Biography
Undoubtedly the most famous and influential member of the Second Viennese School (see also Berg and Webern), Arnold Schoenberg revolutionised composition technique in the twentieth century and developed the ‘twelve-note system’ that is considered of great importance.
He was a great believer in personal expression and tried to instil this ethic in all his students.
Yet he also stressed the importance of structure and discipline and wrote a university textbook called ‘Harmony Method’ which remains in use today.
He was always seeking to express pure emotion yet never felt that he achieved this in his own work, which caused him great frustration and dissatisfaction, driving him constantly to push against and experiment with the musical boundaries of the day.
His music can either be very seductive, if the listener is following the composer’s moods and feeling, or an aural nightmare, if one is looking for a pretty tune with a nice development section.
While Schoenberg is often seen as being a composer’s composer, his music can be accessible to the non-musician if the background and idealism of the man is given due consideration.
Verklärte Nacht
1899, Orchestral
In 1896 one of the most distinguished poets of the day, Richard Dehmel, published a collection of poems called ‘Woman and World’, with a powerful expressionist work opening the book. It told the story of a couple walking through bare, cold woods while the woman is telling the man that she pregnant, and not by him. Expecting him to be angry, she is surprised when he is overjoyed at the news and embraces her fondly, telling her of the ‘special warmth’ that he now feels for her.
The twenty-four-year-old Schoenberg, who was a passionate man, was deeply moved by this poem and instantly wanted to work it into some musical form. There is a story that he finished the whole piece during a three-week holiday in a mountain village south of Vienna, though it has now been proven that, in reality, he spent about three months on the five-part composition. It was initially written, interestingly enough, for a string sextet.
The first section has a repeated plodding bass tone, over which a falling phrase is played while high violins suggest a moonlit night. The second section begins with an agitated rhythm that suggests the guilt of the woman’s words, though this is soon replaced by a nostalgic theme for the cellos that is answered by a solo violin and viola. It has often been thought that this particular passage was a representation of the woman’s longing for the joys of motherhood. By the third part, the lovers are walking again. We come to the man’s reply in the fourth section, where the woman’s tension and worry is replaced by a great tenderness, building to a passionate climax. The whole work concludes with a similar passion.
Pelléas und Mélisande
1903, Orchestral
In 1901 the twenty-eight-year-old Schoenberg decided to move to Berlin because he felt he would find it far easier and more enjoyable making a living there. All in all, it turned out to be a good and prosperous decision for he soon found himself in the company of Richard Strauss, who helped him get a teaching job at one of Berlin’s leading music schools as well as acquiring a substantial amount of money for him from the Liszt Fellowship. It was also Strauss who suggested that Schoenberg might write an opera around the story of Pelléas and Mélisande by Maeterlinck. After much consideration, he decided that he would rather write a symphonic poem than an opera, and set to work.
Looking back, it seems incredible that Schoenberg received any acclaim for his work at all, for Debussy had already produced a fantastic opera of the drama earlier that year (though Schoenberg didn’t know this), Fauré had written some incidental music on the same theme four years previously, and Sibelius brought out his version in 1905.
The symphonic poem is made up of four parts. In the first we see Mélisande’s husband, Prince Golaud, discover his wife crying by a lake in a forest. Here we hear a Fate theme on a bass clarinet which will recur throughout the work. Mélisande’s theme is played on a solo oboe. Later the mood changes as Pélleas enters the scene, musically represented by a brilliant trumpet solo that is ‘knightly and youthful’.
In the second movement there is an interesting musical combination of two events from the drama. The two lovers are by a well and Mélisande is playing with her wedding ring, which unfortunately falls through her fingers into the well at exactly the same time as her husband has a terrible fall from his horse. Schoenberg combines the Prince Golaud theme with the Wedding Ring theme in one great crash of trombones and kettle-drums to reproduce the individual events perfectly.
The third movement is slow and generally represents the passion and feeling between the two lovers.
The finale brings us the scene of Mélisande’s death, the tragedy of which is conveyed by long notes from the lowest instruments in the orchestra, as long descending lines of woodwinds get softer and softer.