Expressionism, Pantonality& Arnold Schoenberg(1874 … · Arnold Schoenberg(1874 –1951) •Expressionismin Arts& Music • Expressionistart triesportrayingstrong negativeemotionssuchas

Expressionism, Pantonality &

Arnold Schoenberg (1874 – 1951)


• Austrian (later American) composer, theorist, mostly

associated with his innovations in modern music;

atonality & 12-tone composition

• 1874 Vienna – 1951 Los Angeles

• Self-taught; independentlty and intensely

studied the works of the masters

• Until he departed for America in 1934,

lived alternatively in Berlin and Vienna,

teaching as a professor of composition


• 3 stylistic periods

• Extension of tonality (until around 1908)

• Atonality (1908-1921)

• 12-Tone Composition (1921 & on)

• Schoenberg’s early style of writing grew out

of the late German Romantic tradition of

Wagner, Mahler and Strauss.


• Listening (early Schoenberg);

• Verklarte Nacht Op.4 (‘Transfigured Night’) – 1899

• String Quartet No.1 in D minor, Op.7 - 1905

• Chamber Symphony No.1 – 1906

• ‘Developing Variation’ – (Eroica influence)


• Listening (early Schoenberg);

• Verklarte Nacht Op.4 (‘Transfigured Night’) (excerpt) – 1899


• Expressionism in Arts & Music

• Expressionist art tries portraying strongnegative emotions such as fear, hatred andloneliness. In order to portrsy thesesubjective emotions artists and composerswould use highly experimentaltechniques.

• Depicting real objects in distortedrepresentations to reflect the inner feelingabout the world and themselves

• In the case of Schoenberg, this meantwriting music in a highly dissonant, rhythmically and melodicallyfragmentary, nonthematic style. Scream – Edward Munch


• Schoenberg & Atonal Expressionism

• Atonal music is music without any tonal

center ( a central pitch) and without a

governing set of rules concerning the pitches

to each other in harmony and melody.

• Schoenberg considered breakdown of

tonality (he didin’t liked the term atonality)

a historical necessity; a product of the

evolution toward dissonant harmony;

abolishing the distinction between

consonance and dissonance.

• Other factors related to personal life

(Mathilde & Richard Gerstl)


• Listening (Schoenberg & Atonality)

• String Quartet No.2 Op.10 (last movement)

• «I feel wind from other planets» Stefan George

• Book of Hanging Gardens Op.15

• 15part song cycle based on poems by Stefan George

• Initiation to love, its consummation and destruction

• Five Orchestral Pieces Op.16

• Erwartung Op.17

• Pierrot Lunaire Op.21

• Nacht & Enthaptung

• Sprechstimme (speech-voice)


Listening (Schoenberg & Atonality)

• String Quartet No.2 Op.10 – Movement IV ‘Entrückung’ (excerpt)

portrait by Richard Gerstl

Entrückung

Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten.

Mir blassen durch das dunkel die gesichter

Die freundlich eben noch sich zu mir drehten.

Und bäum und wege die ich liebte fahlen

Dass ich sie kaum mehr kenne und du lichter

Geliebter schatten—rufer meiner qualen--

Bist nun erloschen ganz in tiefern gluten

Um nach dem taumel streitenden getobes

Mit einem frommen schauer anzumuten.

Ich löse mich in tönen, kreisend, webend,

Ungründigen danks und unbenamten lobes

Dem grossen atem wunschlos mich ergebend.

.

Rapture

I feel wind from other planets.

I faintly through the darkness see faces

Friendly even now, turning toward me.

And trees and paths that I loved fade

So I can scarcely know them and you bright

Beloved shadow—summon my anguish--

Are only extinguish completely in a deep glowing

In the frenzy of the fight

With a pious show of reason.

I lose myself in tones, circling, weaving,

With unfathomable thanks and unnamed love

I happily surrender to the great breath.


« The word ‘atonal’ could only signify something entirely inconsistent

with the nature of tone… to call any relation of tones atonal is just as

farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or

acomplementary. There is no such antithesis.»

• Pantonality

Franz Marc

Vassily Kandinsky



• Five Orchestral Pieces Op.16 (excerpts)





8) Night

Black gigantic butterflies

have blotted out the shining sun.

Like a sorcerer’s sealed book,

the horizon sleeps in silence.

From the murky depths forgotten

vapours rise, to murder memory_

Black gigantic butterflies

have blotted out the shining sun.

And from heaven toward the earth,

sinking down on heavy pinions,

all unseen descend the monsters

to the hearts of men below here...

Black gigantic butterflies.





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Expressionism, Pantonality& Arnold Schoenberg(1874 … · Arnold Schoenberg(1874 –1951) •Expressionismin Arts& Music • Expressionistart triesportrayingstrong negativeemotionssuchas