A Thread for the Discussion of Schoenberg's Music

[Iota]

FWIW the first I heard the Op. 26 was the Craft/NY Woodwind Quintet, which sold me straight off.

Thanks, I'll have a listen to that and see where it leads.

That being said, I still find Op. 26 long-winded and flawed conceptually. As I reassess Schoenberg, my prevailing sentiment is that — despite an innovative harmonic language — he was somewhat backward-looking. There is a tendency in his early 12-tone works to "legitimize" the theory by shoehorning it into traditional forms. For example, the Quintet's first movement is in sonata form, which is based on tonal opposition. However, when used in a serialist work, the structure is stripped of its context and doesn't do anyone any favors.

Thankfully, Schoenberg eventually realizes this and strikes a much better balance in the late quartets and String Trio.

Very interesting! This may crystallise in a more sophisticated way than I could, my problems with the Wind Quintet. I will listen with your post in mind on my next visit.

[Mahlerian]

Even more lively is the New York Woodwind Quintet under the direction of Robert Craft. This performance really made the work "click" for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFQBaiaRMoQ&list=OLAK5uy_mzRCZiOOSOapt9NNun-7o7OAFYtis7-7U&index=7

That being said, I still find Op. 26 long-winded and flawed conceptually. As I reassess Schoenberg, my prevailing sentiment is that — despite an innovative harmonic language — he was somewhat backward-looking. There is a tendency in his early 12-tone works to "legitimize" the theory by shoehorning it into traditional forms. For example, the Quintet's first movement is in sonata form, which is based on tonal opposition. However, when used in a serialist work, the structure is stripped of its context and doesn't do anyone any favors.

Thankfully, Schoenberg eventually realizes this and strikes a much better balance in the late quartets and String Trio.

The late quartets also use "tonal" forms. There was a very good paper by Andrew Mead demonstrating that, pace Boulez and other critics of the idea of a 12-tone sonata form movement, the form of the first movement of the Wind Quintet is very much serial at its core, in such a way that the centricity around E-flat is emphasized by the serial structure. Pretty much all of the rows are related by fourth/fifth (and the quartal harmony is more prominent here than in other works of the time), so the relationship of the two theme statements being a fourth, as in a traditional tonal movement, is reflected at every level of the structure already (as it would be in tonal music).

So it doesn't matter that functional harmony isn't present, because like in that system, the surface relationships and the structural relationships are intimately tied together in an audible way (if they weren't, the recapitulation would not be recognizable as such when it arrives, because the music is not merely a repetition of the exposition, but a modified transformation of it).

The first movements of the Third and Fourth Quartets are also in "sonata form," and the String Trio even has something of a literal recapitulation (which none of the others have).

This is an oversimplification, but if I had to summarize the difference between the two largest strands of modernism in the early 20th century, I would say that:
Debussy's music preserves the vocabulary of common practice tonality, but not its grammar.
Schoenberg's music preserves the grammar of common practice tonality, but not its vocabulary.

That's why personally, I find the "sonata form" of the first movement of Debussy's La mer much less convincing as a sonata form (great work though it is) than the ones found in later Schoenberg. Forms depend on musical grammar to work properly.

[some guy]

You articulate the theory that explains the response of my ears. Thanks for that, Mahlerian!

Also, another "yes" for the Craft performance. That is the one I heard first, and one that I think is
buried in my (no longer mine) physical collection residing here at a friend's house where I am also
at the moment residing. (I live in Europe, but my medical insurance is for California, so when I got
cancer, I quick moved back to California. It's been lovely being with friends and surrounded by all
my old books and cds.)

[schnittkease]

The late quartets also use "tonal" forms. There was a very good paper by Andrew Mead demonstrating that, pace Boulez and other critics of the idea of a 12-tone sonata form movement, the form of the first movement of the Wind Quintet is very much serial at its core, in such a way that the centricity around E-flat is emphasized by the serial structure. Pretty much all of the rows are related by fourth/fifth (and the quartal harmony is more prominent here than in other works of the time), so the relationship of the two theme statements being a fourth, as in a traditional tonal movement, is reflected at every level of the structure already (as it would be in tonal music).

So it doesn't matter that functional harmony isn't present, because like in that system, the surface relationships and the structural relationships are intimately tied together in an audible way (if they weren't, the recapitulation would not be recognizable as such when it arrives, because the music is not merely a repetition of the exposition, but a modified transformation of it).

The first movements of the Third and Fourth Quartets are also in "sonata form," and the String Trio even has something of a literal recapitulation (which none of the others have).

This is an oversimplification, but if I had to summarize the difference between the two largest strands of modernism in the early 20th century, I would say that:
Debussy's music preserves the vocabulary of common practice tonality, but not its grammar.
Schoenberg's music preserves the grammar of common practice tonality, but not its vocabulary.

That's why personally, I find the "sonata form" of the first movement of Debussy's La mer much less convincing as a sonata form (great work though it is) than the ones found in later Schoenberg. Forms depend on musical grammar to work properly.

Thanks for the theory; that makes things much clearer. I suppose it could be argued (like Mead does very eloquently) that Schoenberg is not using sonata form at all, just another system that shares a few surface qualities. I came across an interesting take on this by Roger Sessions:

Interviewer: "I am going to ask you a question which I will phrase in such a way that it applies to Schoenberg; but, as you will realize, it could probably also be applied to your own music. But perhaps you will feel a little freer about answering it if I apply it to Schoenberg's music: what is your reaction to the criticism that you often read now in certain advanced circles that Schoenberg's twelve-tone music is really a kind of mixed bag, and that he is still trying to apply a new harmonic system to an outmoded rhythmic and formal structure? (By formal I mean phrase-structure, rhythm in the largest sense, not just the fact that he may use sonata-form.) Does Schoenberg employ nineteenth-century methods from which the post-Webern school has since freed twelve-tone music?"

