Schoenberg, Berg or Webern!

[Thatfabulousalien]

Let's see the results: 

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Jeez this is a tough one. I love all 3 of them. But I guess I'll vote Berg, because I have never heard anything from him that I disliked.

[Mahlerian]

For me personally, Schoenberg is the most well-rounded of the three, has the deepest oeuvre, and the widest range of expression.  He wrote masterpieces in every major genre (except ballet, although some of his music has been choreographed) and his keen mind and potent sense of melody and harmony were consistently applied throughout even his lesser works.

Berg wrote the best operas of the Second Viennese School, Webern the most delicate of chamber works, but Schoenberg wrote excellent operatic works such as Erwartung and Moses und Aron in addition to the most intimate of works like Herzgewachse and the Six Little Pieces for Piano.  His string quartet cycle has few peers in the 20th century for dramatic power and lyrical expression, while his Jakobsleiter and Gurre-Lieder present tableaux of the most overwhelming force imaginable.  In the range of his influence and the strength of his oeuvre, as well as in his tenacity in the face of incomprehension and derision, Schoenberg was the 20th century's Beethoven.  His true popularity may lie in the future even now, but the height of the idiotic hatred of his work lies in the past.

[Sergeant Rock]

Arnie

[Ken B]

For me personally, Schoenberg is the most well-rounded of the three, has the deepest oeuvre, and the widest range of expression.  He wrote masterpieces in every major genre (except ballet, although some of his music has been choreographed) and his keen mind and potent sense of melody and harmony were consistently applied throughout even his lesser works.

Berg wrote the best operas of the Second Viennese School, Webern the most delicate of chamber works, but Schoenberg wrote excellent operatic works such as Erwartung and Moses und Aron in addition to the most intimate of works like Herzgewachse and the Six Little Pieces for Piano.  His string quartet cycle has few peers in the 20th century for dramatic power and lyrical expression, while his Jakobsleiter and Gurre-Lieder present tableaux of the most overwhelming force imaginable.  In the range of his influence and the strength of his oeuvre, as well as in his tenacity in the face of incomprehension and derision, Schoenberg was the 20th century's Beethoven.  His true popularity may lie in the future even now, but the height of the idiotic hatred of his work lies in the past.

I guess I disagree with almost every word of this, except your pick. Schoenberg at his best was a great and sensitive composer. This is a dead easy call.

And of course he did write atonal music. 

[Mahlerian]

I guess I disagree with almost every word of this, except your pick. Schoenberg at his best was a great and sensitive composer. This is a dead easy call.

You have some grounds for disagreement here, or are you just being contrarian?  I know all of Schoenberg's works; I can hum them and the themes are always going through my mind.  The harmonies of, say, the piano pieces Op. 11 or the gorgeous timbre of the Piano Concerto's lyrical slow movement give me goosebumps every time.  He and his work are a constant inspiration to my own and I only wish that I were able to write a single piece with as much vitality as his Violin Concerto.  To just say that you disagree is irrelevant unless you show that you have some real basis on which to disagree with what I've said.

All of these composers were great and sensitive, but Schoenberg was the best of them.

[Todd]

Whoever wrote Lulu.

[kishnevi]

Berg, the only one of the three with whose music I connect with all the time, and which makes me want to hear it again.
Webern I simply have yet to come to terms with.
The only music of Schoenberg I like is stuff such as Verklarte Nacht and Gurrelieder:  I just can't connect with his later work.

This is, as the phrasing above should imply, purely subjective.

[SharpEleventh]

I haven't listened to Berg and Webern enough to say. Schoenberg is the most annoying and abrasive but also has the best tunes.

[Karl Henning]

Whoever wrote Lulu.

There's reasons she never wrote back.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Ken B]

You have some grounds for disagreement here, or are you just being contrarian?  I know all of Schoenberg's works; I can hum them and the themes are always going through my mind.  The harmonies of, say, the piano pieces Op. 11 or the gorgeous timbre of the Piano Concerto's lyrical slow movement give me goosebumps every time.  He and his work are a constant inspiration to my own and I only wish that I were able to write a single piece with as much vitality as his Violin Concerto.  To just say that you disagree is irrelevant unless you show that you have some real basis on which to disagree with what I've said.

All of these composers were great and sensitive, but Schoenberg was the best of them.

Those the only choices, contrarian or musicologist? 

