Schoenberg vs. Webern vs. Berg

[Cato]

Talk about overheated!

I just re-listened to Webern's youthful Im Sommerwind which I heard for the first time in a humid recording from the late '60's.

Tristanesque/Siegfried-Idyllean, plus a good deal of the aromas from Richard Strauss and Schoenberg and even Scriabin float by.

One of my little Seventh-Grade roosters came by and listened to it for a moment and said: "Hey, I like that!"

Of course, who knows whether he is schmoozing the teacher or not?    

(First rule of education: trust nobody!)

Anyway, I have to agree with Sarge above: Schoenberg's the man!

Of course, you always have to agree with Sarge!    

[bhodges]

Just bumping up this topic since I see one of my favorite Schoenberg fans has logged on!    How goes it?  (You have mail...)

--Bruce

[karlhenning]

Oh, and here I wondered who had survived the Punishing Smack-Down! 

[bhodges]

Oh, and here I wondered who had survived the Punishing Smack-Down! 

I suspect they have obliterated each other after driving at high speeds in major key neighborhoods, ending up in a fiery multiple-tone collision. 

--Bruce

[karlhenning]

. . . and there are hexachords all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.

[Charles]

AHHHH!  Bruce! You found me!      

Well, do I need to answer this one?     OK ....

ALBAN BERG

At first I was more interested in Schoenberg, he got me started, then I found out about Webern and was very impressed. At that time Berg was to me, too old fashioned and backwards, and at that time before I understood the serial technique more fully, I was taken aback by his liberal use (or non-use) of the compositional system set forth by Schoenberg. Cut quickly into the future, after becoming more familar and seasoned with classical music (and using my ears more than my brain) in general I found I was more taken with Berg's music than either his teacher's or even Webern's.

This is not a major comeback ... but I would like to post here more often!! Gotta get in shape and do the right thing!

A big hello to everyone ... I knew I needed a 2nd Viennese School thread to wake me from my slumber. 0:)

Charles

[bhodges]

Hey, nice to see you!    Not that there aren't plenty of Berg fans running around here, but we need the fan club's president back! 

--Bruce

[Charles]

Hey, nice to see you!    Not that there aren't plenty of Berg fans running around here, but we need the fan club's president back! 

--Bruce

grazie Bruce!

[karlhenning]

Ciao, Carlo!

[Charles]

Ciao, Carlo!

Ah! Ciao Karl! Come sei stato in questi giorni?

Carlo

[kristopaivinen]

How come Hanns Eisler is so rarely mentioned as a part of the Second Vienna School? I suspect this is not only because he was younger from the others, but also because his atonal works weren't different enough from Schoenberg's in terms of style, whereas Berg created a language of his own using tonal elements, and Webern took Schoenberg's aesthetic to its extreme. I'm not convinced that Eisler had the ability to constantly create works of genius like the others, but I still see him as quite a competent composer. I hate to say this, because of his commitment to communism, but I don't know how I could deny it.

[mjwal]

To me Eisler is a great composer - and ranks with Berg, Webern, Roberto Gerhard or Skalkottas as a Schoenberg pupil of genius. He is probably not mentioned in Anglo-Saxon countries so much because he was a communist sympathiser (who became a resident of the GDR, unlike Brecht). He experienced great disappointment in and with that country. I must point out, though, that only part of his output is dodecaphonic. The works that I love best are a) the lieder of the Hollywood Songbook, mostly very melodious, wry and achingly sad b) some of the great agit-prop recordings with Ernst Busch and others, the Brecht setting "O Fallada, da du hangest" being perhaps the most spin-chilling political song of the 20th C c) the wonderful ensemble music he was writing in the 30s and 40s (Suite No.5, Nonett No.1 and 2, Op.70 "Vierzehn Arten, den Regen zu beschreiben" etc), only some of which contains dodecaphonic elements - this is music of mid-20th C urban life that delights and charms as much as a Chaplin film, and in fact the Septet No. 2 is called "Zirkus"and contains music originally planned for the Chaplin film d) his last  masterpiece, Ernste Gesänge, containing elements of a) b) and c), plus a tragic element like that you find in the Deutsche Sinfonie (not completely successful IMO) and some use of 12-tone series. Just listen to this last great song-cycle: it is nothing at all like Schoenberg, though Eisler learned much from the older man. Of course, a full understanding requires some insight into the texts, which have not yet been translated for an international audience, and the historical moment of its composition. But even if you don't have that insight yet, the music is both light and sad, unbearably moving at the "utopian" end - you know he knows the free society he longs for isn't going to happen...

[Lethevich]

If we are getting into other early serialists/pupils, could anyone comment on Hans Erich Apostel, Josef Matthias Hauer and Fritz Heinrich Klein (all those middle names sure are a pain)? I've heard a smattering of piano music by them, but not enough to understand anything about their style.

Edit: mjwal - you might be right about Eisler's reception abroad - I do prefer Hartmann's music, despite both of them having an equal "dissident" status. Perhaps I just prefer more conventional tonality, though.

[Mirror Image]

I chose Berg I appreciate the music more. I've already expressed my opinion of Berg's music, so I'm not going to launch into another tangent about why I like Berg more. This said, I do admire Schoenberg and Webern a lot, but I like Webern's music more than I do Schoenberg's.