Sessions: "I could say a great deal about that. Naturally I've thought about it a good deal, and I'm perfectly willing to answer it in relation to my music, too. In the first place I would say that this raises criteria which are completely irrelevant. I don't think historical, much less pseudo-historical, criteria are artistic criteria at all. Secondly, I would say that Schoenberg didn't ever use the sonata-form in any real sense of the word. I think the sonata-form has been given very rough definitions that have very often missed the essentials. In fact, one of the essentials of the sonata-form is tonal structure. It is an absolutely ironbound, built-in condition of the sonata-form; if you don't have the tonal structure, you don't have the sonata-form."

(Cone, Edward T., and Roger Sessions. "Conversation with Roger Sessions." Perspectives of New Music, vol. 4, no. 2, 1966, pp. 44-45.)

I agree with a lot of what Sessions says here. Many musicologists atomize sonata form to the point where the term begins to lose its meaning. For example, I wouldn't label the ending of the String Trio as a "recapitulation" just because it restates material from earlier in the piece (and I don't think you would either). In reality, Schoenberg's music attempts preserves the grammar of common practice tonality, but is only partially successful is doing so due to the nature of his vocabulary.

Still, I don't see why Schoenberg felt the need to mimic traditional sonata form so closely in his Wind Quintet.  The repeated "exposition," for example, just seems like a waste of time. Subsequent works aren't nearly as explicit in their imitation.

[Mahlerian]

Thanks for the theory; that makes things much clearer. I suppose it could be argued (like Mead does very eloquently) that Schoenberg is not using sonata form at all, just another system that shares a few surface qualities. I came across an interesting take on this by Roger Sessions:

Interviewer: "I am going to ask you a question which I will phrase in such a way that it applies to Schoenberg; but, as you will realize, it could probably also be applied to your own music. But perhaps you will feel a little freer about answering it if I apply it to Schoenberg's music: what is your reaction to the criticism that you often read now in certain advanced circles that Schoenberg's twelve-tone music is really a kind of mixed bag, and that he is still trying to apply a new harmonic system to an outmoded rhythmic and formal structure? (By formal I mean phrase-structure, rhythm in the largest sense, not just the fact that he may use sonata-form.) Does Schoenberg employ nineteenth-century methods from which the post-Webern school has since freed twelve-tone music?"

Sessions: "I could say a great deal about that. Naturally I've thought about it a good deal, and I'm perfectly willing to answer it in relation to my music, too. In the first place I would say that this raises criteria which are completely irrelevant. I don't think historical, much less pseudo-historical, criteria are artistic criteria at all. Secondly, I would say that Schoenberg didn't ever use the sonata-form in any real sense of the word. I think the sonata-form has been given very rough definitions that have very often missed the essentials. In fact, one of the essentials of the sonata-form is tonal structure. It is an absolutely ironbound, built-in condition of the sonata-form; if you don't have the tonal structure, you don't have the sonata-form."

(Cone, Edward T., and Roger Sessions. "Conversation with Roger Sessions." Perspectives of New Music, vol. 4, no. 2, 1966, pp. 44-45.)

I agree with a lot of what Sessions says here. Many musicologists atomize sonata form to the point where the term begins to lose its meaning. For example, I wouldn't label the ending of the String Trio as a "recapitulation" just because it restates material from earlier in the piece (and I don't think you would either). In reality, Schoenberg's music attempts preserves the grammar of common practice tonality, but is only partially successful is doing so due to the nature of his vocabulary.

Still, I don't see why Schoenberg felt the need to mimic traditional sonata form so closely in his Wind Quintet.  The repeated "exposition," for example, just seems like a waste of time. Subsequent works aren't nearly as explicit in their imitation.

Thanks for the clarification.

One of my composition teachers defines sonata form so strictly that he doesn't consider any of Mahler's music to use it, or anything after Brahms at all really. I definitely understand where that point of view is coming from; it's true that neither Mahler nor Schoenberg used the classical form, but they both modified it to suit their own languages.

Anyway, this is getting away from my intent in the thread by going a little too much into abstract theory.

[schnittkease]

What do you guys think of the Suite, Op. 29? That's probably Schoenberg at his most playful.

[Karl Henning]

What do you guys think of the Suite, Op. 29? That's probably Schoenberg at his most playful.

Love it!  Great colors.

[TheGSMoeller]

What do you guys think of the Suite, Op. 29? That's probably Schoenberg at his most playful.

Love it!  Great colors.

I agree - playful, colorful. I especially love how A.S. utilizes the three clarinets.

[Iota]

I would say that:
Debussy's music preserves the vocabulary of common practice tonality, but not its grammar.
Schoenberg's music preserves the grammar of common practice tonality, but not its vocabulary.

Thanks, that's a very clarifying analogy! Both #41 and #43 make interesting reading.

+1 to all the Op.29 Suite comments above, a scintillating and charming piece.

[Mahlerian]

What do you guys think of the Suite, Op. 29? That's probably Schoenberg at his most playful.

Not my favorite Schoenberg work (and on the playful side I'd choose the Serenade Op. 24, myself), but I do really like this recording:

[schnittkease]

Not my favorite Schoenberg work (and on the playful side I'd choose the Serenade Op. 24, myself), but I do really like this recording:

My favorite is Boulez's 1959 Domaine musical recording. Tempos are very fast and the playing, while not the cleanest in the world, is amazingly intense.

https://www.youtube.com/v/LMkZxBiJoQk