipedia em português, muito resumido

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Arnold Schoenberg (pronounced [ˈaːʁnɔlt ˈʃøːnbɛʁk]) (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. He used the spelling Schönberg until after his move to the United States in 1934 (Steinberg 1995, 463), “in deference to American practice” (Foss 1951, 401), though one writer claims he made the change a year earlier (Ross 2007, 45).

Schoenberg’s approach, both in terms of harmony and development, is among the major landmarks of 20th century musical thought; at least three generations of composers in the European and American traditions have consciously extended his thinking or, in some cases, passionately reacted against it. During the rise of the Nazi party in Austria, his music was labeled, alongside jazz, as degenerate art.

Schoenberg was widely known early in his career for his success in simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German Romantic traditions of both Brahms and Wagner. Later, his name would come to personify pioneering innovations in atonality that would become the most polemical feature of 20th-century art music. In the 1920s, Schoenberg developed the twelve-tone technique, a widely influential compositional method of manipulating an ordered series of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale. He also coined the term developing variation, and was the first modern composer to embrace ways of developing motifs without resorting to the dominance of a centralized melodic idea.

Schoenberg was also a painter, an important music theorist, and an influential teacher of composition; his students included Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Hanns Eisler, and later John Cage, Lou Harrison, Earl Kim, and many other prominent musicians. Many of Schoenberg’s practices, including the formalization of compositional method, and his habit of openly inviting audiences to think analytically, are echoed in avant-garde musical thought throughout the 20th century. His often polemical views of music history and aesthetics were crucial to many of the 20th century’s significant musicologists and critics, including Theodor Adorno, Charles Rosen, and Carl Dahlhaus.

Schoenberg’s archival legacy is collected at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna.

Biography

Arnold Schoenberg was born into a lower middle class Jewish family in the Leopoldstadt district (in earlier times a Jewish ghetto) of Vienna, at “Obere Donaustraße 5”. Although his mother Pauline, a native of Prague, was a piano teacher (his father Samuel, a native of Bratislava, was a shopkeeper), Arnold was largely self-taught, taking only counterpoint lessons with the composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, who was to become his first brother-in-law (Beaumont 2000, 87). In his twenties, he lived by orchestrating operettas while composing works such as the string sextet Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”) in 1899. He later made an orchestral version of this, which has come to be one of his most popular pieces. Both Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler recognized Schoenberg’s significance as a composer; Strauss when he encountered Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder, and Mahler after hearing several of Schoenberg’s early works. Strauss turned to a more conservative idiom in his own work after 1909 and at that point dismissed Schoenberg, but Mahler adopted Schoenberg as a protégé and continued to support him even after Schoenberg’s style reached a point which Mahler could no longer understand, and Mahler worried about who would look after him after his death. Schoenberg, who had initially despised and mocked Mahler’s music, was converted by the “thunderbolt” of Mahler’s Third Symphony, which he considered a work of genius, and afterwards “even spoke of Mahler as a saint” (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 103; Schoenberg 1975, 136). In 1898 he converted to Lutheranism. He would remain Lutheran until 1933.

The summer of 1908, during which his wife Mathilde left him for several months for a young Austrian painter, Richard Gerstl (who committed suicide after her return to her husband and children), marked a distinct change in Schoenberg’s work. It was during the absence of his wife that he composed “You lean against a silver-willow” (German: Du lehnest wider eine Silberweide), the thirteenth song in the cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten, Op. 15, based on the collection of the same name by the German mystical poet Stefan George; this was the first composition without any reference at all to a key (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 96). Also in this year he completed one of his most revolutionary compositions, the String Quartet No. 2, whose first two movements, though chromatic in color, use traditional key signatures, yet whose final two movements, also settings of George, weaken the links with traditional tonality daringly (though both movements end on tonic chords, and the work is not yet fully non-tonal) and, breaking with previous string-quartet practice, incorporate a soprano vocal line.

During the summer of 1910, Schoenberg wrote his Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony, Schoenberg 1922), which to this day remains one of the most influential music-theory books. From about 1911 Schönberg belonged to a circle of artists and intellectuals that included Lene Schneider-Kainer, Franz Werfel, Herwarth Walden and the latter’s wife, Else Lasker-Schüler.

Another of his most important works from this atonal or pantonal period is the highly influential Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21, of 1912, a novel cycle of expressionist songs set to a German translation of poems by the Belgian-French poet Albert Giraud. Utilizing the technique of Sprechstimme, or melodramatically spoken recitation, the work pairs a female vocalist with a small ensemble of 5 musicians. The ensemble, which is now commonly referred to as the Pierrot ensemble, consists of flute (doubling on piccolo), clarinet (doubling on bass clarinet), violin (doubling on viola), violoncello, speaker, and piano.

World War I brought a crisis in his development. Military service disrupted his life. He was never able to work uninterrupted or over a period of time, and as a result he left many unfinished works and undeveloped “beginnings”. So, at the age of 42 he found himself in the army. On one occasion, a superior officer demanded to know if he was “this notorious Schoenberg, then”; Schoenberg replied: “Beg to report, sir, yes. Nobody wanted to be, someone had to be, so I let it be me” (Schoenberg 1975, 104) (according to Norman Lebrecht (2001), this is a reference to Schoenberg’s apparent “destiny” as the “Emancipator of Dissonance”).

Later, Schoenberg was to develop the most influential version of the dodecaphonic (also known as twelve-tone) method of composition, which in French and English was given the alternative name serialism by René Leibowitz and Humphrey Searle in 1947. This technique was taken up by many of his students, who constituted the so-called Second Viennese School. They included Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Hanns Eisler, all of whom were profoundly influenced by Schoenberg. He published a number of books, ranging from his famous Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony) to Fundamentals of Musical Composition (Schoenberg 1967), many of which are still in print and still used by musicians and developing composers.

Schoenberg viewed his development as a natural progression and he did not deprecate his earlier works when he ventured into serialism. In 1923 he wrote to the Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart: “For the present, it matters more to me if people understand my older works … They are the natural forerunners of my later works, and only those who understand and comprehend these will be able to gain an understanding of the later works that goes beyond a fashionable bare minimum. I do not attach so much importance to being a musical bogey-man as to being a natural continuer of properly-understood good old tradition!” (Stein 1987, 100; quoted in Strimple 2005, 22)

Following the 1924 death of composer Ferruccio Busoni, who had served as Director of a Master Class in Composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, Schoenberg was appointed to this post the next year, but because of health reasons was unable to take up his post until 1926. Among his notable students during this period were the composers Roberto Gerhard, Nikos Skalkottas, and Josef Rufer. Schoenberg continued in his post until the election of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in 1933, when he was dismissed and forced into exile. He emigrated to Paris, where he is said to have acquired or formally reclaimed membership in the Jewish religion (Anon. 2002), and then to the United States. His first teaching position in the United States was at the Malkin Conservatory in Boston. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he taught at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles, both of which later named a music building on their respective campuses Schoenberg Hall (UCLA Department of Music [2008]; University of Southern California Thornton School of Music [2008]). He settled in Brentwood Park, where he befriended fellow composer (and tennis partner) George Gershwin and began teaching at University of California, Los Angeles, where he resided for the rest of his life. Composers Leonard Rosenman and George Tremblay studied with Schoenberg at this time.

During this final period he composed several notable works, including the difficult Violin Concerto, Op. 36 (1934/36), the Kol Nidre, Op. 39, for chorus and orchestra (1938), the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, Op. 41 (1942), the haunting Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942), and his memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46 (1947). He was unable to complete his opera Moses und Aron (1932/33), which was one of the first works of its genre to be written completely using dodecaphonic composition. In 1941, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. During this period, his notable students included John Cage, Lou Harrison, and H. Owen Reed.

