German Expressionist Music

[Mirror Image]

I didn't see a topic for German Expressionist music, but now one exists! Throughout my seven years of listening to classical thus far, I have been constantly drawn to this 'style' of composition (if it is indeed a style) and my early exposure to Expressionist music was Bartok's The Miraculous Mandarin, which was one of those "lightbulb" works for me and changed my perception of music forever. But I have to ask you guys, what do you consider Expressionist music? What constitutes this style? What are its' origins in music? What Expressionist music means to me is music that pushes the idea the grotesque and the idea of horror in music to it's most extreme. This is rather a simplistic view, of course, but it seems to help me to try to capture what this style means or could possibly mean.

According to the BBC GCSE Bitesize website, Expressionism can be summed up this way:

The term Expressionism was originally borrowed from visual art and literature. Artists created vivid pictures, distorting colours and shapes to make unrealistic images that suggested strong emotions. Expressionist composers poured intense emotional expression into their music exploring their subconscious mind.

Expressionist music often features:

- A high level of dissonance
- Extreme contrasts of dynamics
- Constantly changing textures
- 'Distorted' melodies and harmonies
- Angular melodies with wide leaps

Would love to read all of your opinions of this style. Let's talk!

[Spineur]

I would say that expressionist art was mostly a reaction to french impressionism.  This is why you find it in northern europe and germany.

In music, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are often cited as expressionist musicians.  It depends which works.  Schoenberg gurre lieders are deep in the late romantic tradition and so is his Pelleas and Melisande.  Woezzeck and Lulu are perhaps the only works which I would recognize as expressionists works, more so than Bartok miraculous Mandarin.

[Mandryka]

The term Expressionism was originally borrowed from visual art and literature. Artists created vivid pictures, distorting colours and shapes to make unrealistic images that suggested strong emotions. Expressionist composers poured intense emotional expression into their music exploring their subconscious mind.

Electra, Salome, Frau Ohne Schatten. I bet something by Stockhausen fits the bill.

(I know it's not German but if you're interested in this sort of stuff you really must listen to Punch and Judy (Birtwistle) I  also wonder if parts of Peleas (Debussy) are like that BBC definition.)

[Mahlerian]

I would say that expressionist art was mostly a reaction to french impressionism.  This is why you find it in northern europe and germany.

In music, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are often cited as expressionist musicians.  It depends which works.  Schoenberg gurre lieders are deep in the late romantic tradition and so is his Pelleas and Melisande.  Woezzeck and Lulu are perhaps the only works which I would recognize as expressionists works, more so than Bartok miraculous Mandarin.

Works like Erwartung or the Five Pieces for Orchestra are the very definition of Expressionist music, I feel.

I think the characteristic moods of Expressionism, more than horror, are turbulence and a kind of dream-like ethereality.  Expressionism in music, as in painting, emphasizes subjective inner states rather than any reflection of the outside world as it actually is.  Richard Strauss and Mahler, although classified as Romantic, prefigured Expressionism in many parts of their works, both in its extremes of emotionality and in its stream-of-consciousness interpretation of form.

At the height of his Expressionist phase, Schoenberg said the following about his music:
Interviewer: "Yet with your harmonies being so unfamiliar, you really cannot take umbrage if they do not compel people at once," I said, in an attempt to defend the catcallers. "After all, you admit that some of your work sounds ugly because it is supposed to portray something ugly..."

Schoenberg: "No, no, not ugly by any means – just chilling, eerie. After all, what is beautiful or ugly in music? I don't think dissonances sound ugly."

When Schoenberg's music was first played, and baffled critics searched for comparisons in the art world, they jumped on cubism first, as Picasso had recently started making waves in Paris.  Later on of course, Picasso ended up being correlated with Stravinsky, while Schoenberg was linked with Kandinsky.

It's not as if the Expressionist painters didn't learn anything from Cubism, though.

[Mirror Image]

I would say that expressionist art was mostly a reaction to french impressionism.  This is why you find it in northern europe and germany.

In music, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are often cited as expressionist musicians.  It depends which works.  Schoenberg gurre lieders are deep in the late romantic tradition and so is his Pelleas and Melisande.  Woezzeck and Lulu are perhaps the only works which I would recognize as expressionists works, more so than Bartok miraculous Mandarin.

Expressionist music went beyond Germany and Austria of course. I feel Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin is an Expressionistic work based on what I believe this style encompasses. Berg's Three Pieces for Orchestra is also quite Expressionistic. Also, I agree with Mahlerian that Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra and Erwartung are also prime examples of this style.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I've heard Sibelius's 4th symphony was once referred to as an 'expressionist' work, although I'd like to hear what people here have to say about it. Much stronger levels of stark dissonance than many of his other works, as well as the psychologically driven stream-of-consciousness thing to which Mahlerian was referring in his post.

[timh1]

The book Expressionism in Twentieth Century Music by Crawford is worth reading.

[North Star]

I've heard Sibelius's 4th symphony was once referred to as an 'expressionist' work, although I'd like to hear what people here have to say about it. Much stronger levels of stark dissonance than many of his other works, as well as the psychologically driven stream-of-consciousness thing to which Mahlerian was referring in his post.

