Most Underrated Schoenberg Work

[Mandryka]

Part of M^acDonald's discussion of Erwartung is how practically nothing repeats, and everything springs from the text.  Which is what makes it so intense, and demanding, but Schoenberg pulls it off by sheer force of musical will.

I have ordered the book.

But what caught my atrention was your idea that a key aspect of romanticism is to do with a special text / music relationship.

[Cato]

I have ordered the book.

But what caught my attention was your idea that a key aspect of romanticism is to do with a special text / music relationship.

The best example of this is Wagner who wrote his own libretti/poems for his operas: one can assume that musical considerations may have guided the selection of certain words over others.

Also, things like Schubert's Die Winterreise are certainly to be included here. 

Of interest also is Goethe's dislike of "durchkomponierte Lieder."   (I have read somewhere of his complaint being used against Schubert's setting of Erlkönig.) He preferred the strophic style, but the "through-composed song," which elucidates the text without repetition (or not much, at least), might be considered part of the DNA of the tone-poem as developed by Liszt and others.

The tone-poem certainly shows a very special text-to-music relationship!

[Dax]

Herzgewachse anyone?

[Karl Henning]

Herzgewachse anyone?

Yes, exquisite!

As with the Weihnachtsmusik, perhaps any Schoenberg score with harmonium is less frequently performed, and perforce falls beneath the general radar . . . .

[Dax]

Let alone a score with also (only) harp and celesta with a high soprano part with a long quiet top F.

[not edward]

Yes, exquisite!

As with the Weihnachtsmusik, perhaps any Schoenberg score with harmonium is less frequently performed, and perforce falls beneath the general radar . . . .

A very long time ago, I went to a concert where, amongst other pieces, both Weihnachtsmusik and Herzgewachse were on the program (along with a miscellany of Webern and Berg). If I remember correctly, the encores were Die Eiserne Brigade and Schoenberg's arrangement of Funiculì, Funiculà, which is as good a definition of 'from the sublime to the ridiculous' as I think you'll get.

[snyprrr]

ok, so every work of Schoenberg's has now been mentioned???

[North Star]

ok, so every work of Schoenberg's has now been mentioned???

Don't tell me you couldn't anticipate this outcome originally. 

[Karl Henning]

It's just as snypsss always suspected!

[snyprrr]

It's just as snypsss always suspected!

They're always telling me, Do you want to be 'right', or do you want to be 'happy'?

Don't tell me you couldn't anticipate this outcome originally. 

coffee on monitor clean-up

[Wanderer]

ok, so every work of Schoenberg's has now been mentioned???

Naturally.

[Dax]

ok, so every work of Schoenberg's has now been mentioned???

Apart from all the ones which nobody likes.

[North Star]

Apart from all the ones which nobody likes.

You're just pushing people to mention the rest, now..

[Dax]

Indeed, you are the centre of gravity of your own solar system . . .

[not edward]

Apart from all the ones which nobody likes.

I mentioned Die eiserne Brigade.

[Cato]

Nicht zu vergessen: Die Brettl-Lieder

[asin]B00000412H[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Most overrated would probably be Pierrot Lunaire.
[Takes cover while Karl fetches Sarge's bazooka]

Given that Schoenberg more or less abandoned it,  perhaps even he underrated it. 

Well, I think you can make a good argument.  We might, indeed, agree that Stravinsky's famous encomium, the solar plexus of 20^th-c. music, was true in the sense of the listener's enthusiasm, but the first historical occasion of overrating the Op.21.

As you know, I love the piece, but I wonder if (like the Leningrad Symphony) it suffers a bit from its celebrity, both from a certain contrarian element in us seasoned listeners as a group, and from more people performing than are quite prepared to excel with it.

This is an interesting take, Glenn St-Gould & friends luxuriating in a slower tempo than most:

http://www.youtube.com/v/MWXZz7QYrlI

[Rons_talking]

I'll go with A Survivor of Warsaw. Narrated pieces typically get short shrift, but it's a fine work...

[Cato]

I'll go with A Survivor of Warsaw. Narrated pieces typically get short shrift, but it's a fine work...

Yes, a good choice!

Interesting comment about "narrated pieces" : Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait comes to mind.  Has it been given short shrift because having a narrator is off-putting?  I have no idea how often it is performed these days.  I suspect not as often as in earlier decades.

[Rons_talking]

I think the Lincoln Portrait is the exception. It's had such a glorious history of celebrity narrators; I do believe it's not fully appreciated for it's musical quality due to the narration. I know people who really dislike the piece due to its overt patriotic message. But in the context of when it was composed (WW2), and for its purpose, it seems a brilliant work to me.