Schoenberg experienced triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13), which possibly began in 1908 with the composition of the thirteenth song of the song cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten Op. 15 (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 96). Moses und Aron was originally spelled Moses und Aaron, but when he realised this contained 13 letters, he changed it. His superstitious nature may have triggered his death. According to friend Katia Mann, he feared he would die during a year that was a multiple of 13 (quoted in Lebrecht 1985, 294). He so dreaded his sixty-fifth birthday in 1939 that a friend asked the composer and astrologer Dane Rudhyar to prepare Schoenberg’s horoscope. Rudhyar did this and told Schoenberg that the year was dangerous, but not fatal. But in 1950, on his seventy-sixth birthday, an astrologer wrote Schoenberg a note warning him that the year was a critical one: 7 + 6 = 13 (Nuria Schoenberg-Nono, quoted in Lebrecht 1985, 295). This stunned and depressed the composer, for up to that point he had only been wary of multiples of 13 and never considered adding the digits of his age. On Friday, 13 July 1951, Schoenberg stayed in bed—sick, anxious and depressed. In a letter to Schoenberg’s sister Ottilie, dated 4 August 1951, his wife, Gertrud, reported “About a quarter to twelve I looked at the clock and said to myself: another quarter of an hour and then the worst is over. Then the doctor called me. Arnold’s throat rattled twice, his heart gave a powerful beat and that was the end” (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 521). Gertrud Schoenberg reported the next day in a telegram to her sister-in-law Ottilie that Arnold died at 11:45pm (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 520).

Music

Works and ideas

Schoenberg’s significant compositions in the repertory of modern art music extend over a period of more than 50 years. Traditionally they are divided into three periods though this division is arguably arbitrary as the music in each of these periods is considerably varied. The idea that his twelve-tone period “represents a stylistically unified body of works is simply not supported by the musical evidence” (Haimo 1990, 4), and important musical characteristics—especially those related to motivic development—transcend these boundaries completely. The first of these periods, 1894–1907, is identified in the legacy of the high-Romantic composers of the late nineteenth century, as well as with “expressionist” movements in poetry and art. The second, 1908–1922, is typified by the abandonment of key centers, a move often described (though not by Schoenberg) as “free atonality”. The third, from 1923 onward, commences with Schoenberg’s invention of dodecaphonic, or “twelve-tone” compositional method. Schoenberg’s most well-known students Hans Eisler, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern, followed Schoenberg faithfully through each of these intellectual and aesthetic transitions, though not without considerable experimentation and variety of approach.

Beginning with songs and string quartets written around the turn of the century, Schoenberg’s concerns as a composer positioned him uniquely among his peers, in that his procedures exhibited characteristics of both Brahms and Wagner, who for most contemporary listeners, were considered polar opposites, representing mutually exclusive directions in the legacy of German music. Schoenberg’s Six Songs, Op. 3 (1899–1903), for example, exhibit a conservative clarity of tonality organization typical of Brahms and Mahler, reflecting an interest in balanced phrases and an undisturbed hierarchy of key relationships. However, the songs also explore unusually bold incidental chromaticism, and seem to aspire to a Wagnerian “representational” approach to motivic identity. The synthesis of these approaches reaches an apex in his Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 (1899), a programmatic work for string sextet that develops several distinctive “leitmotif”-like themes, each one eclipsing and subordinating the last. The only motivic elements that persist throughout the work are those that are perpetually dissolved, varied, and re-combined, in a technique, identified primarily in Brahms’s music, that Schoenberg called “developing variation”. Schoenberg’s procedures in the work are organized in two ways simultaneously; at once suggesting a Wagnerian narrative of motivic ideas, as well as a Brahmsian approach to motivic development and tonal cohesion.

Schoenberg’s music from 1908 onward experiments in a variety of ways with the absence of traditional keys or tonal centers. His first explicitly atonal piece was the second string quartet, Op. 10, with soprano. The last movement of this piece has no key signature, marking Schoenberg’s formal divorce from diatonic harmonies. Other important works of the era include his song cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten, Op. 15 (1908–1909), his Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16 (1909), the disturbing Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 (1912), as well as his dramatic Erwartung, Op. 17 (1909). The urgency of musical constructions lacking in tonal centers, or traditional dissonance-consonance relationships, however, can be traced as far back as his Kammersymphonie, Op. 9 (1906), a work remarkable for its tonal development of whole-tone and quartal harmony, and its initiation of dynamic and unusual ensemble relationships, involving dramatic interruption and unpredictable instrumental allegiances; many of these features would typify the timbre-oriented chamber music aesthetic of the coming century.

In the early 1920s he worked at evolving a means of order which would enable his musical texture to become simpler and clearer, and this resulted in the “method of composing with twelve tones which are related only with one another” (Schoenberg 1984, 218), in which the twelve pitches of the octave (unrealized compositionally) are regarded as equal, and no one note or tonality is given the emphasis it occupied in classical harmony. He regarded it as the equivalent in music of Albert Einstein’s discoveries in physics, and Schoenberg announced it characteristically, during a walk with his friend Josef Rufer, when he said “I have made a discovery which will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years” (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 277). A number of works in this period include the Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31 (1928) piano pieces, opp. 33a & b (1931), and the Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942). Contrary to his reputation for strictness, Schoenberg’s use of the technique varied widely according to the demands of each individual composition. Thus the structure of his unfinished opera Moses und Aron is very much unlike that of his Fantasy for Violin and Piano, Op. 47 (1949).

Ten features of Schoenberg’s mature twelve-tone practice are characteristic, interdependent, and interactive (Haimo 1990, 41):

Hexachordal inversional combinatoriality

Aggregates

Linear set presentation

Partitioning

Isomorphic partitioning

Invariants

Hexachordal levels

Harmony, “consistent with and derived from the properties of the referential set”

Metre, established through “pitch-relational characteristics”

Multidimensional set presentations

Controversies and polemics

Understanding of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone work has been difficult to achieve owing in part to the “truly revolutionary nature” of his new system, misinformation disseminated by some early writers about the system’s “rules” and “exceptions” which bear “little relation to the most significant features of Schoenberg’s music”, the composer’s secretiveness, and the widespread unavailability of his sketches and manuscripts until the late 1970s. During his life he was “subjected to a range of criticism and abuse that is shocking even in hindsight” (Haimo 1990, 2–3).

After some understandable early difficulties, Schoenberg began to win public acceptance, with works such as the tone poem Pelleas und Melisande at a Berlin performance in 1907, and, especially, at the Vienna première of the Gurre-Lieder on 13 February 1913, which received an ovation that lasted a quarter of an hour and culminated with Schoenberg being presented with a laurel crown (Rosen 1996, 4; Stuckenschmidt 1977, 184). Much of his work, however, was not well received. His Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E major Op. 9, premièred unremarkably in 1907; when it was played again, however, in a 31 March 1913 concert which also included works by Alban Berg, Anton Webern and Alexander von Zemlinsky, thunderous applause contended with hisses and laughter during Webern’s Six Pieces, Op. 6; though Zemlinsky’s Four Maeterlinck Songs calmed the audience somewhat (according to a contemporary newspaper report), after Schoenberg’s Op. 9 “one could hear the shrill sound of door keys among the violent clapping, and in the second gallery the first fight of the evening began.” Later in the concert, during a performance of the Altenberg Lieder by Berg, fighting broke out after Schoenberg himself interrupted the performance to threaten removal by the police of any troublemakers (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 185). Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, which were to have concluded the concert, had to be canceled after a police officer was called in (Rosen 1996, 5). After this, Schoenberg’s music made a break from tonality.

