Schoenberg's Sheen

Started by karlhenning, April 12, 2007, 07:35:28 AM

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snyprrr

Do we have word on the new SQs 3-4 on Naxos, featuring the Fred Sherry Quartet?

snyprrr

Quote from: snyprrr on October 24, 2010, 08:39:57 PM
Do we have word on the new SQs 3-4 on Naxos, featuring the Fred Sherry Quartet?

Nobody? :'(

Scarpia

I've been listening to the Chamber Symphony No 2, and I feel more and more strongly that this is Schoenberg's masterpiece.  What I love about it is the utterly free counterpoint.  The first movement was written before Schoenberg defined his serial composition method and the piece was finished afterwards.  To me it doesn't sound as though it is consciously "atonal" it just sounds as though the voices have escaped tonality and sing unencumbered. 

I have several recordings of the piece that I enjoy, but the one I am listening to now is particulary beautiful, by Michael Gielen.


Mirror Image

Quote from: Il Barone Scarpia on April 05, 2011, 11:50:23 AM
I've been listening to the Chamber Symphony No 2, and I feel more and more strongly that this is Schoenberg's masterpiece.  What I love about it is the utterly free counterpoint.  The first movement was written before Schoenberg defined his serial composition method and the piece was finished afterwards.  To me it doesn't sound as though it is consciously "atonal" it just sounds as though the voices have escaped tonality and sing unencumbered. 

I have several recordings of the piece that I enjoy, but the one I am listening to now is particulary beautiful, by Michael Gielen.



I think the Chamber Symphony No. 2 is one of Schoenberg's masterpieces. It's an excellent work no doubt. The orchestration of that work is top-notch. His Piano Concerto has become one of my favorite works by him lately. I need to get another recording of this work as the only one I own is the Emmanuel Ax/Salonen performance on Sony, which is excellent, but I would like to hear another interpretation of it. I see that Brendel is out-of-print and quite expensive, have you heard any other performance of this concerto that you enjoyed? Thanks in advance.

Scarpia

#284
Quote from: Mirror Image on April 06, 2011, 06:51:04 PM
I see that Brendel is out-of-print and quite expensive, have you heard any other performance of this concerto that you enjoyed? Thanks in advance.

This is the only recording of the piece that I have heard, and I don't feel the need to hear another.   Brendel has at least one prior recording of the piece, and there is an Uchida recording with Boulez (I generally don't prefer her recordings) but I think this recording is worth any reasonable price.


CD

What does everyone (who's heard it) think of the Wind Quintet?

Mirror Image

Quote from: Il Barone Scarpia on April 06, 2011, 07:27:47 PM
This is the only recording of the piece that I have heard, and I don't feel the need to hear another.   Brendel has an earlier recording of the same piece on Vox, I think.

Don't like the concerto, eh? Actually, Brendel's first account was on DG with Kubelik conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony.

Scarpia

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 06, 2011, 07:31:56 PM
Don't like the concerto, eh? Actually, Brendel's first account was on DG with Kubelik conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony.

You've taken me the wrong way.  I think this performance is so good that I feel any other recording will superfluous.  I find the Piano Concerto to be one of Schoenberg's more interesting pieces.

Mirror Image

Quote from: Il Barone Scarpia on April 06, 2011, 07:35:47 PM
You've taken me the wrong way.  I think this performance is so good that I feel any other recording will superfluous.  I find the Piano Concerto to be one of Schoenberg's more interesting pieces.

Well, you didn't necessarily make your opinion that clear. ;) You should've said that Brendel's performance is so good that you doubt any other performance would top it.

I personally like having multiple recordings of the same work. There are some instances where I feel very strongly about one performance (i. e. MTT's performance of Janacek's Glagolitic Mass), but there's still a lingering suspicion floating around my mind that I may very well find one that betters my favorite.

karlhenning

Quote from: Corey on April 06, 2011, 07:31:20 PM
What does everyone (who's heard it) think of the Wind Quintet?

Top-shelf Schoenberg!

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Apollon on April 07, 2011, 03:23:39 AM
Top-shelf Schoenberg!

If so, I prefer to keep it on a shelf that's too high for me to reach. I (regretfully) have to agree with "arid." I really feel that at least his initial discovery of the row tended to constrict S's imagination in a way not found in the freely atonal works between opp. 11-22 or so.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

CD

I agree with sfz — if it were maybe half the length it would be a bracing, challenging listen. At almost 40 minutes it puts me to sleep. But I'm willing to keep trying!

karlhenning

Not much use to you gents, I know . . . I just took to the piece straight off.  I find it brilliantly executed, nervy & strong, and that it wears its scale well.

