Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)

review of
The Music of Arnold Schoenberg Volume Two
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 26, 2011


I wdn't ordinarily write a review of a bk in a record box-set but the 3 bks that came w/ 3 of the 6 Arnold Schoenberg boxsets that I have are so extraordinarily scholarly that it seems important to historicize them even further than they may've already been. SO, in this day of streaming & the vanishing of having actual objects to be collected rather than hardware for streaming & downloading, things like boxsets (boxes containing more than 1 vinyl LP that're usually edited w/ some thematic scholarly thoroughness in mind) may be little more than fond memories for older people. Of course, there're CD boxsets & they come w/ scholarly bklts too but, obviously, they're physically much smaller &, therefore, harder to read. Some or all of this material has been reissued on CD - I don't know whether the CD's notes are as thorough as these or if they had to be cut for reasons of space.

ANYWAY, the cover of this bk has a negative copy of a canon that Schoenberg sent to Craft, the conductor, & the bk is chockfull of such goodies. Robert Craft has always been important to me as the person who conducted all of Varèse's work AND Webern's AND most of Schoenberg's - a powerful trio of early 20th century composers.

Just listing the contents of this is probably enuf to give Schoenberg enthusiasts an idea of why I consider this worth reviewing:

A Feb 17, 1950 note of Schoenberg's made as a "Foreword to a Broadcast Recording of Pelleas and Melisande".

followed by notes re Schoenberg re the same piece that give musical examples in notation form.

followed by notes from composer Eric Salzman re Schoenberg's "Prelude to the Genesis Suite"

followed by "Arnold Schoenberg on his Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31" - "A Dialogue with his pupil, Erwin Stein, originally published in "Pult und Taktstock""

followed by British composer Roberto Gerhard's notes re "Variations for Orchestra"

followed by Schoenberg's notes re his "Verklaerte Nacht", again w/ musical notation examples

followed by Robert Craft's "Marginalia".

A great composer commenting on his own work, 2 other prominent composer commenting on it as well, the conductor adding his considerably-more-than-2¢'s-worth. &, of course, if one has the recordings, one gets to listen to this great music as well.… (altro)

review of
The Music of Arnold Schoenberg Volume Three
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 26, 2011

I'm reviewing 2 other LP boxset bklts here on GoodReads b/c I think they're important for music scholars in general & Schoenberg scholars in particular & b/c I don't know whether these writings are completely available anywhere else (even though I imagine they must be). Of the 3, this is the most substantial at 56pp.

This begins with conductor Robert Craft's substantial 16pp analysis of Schoenberg's "Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16" (1906). Craft, an important conductor, IMO, goes thru each of the pieces & provides musical notation. I was particularly delighted to learn that Schoenberg's score calls for a cello bow to be "drawn along the edge of a cymbal" in the 4th piece! This technique is probably far more associated w/ the extended playing of improvisors from the 1960s on than it is w/ such a precocious composition from 1906!

Schoenberg's own analysis of his "Four Orchestral Songs, Op. 22" (1915) follows. This text was created for radio broadcast & was meant to be accompanied by relevant recorded excerpts from the work under discussion. Instead, relevant notation is presented. Some of the analysis is deleted in this presentation but the remaining 8pp are still substantial. This is followed by the German versions of the songs & their English translations.

A shorter section of Schoenberg commentary on his "Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9" (1906) is next up after wch the renowned pianist Glenn Gould presents 7pp of analysis of "Chamber Symphony No. 2, Op. 38" (1939) - w/, once again, musical notation examples. In this section Gould writes that:

"Schoenberg once said that in his view there remained a great deal of music yet to be written in the key of C"

& I quite agree. I don't think that any particular formal restraint is necessarily permanently exhausted - at worst, it might just be overdone unimaginatively. I quite like my own "Sequence 004: C Major Chord" , eg, even though it only uses C, E, & G. I had almost completely lost interest in harmony, eg, until I heard Monty Cantsin's "d composing Mozart" in wch only recordings of the endings of all of Mozart's symphonies are used - most of wch end on a D major chord - w/ a limited instrumentation. Both of these restraints might seem 'impossibly' limited but I find the results in both cases to be unique & interesting to listen to.