The deteriorating relation between contemporary composers and the public led him to found the Society for Private Musical Performances (Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen in German) in Vienna in 1918. His aim was grandiose but scarcely selfish; he sought to provide a forum in which modern musical compositions could be carefully prepared and rehearsed, and properly performed under conditions protected from the dictates of fashion and pressures of commerce. From its inception through 1921, when it ended because of economic reasons, the Society presented 353 performances to paid members, sometimes at the rate of one per week, and during the first year and a half, Schoenberg did not allow any of his own works to be performed (Rosen 1975, 65). Instead, audiences at the Society’s concerts heard difficult contemporary compositions by Scriabin, Debussy, Mahler, Webern, Berg, Reger, and other leading figures of early 20th-century music (Rosen 1996, 66).

Schoenberg’s serial technique of composition with twelve notes became one of the most central and polemical issues among American and European musicians during the mid- to late-twentieth century. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing to the present day, composers such as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono and Milton Babbitt have extended Schoenberg’s legacy in increasingly radical directions. The major cities in the USA (e.g. Los Angeles, NYC, Boston) have also been hosts for historically significant performances of Schoenberg’s music, with advocates such as Babbitt in NYC and the Franco-American conductor-pianist, Jacques-Louis Monod; including the influence of Schoenberg’s own pupils, who have taught at major American schools (e.g. Leonard Stein at USC, UCLA and CalArts; Richard Hoffmann at Oberlin; Patricia Carpenter at Columbia; and Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim at Harvard). Others include performers associated with Schoenberg, who have had a profound influence upon contemporary music performance practice in the USA (e.g. Louis Krasner, Eugene Lehner and Rudolf Kolisch at the New England Conservatory of Music; Eduard Steuermann and Felix Galimir at the Juilliard School). In Europe, the work of Hans Keller, Luigi Rognoni, and René Leibowitz has had a measurable influence in spreading Schoenberg’s musical legacy outside of Germany and Austria.

Schoenberg was not fond of Igor Stravinsky, and in 1926 wrote a poem titled “Der neue Klassizismus” (in which he derogates Neoclassicism and obliquely refers to Stravinsky as “Der kleine Modernsky”), which he used as text for the third of his Drei Satiren, Op. 28 (H. C. Schonberg 1970, 503).

Quotations

Richard Strauss on Schoenberg, written by Schoenberg himself: “Dear Sir, I regret that I am unable to accept your invitation to write something for Richard Strauss’s fiftieth birthday. In a letter to Frau Mahler (in connection with Mahler Memorial Fund) Herr Strauss wrote about me as follows: “The only person who can help poor Schoenberg now is a psychiatrist …”. “I think he’d do better to shovel snow instead of scribbling on music-paper…”. (Schoenberg – letter to an unknown correspondent, Berlin, April 22, 1914) (Schoenberg 1964,[page needed]), in the German original: Mahler: “Dem armen Schönberg kann heute nur der Irrenarzt helfen. Ich glaube, er täte besser Schnee zu schaufeln, als Notenpapier zu bekritzeln.”[contradiction]

“Non, ce n’est pas de la musique… c’est du laboratoire” (Maurice Ravel) (Mahler 1960,[page needed]).

Extramusical interests

Schoenberg was also a painter of considerable ability, whose pictures were considered good enough to exhibit alongside those of Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 142). He was also interested in Hopalong Cassidy films, which Paul Buhle and David Wagner (2002, v–vii) attribute to the films’ left-wing screenwriters—a rather odd claim in light of Schoenberg’s statement that he was a “bourgeois” turned monarchist (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 551–52).

Works

Complete list of compositions with opus numbers

2 Gesänge [2 Songs] for baritone, Op. 1 (1898)

4 Lieder [4 Songs], Op. 2 (1899)

6 Lieder [6 Songs], Op. 3 (1899/1903)

Verklärte Nacht [Transfigured night], Op. 4 (1899)

Pelleas und Melisande, Op. 5 (1902/03)

8 Lieder [8 Songs] for soprano, Op. 6 (1903/05)

String Quartet no. 1, D minor, Op. 7 (1904/05)

6 Lieder [6 Songs] with orchestra, Op. 8 (1903/05)

Kammersymphonie [Chamber symphony] no. 1, E major, Op. 9 (1906)

String Quartet no. 2, F-sharp minor (with Soprano), Op. 10 (1907/08)

Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11 (1909)

2 Balladen [2 Ballads], Op. 12 (1906)

Friede auf Erden [Peace on earth], Op. 13 (1907)

2 Lieder [2 Songs], Op. 14 (1907/08)

15 Gedichte aus Das Buch der hängenden Gärten [15 Poems from The book of the hanging gardens] by Stefan George, Op. 15 (1908/09)

Fünf Orchesterstücke [5 Pieces for Orchestra], Op. 16 (1909)

Erwartung [Expectation], monodrama in one act, [for soprano and orchestra], Op. 17 (1909)

Die glückliche Hand [The lucky hand], drama with music, for voices and orchestra, Op. 18 (1910/13)

Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke [6 Little piano pieces], Op. 19 (1911)

Herzgewächse [Foliage of the heart] for Soprano, Op. 20 (1911)

Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21 (1912)

4 Lieder [4 Songs] for Voice and Orchestra, Op. 22 (1913/16)

5 Stücke [5 Pieces] for Piano, Op. 23 (1920/23)

Serenade, Op. 24 (1920/23)

Suite for Piano, Op. 25 (1921/23)

Wind Quintet, Op. 26 (1924)

4 Stücke [4 Pieces], Op. 27 (1925)

3 Satiren [3 Satires], Op. 28 (1925/26)

Suite, Op. 29 (1925)

String Quartet no. 3, Op. 30 (1927)

Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31 (1926/28)

Von heute auf morgen [From today to tomorrow] opera in one act, Op. 32 (1928)

2 Stücke [2 Pieces] for Piano, Op. 33a (1928) & 33b (1931)

Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene [Accompanying music to a film scene], Op. 34 (1930)

6 Stücke [6 Pieces] for Male Chorus, Op. 35 (1930)

Violin Concerto, Op. 36 (1934/36)

String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 (1936)

Kammersymphonie [Chamber symphony] no. 2, E-flat minor, Op. 38 (1906/39)

Kol nidre for Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 39 (1938)

Variations on a recitative for Organ, Op. 40 (1941)

Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte for Voice, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 41 (1942)

Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942)

Theme and variations for Band, Op. 43a (1943)

Theme and variations for Orchestra, Op. 43b (1943)

Prelude to Genesis Suite for Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 44 (1945)

String Trio, Op. 45 (1946)

A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46 (1947)

Phantasy for Violin and Piano, Op. 47 (1949)

3 Songs, Op. 48 (1933)

3 Folksongs, Op. 49 (1948)

Dreimal tausend Jahre [Three times a thousand years], Op. 50a (1949)

Psalm 130 “De profundis”, Op. 50b (1950)

Modern psalm, Op. 50c (1950, unfinished)

[edit]Works by genre

Operas

Erwartung [Expectation], monodrama for soprano and orchestra, Op. 17 (1909)

Die glückliche Hand [The Lucky Hand], drama with music, for voices and orchestra, Op. 18 (1910–13)

Von heute auf morgen [From Today to Tomorrow], opera in one act, Op. 32 (1928–29)

Moses und Aron [Moses and Aaron], opera in three acts (1930–32, unfinished)

Orchestral

Fünf Orchesterstücke [5 Pieces for Orchestra], Op. 16 (1909)

Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31 (1926/28)

Suite, G major, for string orchestra (1934)

Theme and Variations, Op. 43b (1943)

Concertante

Cello Concerto “after Monn’s Concerto in D major for harpsichord” (1932/33)

Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, “freely adapted from Handel’s Concerto grosso in B-flat major, Op. 6, no. 7” (1933)

Violin Concerto, Op. 36 (1934/36)

Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942)

Vocal/Choral Orchestral

6 Lieder [6 Songs] with orchestra, Op. 8 (1903/05)

Gurre-Lieder [Songs of Gurre] (1901/11)

4 Lieder [4 Songs] for Voice and Orchestra, Op. 22 (1913/16)

Kol nidre for Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 39 (1938)

Prelude to “Genesis” for Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 44 (1945)

A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46 (1947)

Band

Theme and Variations, Op. 43a (1943)

Chamber

String Quartet

Presto, in C major for String Quartet (1894(?))