It seems a fair description, although what Salmenhaara calls introspective expressionism seems to me like it could be used to describe much of Sibelius' late music, particularly the stasis and development of the music.

The fourth symphony in A minor op. 63 is the work in which Sibelius comes closest to expressionism. But one must hasten to add: introspective expressionism (…) It was the psychoanalytical confession of the soul of a creative subject, and it could only be done once.

[Mandryka]

I've heard Sibelius's 4th symphony was once referred to as an 'expressionist' work, although I'd like to hear what people here have to say about it. Much stronger levels of stark dissonance than many of his other works, as well as the psychologically driven stream-of-consciousness thing to which Mahlerian was referring in his post.

Why more than the 7th? What do you people make of Schoenberg op 45? Or Ferneyhough Quartet 3?

[chadfeldheimer]

I think there are lots of examples of expressionist music or music that is influenced by that, some of which your can even find in contemporary music. Besides the already mentioned works from the 2nd viennese school, Bartok etc. there are many works by:

- Kurt Weill
- Hans Eisler
- BA Zimmermann
- Hans Werner Henze
- KA Hartmann
- Alfred Schnittke
- Hans Jürgen von Bose
- Heiner Goebbels

Even avantgarde works like "Eight Songs for a Mad King" by Peter Maxwell Davies, "1898" by Mauricio Kagel, "Le Grand Macabre" by György Ligeti or "Mikrofonie 2" by the already mentioned KH Stockhausen have a strong expressionistic influence. There are surely many more.

[Jo498]

Some of the early Hindemith might fit as well. Early Krenek. Schreker is probably between latest romantic style and expressionism.

[Mahlerian]

Why more than the 7th? What do you people make of Schoenberg op 45? Or Ferneyhough Quartet 3?

The Schoenberg String Trio, like a number of Schoenberg's late works, combines sections with an aesthetic closer to the 1910s and sections using the more traditional aesthetic of his 12-tone works.  The focus on sul ponticello and harmonics in the more turbulent sections gives the work a unique sound among Schoenberg's works, even though he had made much use of both techniques throughout his career.

One thing that does set the work apart from the others, but which isn't apparent to the listener, is that Schoenberg planned out the timing of the various sections in a way that some have compared to cutting a film.

[PerfectWagnerite]

I've heard Sibelius's 4th symphony was once referred to as an 'expressionist' work, although I'd like to hear what people here have to say about it. Much stronger levels of stark dissonance than many of his other works, as well as the psychologically driven stream-of-consciousness thing to which Mahlerian was referring in his post.

Where did you see that reference. THe work is a unique in its organic unity departure from what came before but hardly expressionistic in any sense of the word. There are parts of it totally mellifluous, almost dainty.

[James]

But I have to ask you guys, what do you consider Expressionist music? What constitutes this style? What are its' origins in music?

This is people attaching & stretching narrow tags to music after the fact, not much more. It bears little meaning to music.

[Mirror Image]

This is people attaching & stretching narrow tags to music after the fact, not much more. It bears little meaning to music.

Zzzzz.....oh, I'm sorry were you saying something important?

[Mandryka]

This is people attaching & stretching narrow tags to music after the fact, not much more. It bears little meaning to music.

Yes well he gave a really cute little definition of something taken from BBC in the first post. That's why I got involved.

[Mirror Image]

Electra, Salome, Frau Ohne Schatten. I bet something by Stockhausen fits the bill.

(I know it's not German but if you're interested in this sort of stuff you really must listen to Punch and Judy (Birtwistle) I  also wonder if parts of Peleas (Debussy) are like that BBC definition.)

Strauss' operas Elektra and Salome definitely fit the bill here. I can't say I'm familiar with Birtwistle's Punch and Judy, but I'm not really a big fan of his music as I gave all of my recordings of his music to a friend.

[Mandryka]

Strauss' operas Elektra and Salome definitely fit the bill here. I can't say I'm familiar with Birtwistle's Punch and Judy, but I'm not really a big fan of his music as I gave all of my recordings of his music to a friend.

This is something which I think is expressionist according to the BBC definition, bad sound and in German unfortunately

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sGwOXGwspXc

Strauss' operas Elektra and Salome definitely fit the bill here.

And Frau Ohne Schatten? Another one to think about is Turn of the Screw. Also maybe some things by Janacek, the second quartet, the mass.

Did Gesualdo write expressionist madrigals? Is Grosse Fuge expressionist? See how a definition can free you up.

[vandermolen]

Schulhoff managed to assimilate Dada/Expressionism. His Symphony 5, drawn to my attention through a contact on this site, is a marvellous score. Sadly he died in a Concentration Camp.

[Spineur]

Schulhoff managed to assimilate Dada/Expressionism. His Symphony 5, drawn to my attention through a contact on this site, is a marvellous score. Sadly he died in a Concentration Camp.

I wonder why the nazis were considering expressionist art as degenerate, while they were hording  impressionnist paintings from foreign museums into their private homes.