Claudio Spies spends 3pp on "Kol Nidre" & another 4 on "Dreimal Tausend Jahre, Op. 50a" , 1 of Schoenberg's 3 last compositions. Spies comments regarding the latter that:

"The fact that his music of those years had no publisher at the time makes it easier to understand how Schoenberg could accede to this suggestion [of having the score published in a limited fascimile edition], which involved no financial arrangements beyond a few complimentary copies."

This sortof thing fascinates me. Schoenberg was one of the most influential composers of the 20th century 'western' world, he was in his mid 70s, & he cdn't even get pd for the publishing rights for a new composition?! That's almost beyond astounding.. but it's no surprise at all. I've been in the same situation my whole life. Not that I'd equate myself w/ Schoenberg - I just mean that I can relate!

It seems at least somewhat the case that even today, 60 yrs after Schoenberg's death, people still know Schoenberg, if they 'know' him at all, as 'that atonal composer' - wch people seem to think they know the meaning of - but, as far as I can tell, often don't. &, yes, Schoenberg did pioneer atonal music.

(It's an interesting sidenote that Karl Schumann claims in the liner notes to a record entitled "Wirkung ser Neuen Wiener Schule im Lied" that Viennese composer Joseph Matthias Hauer "claimed to have experimented with the twelve-tone series before Schönberg.")

But Schoenberg was far from a one-trick pony. In the ±90 works of his that I've heard (not all of them have opus numbers - those only go up to 50 & often contain multiple works anyway) there's a substantial variety - much of it largely unknown I suspect. How many people have listened to Schoenberg's transcriptions/orchestrations of the work of other composers such as: Bach, Brahms, Busoni, Denza. Mahler, Monn, Reger, Schubert, Sioly, & Johann Strauss? Anyone who'd only listen to those wd have a very, VERY different impression of Schoenberg as a composer that has nothing to do w/ atonalism.

For myself, when I 1st learned about Schoenberg, maybe in 1971 or thereabouts, I was most interested in whatever was the most innovative. As such, when I heard works like "Pierrot Lunaire" I was delighted & when I heard “Verklärte Nacht” (both in 1974) I was a bit disappointed. In fact, Schoenberg was a bit too mainstream for my musical preferences & while I've always maintained a deep respect for him, I moved on to more adventuress composers pretty quickly. Many other people, on the other hand, seem to still have some sort of bias against him along these lines: "Schoenberg!, atonalism!, I hate that weird noise stuff!" w/o having any idea of what his music actually sounds like.

Finally, Robert Craft contributes more & Colin Mason discusses Schoenberg's orchestration of Bach. There're musical notation examples galore in all this pictures of Schoenberg. & having the recordings themselves is the crème de la crème! As if that weren't enuf, there's a recording of Schoenberg being interviewed by Halsey Stevens on the last side of the 2nd record.… (altro)

review of
The Music of Arnold Schoenberg Volume Eight
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 26, 2011


I only personally have volumes 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, & 8 in my collection so I'm unsure about the overall series but it seems to me that the series 'wound down' as it went along. Volumes 5, 6, & 7 (at least) no longer have bklts w/ the records & volume 8's bklt is considerably smaller (25pp) than those of volumes 2 & 3.

NONETHELESS, as a scholarly document this is still valuable. The complete text of "Von Heute auf Morgen" ("From Today 'til Tomorrow"), Schoenberg's 1928 one act comedic opera, is presented in both German & English - & that constitutes the majority of the bklt. But there're also more brief discussions by conductor Robert Craft of the other pieces on the 2 records: "De Profundis", "Modern Psalm", "Six Pieces for Male Chorus", "Eleven Choral Canons" (a collection seemingly especially compiled here), & "Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (after Monn)". Most of the work is probably in the category of 'little known' making any elucidation of it useful.… (altro)