String Quartet, in D major (1897)

Scherzo, in F major, and Trio in a minor for String Quartet, rejected from D major String Quartet (1897)

String Quartet No. 1, D minor, Op. 7 (1904/05)

String Quartet No. 2, F-sharp minor (with Soprano), Op. 10 (1907/08)

String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30 (1927)

String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 (1936)

untitled work in D minor for Violin and Piano (unknown year)

Verklärte Nacht [Transfigured night] (string sextet), Op. 4 (1899)

Ein Stelldichein [A rendezvous] for Mixed Quintet (1905), fragment

Kammersymphonie [Chamber Symphony] No. 1, E major, Op. 9 (1906)

Die eiserne Brigade [The iron brigade] for Piano Quintet (1916)

Serenade, for seven players, Op. 24 (1920/23)

Weihnachtsmusik [Christmas music] for two Violins, Cello, Harmonium, and Piano (1921)

Wind Quintet, Op. 26 (1924)

Suite for Three clarinets (E-flat, B-flat, and Bass), Violin, Viola, Violoncello and Piano, Op. 29 (1925) (with ossia flute and bassoon parts substituting for E-flat and Bass clarinet)

Sonata for Violin and Piano (1927) (a 43-bar fragment)

Kammersymphonie [Chamber symphony] no. 2, E-flat minor, Op. 38 (1906/39)

Fanfare on motifs of Die Gurre-Lieder (11 Brass instruments and Percussion) (1945)

String Trio, Op. 45 (1946)

Phantasy for Violin and Piano, Op. 47 (1949)

Keyboard

Drei Klavierstücke [3 Pieces] (1894)

6 Stücke [6 Pieces] for 4 hands (1896)

Scherzo (Gesamtausgabe fragment 1) (ca. 1894)

Leicht, mit einiger Unruhe [Lightly with some restlessness], C-sharp minor (Gesamtausgabe fragment 2) (ca. 1900)

Langsam [Slowly], A-flat major (Gesamtausgabe fragment 3) (1900/01)

Wenig bewegt, sehr zart [Calmly, very gentle], B-flat major (Gesamtausgabe fragment 4) (1905/06)

2 Stücke [2 Pieces] (Gesamtausgabe fragments 5a & 5b) (1909)

Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11 (1909)

Stück [Piece] (Gesamtausgabe fragment 6) (1909)

Stück [Piece] (Gesamtausgabe fragment 7) (1909)

Stück [Piece] (Gesamtausgabe fragment 8) (ca. 1910)

Sechs kleine Klavierstücke, Op. 19 (1911)

Mäßig, aber sehr ausdrucksvoll [Measured, but very expressive] (Gesamtausgabe fragment 9) (March 1918)

Langsam [Slowly] (Gesamtausgabe fragment 10) (Summer 1920)

Stück [Piece] (Gesamtausgabe fragment 11) (Summer 1920)

Fünf Klavierstücke, Op. 23 (1923)

Langsame Halbe [Slow half-notes], B (Gesamtausgabe fragment 12) (1925)

Suite, Op. 25 (1925)

Klavierstück, Op. 33a (1929)

Klavierstück, Op. 33b (1931)

Quarter note = mm. 80 (Gesamtausgabe fragment 13) (February 1931)

Sehr rasch; Adagio [Very fast; Slowly] (Gesamtausgabe fragment 14) (July 1931)

Andante (Gesamtausgabe fragment 15) (10 October 1931)

Piece (Gesamtausgabe fragment 16) (after October 1933)

Moderato (Gesamtausgabe fragment 17) (April 1934?)

Organ Sonata (fragments) (1941)

Choral

Ei, du Lütte [Oh, you little one] (late 1890s)

Friede auf Erden [Peace on earth], Op. 13 (1907)

Die Jakobsleiter [Jacob’s ladder] (1917/22, unfinished)

3 Satiren [3 Satires], Op. 28 (1925/26)

3 Volksliedsätze [3 Folksong movements] (1929)

6 Stücke [6 Pieces] for Male Chorus, Op. 35 (1930)

3 Folksongs, Op. 49 (1948)

Dreimal tausend Jahre [Three times a thousand years], Op. 50a (1949)

Psalm 130 “De profundis”, Op. 50b (1950)

Modern psalm, Op. 50c (1950, unfinished)

Songs

Gedenken (Es steht sein Bild noch immer da) [Remembrance (His picture is still there)] (1893/1903?)

In hellen Träumen hab’ ich dich oft geschaut [In vivid dreams so oft you appeared to me] (1893)

12 erste Lieder [12 First songs] (1893/96)

Ein Schilflied (Drüben geht die Sonne scheiden) [A bulrush song (Yonder is the sun departing)] (1893)

Warum bist du aufgewacht [Why have you awakened] (1893/94)

Waldesnacht, du wunderkühle [Forest night, so wondrous cool] (1894/96)

Ecloge (Duftreich ist die Erde) [Eclogue (Fragrant is the earth)] (1896/97)

Mädchenfrühling (Aprilwind, alle Knospen) [Maiden’s spring (April wind, all abud)] (1897)

Mädchenlied (Sang ein Bettlerpärlein am Schenkentor) [Maiden’s song (A pair of beggars sang at the giving gate)] (1897/1900)

Mailied (Zwischen Weizen und Korn) [May song (Between wheat and grain)]

Nicht doch! (Mädel, lass das Stricken) [But no! (Girl, stop knitting)] (1897)

2 Gesänge [2 Songs] for baritone, Op. 1 (1898)

4 Lieder [4 Songs], Op. 2 (1899)

6 Lieder [6 Songs], Op. 3 (1899/1903)

Die Beiden (Sie trug den Becher in der Hand) [The two (She carried the goblet in her hand)] (1899)

Mannesbangen (Du musst nicht meinen) [Men’s worries (You should not…)] (1899)

Gruss in die Ferne (Dunkelnd über den See) [Hail from afar (Darkened over the sea)] (August 1900)

8 Brettllieder [8 Cabaret songs] (1901)

Deinem Blick mich zu bequemen [To submit to your sweet glance] (1903)

8 Lieder [8 Songs] for soprano, Op. 6 (1903/05)

2 Balladen [2 Ballads], Op. 12 (1906)

2 Lieder [2 Songs], Op. 14 (1907/08)

15 Gedichte aus Das Buch der hängenden Gärten [15 Poems from The book of the hanging gardens] by Stefan George, Op. 15 (1908/09)

Am Strande [At the seashore] (1909)

Herzgewächse [Foliage of the heart] for High Soprano (with harp, celesta & harmonium) Op. 20 (1911)

Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21 (1912) (reciter with 5 instruments)

Petrarch-Sonnet from Serenade, Op. 24 (1920/23) (bass with 7 instruments)