I dislike much music you praise. I need to write a treatise to justify that? Perhaps you can start with 100 pages on the failings of Dvorak's 9th, or Gorecki's 3rd.

[Mahlerian]

Those the only choices, contrarian or musicologist?

No, I'm saying that you have not shown any evidence of grounds for informed criticism, and you're saying that you disagree with what I said; how can you disagree if you don't know the reasons I have for my statements, and how can you know my reasons if you don't know enough about the music itself to be able to call to mind its salient features?

This is the equivalent of comments about the stature of War and Peace being dismissed by someone who skimmed a Cliff'sNotes version, without any argument presented.  You can't just say you disagree without showing that you're basing that on something other than an emotional reaction to what I said (or you could, but, you know, that's anti-intellectual and just all around bad for discourse and discussion).

I dislike much music you praise. I need to write a treatise to justify that? Perhaps you can start with 100 pages on the failings of Dvorak's 9th, or Gorecki's 3rd.

Dislike is irrelevant here.  That's not what we're talking about.

[Ken B]

No, I'm saying that you have not shown any evidence of grounds for informed criticism, and you're saying that you disagree with what I said; how can you disagree if you don't know the reasons I have for my statements, and how can you know my reasons if you don't know enough about the music itself to be able to call to mind its salient features?

Dislike is irrelevant here.  That's not what we're talking about.

Actually like and dislike are what we are talking about. But I'll amend for clarity. "I disagree with pretty much all the musical preferences you express here, except for your pick."

[Mahlerian]

Actually like and dislike are what we are talking about. But I'll amend for clarity. "I disagree with pretty much all the musical preferences you express here, except for your pick."

I've been told before that I don't have anything in common with the people who dislike Schoenberg in terms of aesthetic.

But on the contrary, our aesthetics are very close indeed.

I love:
- Beauty
- Piquant harmonic twists
- Lyricism
- Memorable melodies that linger in the mind
- Emotional nuance and resonance
- Dramatic power
- Development across the span of a work
- Contrapuntal treatment in the service of the above
- Rhythmic vigor

And the only difference is that I perceive these things in Schoenberg, just as I do in Mozart, Mahler, Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy, Machaut, Monteverdi, and other greats of the past.

[Ken B]

I've been told before that I don't have anything in common with the people who dislike Schoenberg in terms of aesthetic.

But on the contrary, our aesthetics are very close indeed.

I love:
- Beauty
- Piquant harmonic twists
- Lyricism
- Memorable melodies that linger in the mind
- Emotional nuance and resonance
- Dramatic power
- Development across the span of a work
- Contrapuntal treatment in the service of the above
- Rhythmic vigor

And the only difference is that I perceive these things in Schoenberg, just as I do in Mozart, Mahler, Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy, Machaut, Monteverdi, and other greats of the past.

Now all that I can agree with!

[arpeggio]

I am really interested in what others are saying and I have learned a lot.

For the record, if anyone really cares, twenty years ago I would have picked Berg.  Now I do not know.

[Mirror Image]

Berg without question. When I heard Wozzeck and Three Pieces for Orchestra for the first-time, I simply could not fathom how powerful this music was and how it just completely enraptured me.

[some guy]

The correct answer, as it often is, is "yes."

Another "yes" thread, woo hoo!

(I just wish Lulu would write me back. I really like that girl.)

[Monsieur Croche]

The correct answer, as it often is, is "yes."

Another "yes" thread, woo hoo!

(I just wish Lulu would write me back. I really like that girl.)

Well, who in their right mind would not want at least a lunch date with Lulu, eh? (Woo-hoo, indeed!)

Uh, oh :-) The opposite of the above pithy (and deathly accurate) response, simply qualifying my preferences, while somewhere below is, "...as if there really is one set of criteria that would have any of them 'top dog' composers over the others."

Quoting Elliott Carter re: when he was asked why he hadn't at all essayed (no extant pieces, anyway) the Second Viennese school of serialism, he said (of Schoenberg) that he had looked into it, but the more he looked he became even less interested because it was, "Just more of that old Brahms stuff."  He was, I think, extremely canny in this quip.  (A bit later, while still with some reservations, Carter's main influence from these Viennese composers was the music of Webern.)