Scarpia

Quote from: Apollon on April 07, 2011, 06:12:48 PM
Not much use to you gents, I know . . . I just took to the piece straight off.  I find it brilliantly executed, nervy & strong, and that it wears its scale well.

Well, us lightweights can try it one movement at a time.   0:)

mjwal

Mirror Image wrote:
>>I think the Chamber Symphony No. 2 is one of Schoenberg's masterpieces. It's an excellent work no doubt. The orchestration of that work is top-notch. His Piano Concerto has become one of my favorite works by him lately. I need to get another recording of this work as the only one I own is the Emmanuel Ax/Salonen performance on Sony, which is excellent, but I would like to hear another interpretation of it. I see that Brendel is out-of-print and quite expensive, have you heard any other performance of this concerto that you enjoyed? Thanks in advance.<<
Apart from finding Glenn Gould's version on Sony a very illuminating approach, I must recommend Steuermann's performance with Scherchen (1954) as the classic recording by an artist involved in the historic movement. I can't seem to find it online - perhaps because it was a radio performance; I taped it from the Hessian radio some time ago. You will find the discographic reference here:
http://www.fonoteca.ch/green/discographies/Scherchen.pdf - it used to be on Arkadia CD, it seems. -  By the way, Brendel's first version was indeed on Vox, it may be found in the 35 CD complete early Brendel box by Brilliant; one reviewer calls it the "marvelously spiky, thrilling recording of Arnold Schoenberg's Piano Concerto." I have heard it but sooo long ago...
The Violin's Obstinacy

It needs to return to this one note,
not a tune and not a key
but the sound of self it must depart from,
a journey lengthily to go
in a vein it knows will cripple it.
...
Peter Porter

Leo K.

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 06, 2011, 07:49:03 PM
Well, you didn't necessarily make your opinion that clear. ;) You should've said that Brendel's performance is so good that you doubt any other performance would top it.

I personally like having multiple recordings of the same work. There are some instances where I feel very strongly about one performance (i. e. MTT's performance of Janacek's Glagolitic Mass), but there's still a lingering suspicion floating around my mind that I may very well find one that betters my favorite.

I really LOVE this one:




Mirror Image

Does anybody know what killed Schoenberg? I can't find anything on this. Thanks.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Quote from: Mirror Image on June 10, 2011, 09:18:11 PM
Does anybody know what killed Schoenberg? I can't find anything on this. Thanks.

I think it was either a stroke or heart attack. But what is interesting - and creepy - are the circumstances surrounding his death.

Schoenberg was a lifelong triskadecaphobic (afraid of the number 13). It was 1951, and his 76th birthday was coming up. Since 7+6=13, he was deathly afraid something might happen to him on that day. When the day came, he stayed home, keeping mostly to his bed. As the clock approached midnight, he began to relax a little - maybe he would escape whatever Fate had in store for him. At 11:47 PM, that is 13 minutes before midnight, he died. His last word was "harmony."
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

Luke

Quote from: Velimir on June 11, 2011, 12:20:05 AM
I think it was either a stroke or heart attack. But what is interesting - and creepy - are the circumstances surrounding his death.

Schoenberg was a lifelong triskadecaphobic (afraid of the number 13). It was 1951, and his 76th birthday was coming up. Since 7+6=13, he was deathly afraid something might happen to him on that day. When the day came, he stayed home, keeping mostly to his bed. As the clock approached midnight, he began to relax a little - maybe he would escape whatever Fate had in store for him. At 11:47 PM, that is 13 minutes before midnight, he died. His last word was "harmony."

Not quite, he didn't die on his birthday, and he was already 76. But he did die on Friday 13th. Wiki says:

QuoteSchoenberg 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.

...I'd add, BTW, he wouldn't number bar 13 in his scores, but would call it 12a...

QuoteHis 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).

Mirror Image

Quote from: Velimir on June 11, 2011, 12:20:05 AM
I think it was either a stroke or heart attack. But what is interesting - and creepy - are the circumstances surrounding his death.

Schoenberg was a lifelong triskadecaphobic (afraid of the number 13). It was 1951, and his 76th birthday was coming up. Since 7+6=13, he was deathly afraid something might happen to him on that day. When the day came, he stayed home, keeping mostly to his bed. As the clock approached midnight, he began to relax a little - maybe he would escape whatever Fate had in store for him. At 11:47 PM, that is 13 minutes before midnight, he died. His last word was "harmony."

I'm aware of the circumstances surrounding his death, but I wanted to find out his cause of death. Every article I've read doesn't mention this at all. It seems that many composers have died with undisclosed information.