4 Deutsche Volkslieder [4 German folksongs] (1929)

Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte for Voice, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 41 (1942)

3 Songs, Op. 48 (1933)

Canons

O daß der Sinnen doch so viele sind! [Oh, the senses are too numerous!] (Bärenreiter I) (April? 1905) (4 voices)

Wenn der schwer Gedrückte klagt [When the sore oppressed complains] (Bärenreiter II) (April? 1905) (4 voices)

Wer mit der Welt laufen will [He who wants to run with the world] (for David Bach) (Bärenreiter XXI) (March 1926; July 1934) (3 voices)

Canon (Bärenreiter IV) (April 1926) (4 voices)

Von meinen Steinen [From my stones] (for Erwin Stein) (Bärenreiter V) (December 1926) (4 voices)

Arnold Schönberg beglückwünschst herzlichst Concert Gebouw [Arnold Schoenberg congratulates the Concert Gebouw affectionately] (Bärenreiter VI) (March 1928) (5 voices)

Mirror canon with two free middle voices, A major (Bärenreiter VIII) (April 1931) (4 voices)

Jedem geht es so [No man can escape] (for Carl Engel) (Bärenreiter XIII) (April 1933; text 1943) (3 voices)

Mir auch ist es so ergangen [I, too, was not better off] (for Carl Engel) (Bärenreiter XIV) (April 1933; text 1943) (3 voices)

Perpetual canon, A minor (Bärenreiter XV) (1933) (4 voices)

Mirror canon, A minor (Bärenreiter XVI) (1933) (4 voices)

Es ist zu dumm [It is too dumb] (for Rudolph Ganz) (Bärenreiter XXII) (September 1934) (4 voices)

Man mag über Schönberg denken, wie man will [One might think about Schoenberg any way one wants to] (for Charlotte Dieterle) (Bärenreiter XXIII) (1935) (4 voices)

Double canon (Bärenreiter XXV) (1938) (4 voices)

Mr. Saunders I owe you thanks (for Richard Drake Saunders) (Bärenreiter XXVI) (December 1939) (4 voices)

I am almost sure, when your nurse will change your diapers (for Artur Rodzinsky on the birth of his son Richard) (Bärenreiter XXVIII) (March 1945) (4 voices)

Canon for Thomas Mann on his 70th birthday (Bärenreiter XXIX) (June 1945) (2 violins, viola, violoncello)

Gravitationszentrum eigenen Sonnensystems [You are the center of gravity of your own solar system] (Bärenreiter XXX) (August 1949) (4 voices)

Transcriptions and arrangements

Bach: Chorale prelude Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele [Deck thyself, oh dear soul], BWV 654 (arr. 1922: orchestra)

Bach: Chorale prelude Komm, Gott, Schöpfer, heiliger Geist [Come, God, Creator, Holy ghost], BWV 631 (arr. 1922: orchestra)

Bach: Prelude and fugue in E-flat major “St Anne”, BWV 552 (arr. 1928: orchestra)

Brahms: Piano quartet in G minor, Op. 25 (arr. 1937: orchestra)

Busoni: Berceuse élégiaque, Op. 42 (arr. 1920: flute, clarinet, string quintet, piano, harmonium)

Denza: Funiculì, Funiculà (arr. 1921: voice, clarinet, mandolin, guitar, violin, viola, violoncello)

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde [The Song of the Earth] (arr. Arnold Schoenberg & Anton Webern, 1921; completed by Rainer Riehn, 1983: soprano, flute & piccolo, oboe & English horn, clarinet, bassoon & contrabassoon, horn, harmonium, piano, 2 violins, viola, violoncello, double bass)

Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen [Songs of a Wayfarer] (arr. Arnold Schoenberg, 1920: voice, flute, clarinet, harmonium, piano, 2 violins, viola, violoncello, double bass, percussion)

Monn: Concerto for cello in G minor, transcribed and adapted from Monn’s Concerto for harpsichord (1932/33)

Reger: Eine romantische Suite [A Romantic Suite], Op. 125 (arr. Arnold Schoenberg & Rudolf Kolisch, 1919/1920: flute, clarinet, 2 violins, viola, violoncello, harmonium for 4 hands, piano for 4 hands)

Schubert: Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern Incidental music, D. 797 (arr. Arnold Schoenberg, 1903?: piano for 4 hands)

Schubert: Ständchen [Serenade], D. 889 (arr. Arnold Schoenberg (1921) (voice, clarinet, bassoon, mandolin, guitar, 2 violins, viola, violoncello))

Sioly: Weil i a alter Drahrer bin [For I’m a real old gadabout] (arr. 1921: clarinet, mandolin, guitar, violin, viola, violoncello)

Johann Strauss II: Kaiser-Walzer [Emperor Waltz], Op. 437 (arr. 1925: flute, clarinet, 2 violins, viola, violoncello, piano)

Johann Strauss II: Rosen aus dem Süden [Roses from the South], Op. 388 (arr. 1921: harmonium, piano, 2 violins, viola, violoncello)

Johann Strauss II: Lagunenwalzer [Lagoon Waltz], Op. 411 (arr. 1921: harmonium, piano, 2 violins, viola, violoncello)

Quotations

“My music is not modern, it is merely badly played.”

“My works are 12-tone compositions, not 12-tone compositions” (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 349).

“I was never revolutionary. The only revolutionary in our time was Strauss!” (Schoenberg 1975, 137)

See also

Arnold Schönberg Prize

References

Adorno, Theodor. 1967. Prisms, translated from the German by Samuel and Shierry Weber London: Spearman; Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Anon. 2002. “Arnold Schönberg and His God”. Vienna: Arnold Schönberg Center.(Accessed 1 December 2008)

Beaumont, Antony. 2000. Zemlinsky. London: Faber. ISBN 057116983X Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801438035.

Buhle, Pal, and David Wagner. 2002. Radical Hollywood: The Untold Story Behind America’s Favorite Movies. New York: The New Press. ISBN 1565848195

Greissle-Schönberg, Arnold, and Nancy Bogen. [n.d.] Arnold Schönberg’s European Family (e-book). The Lark Ascending, Inc. (Accessed 2 May 2010)

Foss, Hubert. 1951. “Schoenberg, 1874–1951” Musical Times 92, no. 1 (September): 401–403.

Haimo, Ethan. 1990. Schoenberg’s Serial Odyssey: The Evolution of his Twelve-Tone Method, 1914–1928. Oxford [England]: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-3152-60-6.

Lebrecht, Norman. 1985. The Book of Musical Anecdotes. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Sphere Books. ISBN 0029187109

Lebrecht, Norman. 2001. “Why We’re Still Afraid of Schoenberg”. The Lebrecht Weekly (July 8).

Mahler, Alma. 1960. Mein Leben, with a foreword by Willy Haas. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer.

Rosen, Charles. 1975. Arnold Schoenberg. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0670133167 (pbk) ISBN 0670019860 (cloth). Reprinted 1996, with a new preface. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226726436

Ross, Alex. 2007. And the Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, ISBN 9780374249397

Schonberg, Harold C. 1970. The Lives of the Great Composers. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393021467 (Revised ed., New York: W. W. Norton, 1980. ISBN 0393013022 Third ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. ISBN 0393038572)

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1922. Harmonielehre, third edition. Vienna: Universal Edition. (Originally published 1911). Translation by Roy E. Carter, based on the third edition, as Theory of Harmony. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978. ISBN 0-520-04945-4.

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1959. Structural Functions of Harmony. Translated by Leonard Stein. London: Williams and Norgate Revised edition, New York, London: W. W. Norton and Company 1969. ISBN 0-393-00478-3.