Schoenberg is for me the most directly late Germanic-romantic of the three, not that he did not leave a marvelous and rich body of resonant works.  It is exactly because of their more truly 'old-fashioned' nature that I find his music of lesser interest, or more 'distant,' than works by his two most famous students, or, as the man said, "Just more of that old Brahms stuff."

Berg is another truly late romantic while the expressionist aspect and in some works, the concise and intense / dense formalism aligns him a bit more toward Webern (mine only, not a musicological dictum) who also wrote a body of tremendous works... of which I am extremely fond.  No matter he was also 'romantic,' but regardless of the constructs or methods in his works (all the serial works highly planned and deeply structured to the extreme of the Nth degree), his music sounds to me almost entirely spontaneous where almost all of Schoenberg does not.  It is a quality named, not a criticism, that Schoenberg always sounds to me rather 'labored (as does a lot of Brahms).  I don't think that quality at all diminishes their stature; rather, highly structured or other, I place the import of sounding spontaneous high on my list of criteria of music I value most.  (I don't know where that leaves me re: Webern, lol.) Later generations of performers have brought that quality of spontaneity to renderings of the music of all three, BTW.

When it comes to the criteria game of who produced works in the gamut of genres (even if you include Bach's cantatas and oratorios in lieu of the protestant reformation's more than a little frowning upon theater and opera, Mozart wins this game hands down over anyone you would care to name....)  If using this measure, one has to take into account the relative lifespans of each and how much of that life was spent merely surviving times of severe civil strife and the massive unrest of two world wars.  Schoenberg died at age 77, Webern at 62, Berg at 50.  All three lived through the strife of major civil upheavals and then WWI; Berg died prior WWII, Webern during, while Schoenberg managed to flee mainland Europe in 1933 (to England) and then to the United States in 1934.  Such circumstances, with 'more' of them for Berg and Webern, each with less allotted life spans than Schoenberg, are bound to have taken a toll on their overall productivity.

Webern's time line is earlier filled with first earning a doctorate in musicology prior his formal studies of composition, while Schoenberg, sans any formal studies or formally awarded degrees, short-tracked all that and was already a 'professor' in place when, post musicology doctorate, Webern went for his composition degree.  After that schooling, a lot of conducting jobs filled much of his time.  Schoenberg's earlier self study and career start, including fairly quick and ready employment as a music theory / comp professor and his fleeing Austria/Germany in 1933, were felicitous and a relatively clearer road compared to the hurdles and interruptions his students endured.  Certainly, these things take away from being able to continually compose.

Webern I find the most engaging and interesting (yeah, it is a G.Damned poll and I actually voted), having all the lyric qualities very much a part of the legacy shared by all three, while being in form and intent far and above the most breakaway 'modern' compared to Schoenberg or Berg.  (Webern's music later influenced Schoenberg.)

I don't find it at all surprising that the two more old-style composers of these three early 20th century modernists are so far also the most popular in this poll, and I expect that will be the end result, too.

At the least, I love all three, Berg and then Webern I suppose the most... as if there really is one set of criteria that would have any of them 'top dog' composers over the others.

As far as influence, Schoenberg is first and seminal, having bearing on Berg and Webern while also having an impressive enough roster of famed former students.  Webern's influence touched on his teacher Schoenberg (lol), as well as such a vast array of composers from later eras enough to argue which of the two had greater affect on the musical world.  I'd call it a tie, with the added fillip that Schoenberg was the primary innovator.

[SharpEleventh]

Berg is another truly late romantic while the expressionist aspect and in some works, the concise and intense / dense formalism aligns him a bit more toward Webern (mine only, not a musicological dictum) who also wrote a body of tremendous works... of which I am extremely fond.  No matter he was also 'romantic,' but regardless of the constructs or methods in his works (all the serial works highly planned and deeply structured to the extreme of the Nth degree), his music sounds to me almost entirely spontaneous where almost all of Schoenberg does not.  It is a quality named, not a criticism, that Schoenberg always sounds to me rather 'labored (as does a lot of Brahms).  I don't think that quality at all diminishes their stature; rather, highly structured or other, I place the import of sounding spontaneous high on my list of criteria of music I value most.  (I don't know where that leaves me re: Webern, lol.) Later generations of performers have brought that quality of spontaneity to renderings of the music of all three, BTW.

Can you say what is it that makes something sound "labored" or spontaneous (as opposed to actually being spontaneously/laborously composed)  to you? Or is it inexplainable?