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1964. Arnold Schoenberg Letters, selected and edited by Erwin Stein, translated from the original German by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. London: Faber. Paperback reprint, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. ISBN 9780520060098.

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1967. Fundamentals of Musical Composition. Edited by Gerald Strang, with an introduction by Leonard Stein. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Reprinted 1985, London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571092764

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1975. Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg. Edited by Leonard Stein, with translations by Leo Black. New York: St. Martins Press; London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 0-520-05294-3. Expanded from the 1950 Philosophical Library (New York) publication edited by Dika Newlin. The volume carries the note “Several of the essays…were originally written in German (translated by Dika Newlin)” in both editions.

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1984. Style and Idea: Selected Writings, translated by Leo Black. Berkeley: California University Press.

Steinberg, Michael. 1995. The Symphony: A Listener’s Guide. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506177-2 (cloth) ISBN 0-19-512665-3 (pbk)

Strimple, Nick. 2005. Choral Music in the Twentieth Century. Portland, Oregon & Cambridge, UK: Amadeus. ISBN 1574671227

Stuckenschmidt, Hans Heinz. 1977. Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work. Translated from the German by Humphrey Searle. New York: Schirmer Books.

UCLA Department of Music. [2008]. “Facilities and Maintenance”. (Accessed 1 December 2008)

University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. [2008]. “Performance Halls and Studios”. (Accessed 1 December 2008)

Worldspace Radio. 2007. Maestro “Concert Hall Presentation”. 13 July 2007; Featured piece.[citation needed]

Further reading

Auner, Joseph. 1993. A Schoenberg Reader. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09540-6.

Brand, Julianne, Christopher Hailey, and Donald Harris (editors). 1987. The Berg-Schoenberg Correspondence: Selected Letters. New York, London: W. W. Norton and Company. ISBN 0-393-01919-5.

Byron, Avior. 2006. ‘The Test Pressings of Schoenberg Conducting Pierrot lunaire: Sprechstimme Reconsidered’, Music Theory Online, Volume 12, Number 1, February 2006. http://www.societymusictheory.org/mto/issues/mto.06.12.1/mto.06.12.1.byron_frames.html

Hyde, Martha M. 1982. Schoenberg’s Twelve-Tone Harmony: The Suite Op. 29 and the Compositional Sketches. Studies in Musicology, series edited by George Buelow. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. ISBN 0-8357-1512-4 [Described as a “prominent study” by Haimo (1990,[page needed]).]

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1964. Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint. Edited with a foreword by Leonard Stein. New York, St. Martin’s Press. Reprinted, Los Angeles: Belmont Music Publishers 2003.

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1979. Die Grundlagen der musikalischen Komposition. Ins Deutsche übertragen von Rudolf Kolisch; hrsg. von Rudolf Stephan. Vienna: Universal Edition (German translation of Fundamentals of Musical Composition).

Shawn, Allen. 2002. Arnold Schoenberg’s Journey. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-10590-1.

Weiss, Adolph. 1932. “The Lyceum of Schonberg”, Modern Music 9, no. 3 (March-April): 99-107.

Recordings by Schoenberg

recordings at archive.org

Video and audio as part of musicology studies

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

links

. Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna

. . Belmont Music – The Works of Arnold Schoenberg

. . . List of Links (compiled by Schoenberg’s grandson Randol)

. . . . Arnold Schoenberg at Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

. . . . . Free scores by Arnold Schoenberg in the International Music Score Library Project

. . . . . . (French) A biography of Arnold Schoenberg, from IRCAM’s website.

. . . . . . . Excerpts from sound archives of Schoenberg’s works.

. . . . . . . . The Test Pressings of Schoenberg Conducting Pierrot lunaire: Sprechstimme Reconsidered

ouça Schoenberg em mp3

Recording Phantasy, Op. 47 – Helen Kim, violin; Adam Bowles, piano Luna Nova New Music Ensemble

. . Recording Chamber Symphony, Op. 9 (1906) Webern transcription (1922–23) Luna Nova New Music Ensemble

videos

Video explaining the 12-note, atonal musical system

. . Schoenberg – Three Piano Pieces, No. 1 (com partitura)

. . . Schönberg, Suite op 25, Präludium

04/08/2010

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune

Filed under: artigo, compositores, Debussy, escuta, século XX, textos, vídeo — Tags:, , — histmus @ 18:27

Extraído da Wikipedia em inglês

fonte : wikipedia

Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” (commonly known by its French title, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, is a Symphonic poem for orchestra by Claude Debussy, approximately 10 minutes in duration. It was first performed in Paris on December 22, 1894 conducted by Gustave Doret.[1][2]

Inspiration and influence

The composition was inspired by the poem L’Après-midi d’un faune by Stéphane Mallarmé, and later formed the basis for a ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky. It is one of Debussy’s most famous works and is considered a turning point in the history of music; composer-conductor Pierre Boulez even dates the awakening of modern music from this score, observing that “the flute of the faun brought new breath to the art of music.”[3] It is a work that barely grasps onto tonality and harmonic function.

About his composition Debussy wrote:

“ The music of this prelude is a very free illustration of Mallarmé’s beautiful poem. By no means does it claim to be a synthesis of it. Rather there is a succession of scenes through which pass the desires and dreams of the faun in the heat of the afternoon. Then, tired of pursuing the timorous flight of nymphs and naiads, he succumbs to intoxicating sleep, in which he can finally realize his dreams of possession in universal Nature.[4] ”

Paul Valéry reported that Mallarmé himself was unhappy with his poem being used as the basis of music: “He believed that his own music was sufficient, and that even with the best intentions in the world, it was a veritable crime as far as poetry was concerned to juxtapose poetry and music, even if it were the finest music there is.”[5]

The opening flute solo is one the most famous passages in musical modernism,[citation needed] consisting of a chromatic descent to a tritone below the original pitch, and the subsequent ascent.

Composition

The work is scored for three flutes, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two harps, two crotales and strings.

Although it is tempting to call this piece a tone poem, there is very little musical literalism in the piece; instead, the languorous melody and shimmering orchestration as a whole evoke the eroticism of Mallarmé’s poem.

“ [This prelude] was [Debussy’s] musical response to the poem of Stephane Mallarmé’ (1842-1898), in which a faun playing his pan-pipes alone in the woods becomes aroused by passing nymphs and naiads, pursues them unsuccessfully, then wearily abandons himself to a sleep filled with visions. Though called a “prelude,” the work is nevertheless complete – an evocation of the feelings of the poem as a whole.[6] ”

The work is called a prelude because Debussy intended to write a suite of three movements – Prelude, Interlude, and Final Paraphrase – but the latter two were never composed.

The Prélude at first listening seems improvisational and almost free-form; however, closer observation will demonstrate that the piece consists of a complex organization of musical cells, motifs carefully developed and traded between members of the orchestra. A close analysis of the piece yields a deep appreciation of the ultimate compositional economy of Debussy’s craft.

The main musical themes are introduced by woodwinds, with delicate but harmonically advanced underpinnings of muted horns, strings and harp. Recurring tools in Debussy’s compositional arsenal make appearances in this piece: Bracing whole-tone scale runs, harmonic fluidity without lengthy modulations between central keys, tritones in both melody and harmony. The development of the slow main theme moves fluidly between 9/8, 6/8 and 12/8 meters. Debussy explores voicings and shading in his orchestration brilliantly, allowing the main melodic cell to move from solo flute to oboe, back to solo flute, then two unison flutes (yielding a completely different atmosphere to the melody), then clarinet, etc. Even the accompaniment explores alternate voicings; the flute duo’s soaring, exotic melodic cells ride lush rolling strings with violas carrying the soprano part over alto violins (the tone of a viola in its upper register being especially sumptuous). And, in the first minute of the piece, Debussy mischievously throws in a bar of complete silence, giving the listener the opportunity to explore the musical quality of negative space within a gentle flowing river of sound[citation needed].

In popular culture

It was rearranged and recorded by Jazz musician Eumir Deodato for his 1973 album Prelude.

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun is the first animated segment in Italian director and animator Bruno Bozzetto’s 1977 film Allegro non troppo. While retaining Debussy’s music, the on-screen story instead depicts an aging faun’s vain attempts to recapture his youth.

The theme features prominently in the 1949 film Portrait of Jennie, and is used as a musical motif for the etherial heroine played by Jennifer Jones.

The work is also analyzed at the end of the 4th segment of Leonard Bernstein’s 1973 Norton lecture “The Unanswered Question”. Bernstein corroborates the earlier statement that the piece stretches the limits of tonality, thus setting up the atonal works of the 20th century to come.

Pop star Michael Jackson named the piece his “favorite song”.

Sources

“Pierre Meylan and Chris Walton. “Doret, Gustave.””. Oxford. Retrieved 2009-05-25.

Fanning, Neil Cardew (2005). All music guide to classical music: the definitive guide to classical music. New York: Hal Leonard. p. 351.

Boulez, Pierre (1958), “Entries for a Musical Encyclopaedia: Claude Debussy”, Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship, Oxford: Oxford University Press (published 1991), pp. 259–277, ISBN 0193112108

Original French: “La musique de ce prélude est une illustration très libre du beau poème de Mallarmé; elle ne prétend pas en être une synthèse. Il s’agit plutôt de fonds successifs sur lesquels se meuvent les désirs et les rêves du faune dans la chaleur de cet après-midi. Enfin, las de poursuivre les nymphes et les naïades apeurées dans leur fuite, il s’abandonne à un sommeil enivrant, riche de songes enfin réalisés, de pleine possession dans l’universelle nature.” Quoted in Les poètes symbolistes et la musique: de Verlaine à Blok by Hélène Desgraupes.

Valéry, Paul (1933), “Stephane Mallarmé”, Leonardo Poe Mallarmé, trans. James R. Lawler, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (published 1972), p. 263, ISBN 0710071485

Burkhart, Charles. 2004. Anthology for Musical Analysis, Sixth Edition. p. 402.

Hendrik Lücke: Mallarmé – Debussy. Eine vergleichende Studie zur Kunstanschauung am Beispiel von „L’Après-midi d’un Faune“. (Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, Bd. 4). Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-8300-1685-9.

outras fontes de estudo

Wikipedia em português, resumido

Wikipedia em francês, resumido

Notas do programa em inglês

Video do ballet

03/08/2010

Debussy : biografia e links

Claude Debussy : biografia em português

extraído da Wikipedia :

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy

(Saint – Germain-en-Laye, 22 de Agosto de 1862 — Paris, 25 de Março de 1918) foi um músico e compositor francês.

Origem

A vocação musical do jovem foi descoberta por M.me Fauté de Fleurville, que o preparou para o Conservatório, onde foi admitido em 1873. Em 1884 recebe o grande prêmio de Roma de composição. Viaja para Moscou, com M.me von Meck, protetora de Tchaikovsky, interessando-se pela obra do então desconhecido Mussorgsky, que o influenciará.

Após uma estada na villa Médici, em Roma, retorna a Paris, em 1887, entrando em contato com a vanguarda artística e literária. Freqüenta os mardis de Mallarmé. No mesmo ano conhece Brahms, em Viena. Em 1888 ouve, em Bayreuth, Tristão e Isolda, de Wagner, que lhe causa profunda impressão. Em Paris, na exposição de 1889, ouve música do Oriente.

A vida de Debussy corre sem grandes acontecimentos, exceutando-se o escândalo doméstico do seu divórcio (deixa Rosalie Texier para casar-se com Emma Bardac) e a estréia tumultuosa de Pelléas et Mélisande, em 1902. Com raros aparecimentos públicos, seus anos finais foram minados pela doença (câncer) e pelo desgosto das derrotas francesas na I Guerra Mundial. Debussy morreu em Paris a 25 de março de 1918.

À exceção de algumas peças mais conhecidas, Debussy deixou obra pouco acessível, pelo caráter inovador. Para o grande público seu nome está ligado aos sketches sinfônicos de La Mer (1905), ao terceiro movimento da Suite bergamascque (1809-1905), Luar, aos noturnos para orquestra e algumas peças dos Prelúdios para piano. É o Debussy impressionista, autor de uma música vaga ‘que se ouve com a cabeça reclinada nas mãos’, segundo Cocteau.

Tais conceitos foram, depois, reformulados. Mas, por algum tempo, Debussy foi vítima do equívoco de ser considerado autor de uma música ‘literária’ e ‘pictórica’, por causa de suas ligações com a poesia simbolista e com o Impressionismo nas artes plásticas. Sua inovação foi, entretanto, de ordem musical, e é em termos musicais que a sua obra passou depois a ser compreendida.

O impressionismo de Debussy residiria no caráter fluido e vago, de seus sutis joguinhos harmônicos, em que a melodia parecia dissolver-se. Mas essa fluidez era a aparência, como depois se viu. A melodia não se dissolveu propriamente, mas libertou-se dos cânones tradicionais, das repetições e das cadências rítmicas. Debussy não seguiu também as regras da harmonia clássica: deu uma importância excepcional aos acordes isolados, aos timbres, às pausas, ao contraste entre os registros. Trouxe uma nova concepção de construção musical, que se acentuou na sua última fase. Por isso foi incompreendido. O que não lhe desagradaria, pois ele mesmo propôs, certa vez, a criação de uma ‘sociedade de esoterismo musical’.

A obra de Debussy é bastante diversificada, do ponto de vista dos gêneros e das formas que utilizou. Não se pode dizer que tenha sido compositor essencialmente vocal ou instrumental, sinfônico ou de câmera, pois todas as suas obras, em que pese a diversidade de meios que utilizou, parecem transmitir a mesma mensagem. A abertura de um universo sonoro inteiramente novo, em que a sugestão ocupou o lugar da construção temática e definida. De modo geral, sua obra pode ser dividida em música para orquestra, música de câmara e para instrumentos solos, música para piano, canções e música coral, obras cênicas e música incidental.

A música orquestral de Debussy é a que corresponde melhor à sua imagem de impressionista. Em 1894, o Prelúdio à tarde de uma fauna, baseado no poema de Mallarmé, causou estranheza pela ‘ausência de melodia’: Debussy lançou na verdade, a sugestão de um tema melódico, sem desenvolvimento. Os Noturnos (1893-1899), O mar e Imagens para orquestra (1909) pareciam confirmar a imagem do músico vago, cujas melodias não tinham contornos definidos e cuja construção harmônica parecia desarticulada: o tom poético dos títulos confirmaria a imagem de uma música ‘literária’. Mas a poesia estava na música, na liberdade melódica, na pesquisa dos timbres, numa nova construção harmônica. O efeito disso era uma nova e estranha sonoridade.

A música de câmara e para instrumentos solistas é uma seção reduzida na obra de Debussy. Em 1893 compõe o Quarteto para cordas em sol menor, obra singular cuja construção difere essencialmente do quarteto clássico beethoveniano. Também as três sonatas do seu período final foram construídas segundo princípios inteiramente diversos da sonata clássica vienense, mas por outros motivos. Foram compostas no período da guerra, e Debussy, nacionalista intransigente, rejeitou os princípios da sonata clássica vienense para recuperar a forma cíclica da sonata francesa. As três sonatas (1915-1917), parte de um ciclo que ficou incompleto, para instrumentos diversos, das quais a mais importante é a Sonata para piano e violino, são obras avançadas, com asperezas inéditas em sua música anterior. Entre as composições para instrumento solo destaca-se, em estilo semelhante, Syrinx, para flauta desacompanhada.

A música pianística é uma seção importante na obra de Debussy. São conhecidas sobretudo as coleções Suite Bergamascque, Estampas (1903), Imagens (1905-1907), Canto das crianças (1906-1908) e os Estudos (12) I e II (1915). Da Suite Bergamascque aos Estudos a evolução é marcante: os títulos poéticos desaparecem. Os títulos técnicos dos estudos (notas repetidas, sonoridades opostas, escalas cromáticas, etc.) apenas revelam a consciência técnica inovadora que se ocultava atrás de títulos poéticos como Jardins sob a chuva, Sinos por entre as folhagens, A catedral submersa, YA., em outros conjuntos (Estampas, Imagens, etc.).

No último período, não só a música pianística se torna mais abstrata como também mais áspera na pesquisa de novos timbres. Finalmente, em Seis Epígrafes Antigas e Em Branco e Negro, ambos de 1915, Debussy retorna às fontes clássicas francesas, Couperin e Rameau.

Debussy começou a sua carreira compondo música vocal, persistindo no gênero até os últimos anos de criatividade. O acervo é grande, incluindo a musicalização de muitos poetas. Entre as coleções mais célebres estão os Cinco poemas de Baudelaire (1887-1889), Arietas esquecidas (1888), de Verlaine, as Canções de Bilitis (1897), de Pierre Louys, e as Três baladas de François Villon (1913). A técnica melódica de Debussy fundamenta-se na melodia dos próprios versos, mas, nas baladas de Villon, nota-se a evolução para um severo despojamento.

Em 1902, a estréia da ópera Pelléas e Mélisande, sobre texto de Maeterlinck, causou estranheza: era quase uma antiópera, que se pretendia anti-Wagner na sua extrema contenção de texto declamado. Nela Debussy voltou-se contra toda a tradição dramática, de Berlioz a Wagner. Anos depois, em 1911, O martírio de São Sebastião é uma obra cênica ainda mais insólita. Da mesma época é a música para balé Jogos (1912), obra de surpreendentes inovações e de grande complexidade harmônica.

A música inovadora de Debussy agiu como um fenômeno catalisador de diversos movimentos musicais em outros países. Na França, só se aponta Ravel como influenciado, mas só na juventude, não sendo propriamente discípulo. Influenciados foram também Béla Bartók, Manuel de Falla, Heitor Villa-Lobos e outros. Do Prelúdio à Tarde de um Fauno, com que, para Pierre Boulez, começou a música moderna, até Jogos, toda a arte de Debussy foi uma lição de inconformismo.

Mais informações sobre Debussy e outros links de interesse

Wikipedia em inglês

Wikipedia em espanhol

Wikipedia em francês

Catálogo cronológico de obras em inglês

Claude Debussy’s Pianistic Vision

Centro de documentação Claude Debussy em inglês ou francês

25/02/2010

Festival de Viena celebra 125 anos do compositor Alban Berg

. fonte : Deutsche Welle

CULTURA | 09.02.2010

Festival de Viena celebra 125 anos do compositor Alban Berg

Em 9 de fevereiro de 1885, nascia Alban Berg, que viria revolucionar – junto com Schönberg e Webern – a composição musical no século 20. O Wiener Festwochen deste ano é dedicado a este expoente do dodecafonismo.

Entre os nazistas, a música de Alban Berg era considerada “arte degenerada”. Apesar de o compositor austríaco ter morrido em 1935, dois anos após a ascensão de Hitler ao poder, suas obras foram proibidas no Terceiro Reich, bem como as de seu mestre e amigo Arnold Schönberg.

Hoje, a primeira ópera de Berg, Wozzeck, é considerada um marco da história da música e uma das obras musicais mais significativas do século 20. Ele é celebrado como grande renovador da música, ocupando um espaço garantido entre os grandes mestres da vanguarda moderna.

Junto com Schönberg e Anton Webern, ele formou a chamada Segunda Escola de Viena, um movimento de compositores na virada de século que revolucionou a forma de compor.

Adotado por Schönberg

Albano Maria Johannes Berg nasceu em 9 de fevereiro de 1885, em Viena, mais como filho da literatura do que da música. Aos 15 anos, ele começou a compor como autodidata, apesar de jamais ter tido uma formação musical.

Em 1904, o talento do jovem Berg chamou a atenção do compositor Arnold Schönberg, mentor da música dodecafônica. Este, dez anos mais velho que Berg, reconheceu nas composições do jovem “um calor esfuziante de sentimentos” e o aceitou – junto com Anton von Webern – como aluno particular.

A influência do amigo paternal marcou Berg profundamente. Ele estudou seis anos com Schönberg. A amizade de ambos, no entanto, duraria a vida inteira.

Wozzeck: mundo em desintegração

A ópera Wozzeck, em três atos, foi composta em 1914, após Berg ter visto o fragmento dramático de Georg Büchner, Woyzeck, em Viena. Esse drama mostra o destino de um homem que se torna assassino de sua amante e, ao mesmo tempo, vítima. “Não é apenas o destino dessa pobre pessoa atormentada e usada por todo mundo que me é tão próximo; o que me atrai também é a atmosfera inusitada de cada cena”, escreveu Berg na época.

O compositor reconhecia na peça “a catástrofe exemplar do homem decadente em um mundo em plena desintegração”, segundo assinala o programa do Wiener Festwochen 2010, o festival vienense que na edição deste ano é dedicado ao gênio musical Alban Berg.

A repercussão da obra foi “como um grito de revolta e desespero”. Estreada em 1925, Wozzeck é a primeira ópera em composição integralmente atonal.

Lulu: obra inacabada sobre a beleza feminina

Outra obra-prima de Berg é a ópera Lulu, baseada na tragédia de duas partes de Frank Wedekind Erdgeist (O Gnomo) e Die Büchse der Pandora (A Caixa de Pandora). Nessa obra, ele se utiliza do sistema de composição atonal composto de 12 sons, criando a primeira ópera dodecafônica da história da música.

Com essa tragédia em torno da decadência de uma mulher de extrema beleza, Berg se remete a figuras femininas lendárias, de Isolda a Salomé, e às fantasias eróticas masculinas do fin de siècle.

No entanto, Lulu não chegou a ser composta até o fim. Alban Berg morreu antes de finalizá-la, no Natal de 1935, vítima de septicemia. A obra foi encerrada por Friedrich Cerha.

Concerto para Violino: “recordação de um anjo”

Famoso também é seu Concerto para Violino, de 1935. Nesse trabalho feito sob encomenda, Berg fez uma homenagem a Manon Gropius, filha de Alma Mahler-Werfel e do arquiteto Walter Gropius, falecida aos 18 anos em decorrência de paralisia infantil. Esse concerto, com o subtítulo “Recordação de um anjo”, é considerado até hoje uma perfeita síntese de tradição e dodecafonismo.

“Assim como naquela época, hoje a linguagem e a estética musicais de Alban Berg continuam tendo grande atualidade”, consta do programa do Wiener Festwochen, a ser realizado de 14 de maio a 20 de junho próximo na capital austríaca.

Durante esse festival, que marca o 125º aniversário e os 75 anos da morte de Alban Berg, serão executadas as principais obras do compositor, bem como composições de seus mestres, contemporâneos e discípulos.

SL/dpa/ap

Revisão: Roselaine Wandscheer