Most Underrated Schoenberg Work

[Cosi bel do]

Gurrelieder are great ! Seriously people, it is at the same time a great work and not underrated at all if you look at the discography. It is not as frequently performed as it should be though, not much more than once or twice in all Europe every year I have not heard it (missed the previous performances) and am eagerly waiting for such a concert

If I had to consider what Schoenberg work is really underrated, I think I'd go with Erwartung. Yes, it's short, but it's a fabulous vocal work, and the fact it is short should in fact help it being frequently included in concert programs. Why it is not is a mystery to me. Even on record it is difficult to find good performances, except Silja/Dohnanyi, Norman/Levine, Janis Martin/Boulez (the best, I think) and a very few number of other, second rate performances.

[Karl Henning]

Gurrelieder are great ! Seriously people, it is at the same time a great work and not underrated at all if you look at the discography. It is not as frequently performed as it should be though, not much more than once or twice in all Europe every year I have not heard it (missed the previous performances) and am eagerly waiting for such a concert

If I had to consider what Schoenberg work is really underrated, I think I'd go with Erwartung. Yes, it's short, but it's a fabulous vocal work, and the fact it is short should in fact help it being frequently included in concert programs. Why it is not is a mystery to me. Even on record it is difficult to find good performances, except Silja/Dohnanyi, Norman/Levine, Janis Martin/Boulez (the best, I think) and a very few number of other, second rate performances.

I've heard the Gurre-Lieder twice accompanied by the BSO, and it is a rich, magnificent work.  It's no good despising it for not being [name a later Schoenberg work] any more than it is despising L'oiseau de feu for comparable reasons.

Erwartung, yes, a good point.  Pierrot is a bit easier to put together (21 discrete numbers, and smaller forces for the accompaniment).

[Karl Henning]

(Most overrated: Verklärte Nacht by a long shot.)

Start your own thread, buddy!

[Karl Henning]

Has anyone heard Die Gückliche Hand?

Die glückliche Hand is marvelously intense;  and (I think) a good suggestion for the thread.

[ritter]

Gurrelieder are great ! Seriously people, it is at the same time a great work and not underrated at all if you look at the discography. It is not as frequently performed as it should be though, not much more than once or twice in all Europe every year I have not heard it (missed the previous performances) and am eagerly waiting for such a concert

Well, we have Eliahu Inbal conducting the Spanish National Orchestra and Chorus this weekend in Gurrelieder!...The problem is, the chorus has been on strike on and off over the past several concerts (they did Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky last month with only twelve singers!    ), so I'll only get tickets when I'm certain I'll be getting the real thing...can't imagine a chamber version of Gurrelieder (except for the Lied der Waldtaube, of course  ).

[Cato]

But come now, compared with some of his later works - Moses und Aaron for example - this Gurrelieder is derivative and leads nowhere. Hence, overrated.

You've just contradicted yourself.  Because Schoenberg later composed Moses und Aron, it is bamboozelry to assert that the Gurre-Lieder "lead nowhere."  It is also a weaselly lapse into the "musical Darwinism" of which James is so fond.

I don't have the scores at hand right now, but Gurrelieder echoes several times in Moses und Aron and also in Jakobsleiter.   Klaus-Narr is not too far removed from Aron and is a first cousin to Der Aufrührerischer (The Revolutionary) in Jakobsleiter.  If one listens especially to the Klaus-Narr section of Gurrelieder back-to-back with the Revolutionary section of Jakobsleiter, the similarities will be very obvious.

Gurrelieder most definitely leads to those works and to others.

[Karl Henning]

I don't have the scores at hand right now, but Gurrelieder echoes several times in Moses und Aron and also in Jakobsleiter.   Klaus-Narr is not too far removed from Aron and is a first cousin to Der Aufrührerischer (The Revolutionary) in Jakobsleiter.  If one listens especially to the Klaus-Narr section of Gurrelieder back-to-back with the Revolutionary section of Jakobsleiter, the similarities will be very obvious.

Gurrelieder most definitely leads to those works and to others.

Indeed!  The superfluous politicization of Schoenberg aside, he did not write, later, in ways which at all "rejected" his earlier self.  He always remained essentially a High Romantic.

[Cato]

Gurrelieder (& Transfigured Night) bear the all-consuming influence of Wagner. Also a heavy Strauss influence. The tone-poem Pelleas und Melisande is Straussian (Strauss, of course was content to live off of Wagner's harmonic legacy, whereas Schoenberg surmised that it had been exhausted leading into new directions). One could almost say that without Wagner's work, Schoenberg wouldn't have turned out as he did. Schoenberg was a HUGE fan of Wagner. He hadn't really found his own voice in those earlier works yet. They aren't really representative.

See my above comments, as well as the below link to an analysis of Pelleas und Melisande where the name "Strauss" cannot be found. To be sure, Strauss had suggested the play to Schoenberg, but upon hearing the finished product, remarked that Schoenberg's only hope was a psychiatrist.  Apparently Strauss found the work not very Straussian.

http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft5t1nb3gn&chunk.id=d0e7395&toc.id=&brand=ucpress

On the other hand, Schoenberg himself thought very highly of Brahms: note his essay Brahms the Progressive.  See, e.g.

http://www.schoenberg.at/library/index.php/publications/show/6544

And without Wagner, all kinds of composers would have turned out quite differently!

[Mirror Image]

Indeed. If only conductors like Abbado, Boulez, Chailly, Craft, Del Mar, Gielen, Inbal, Jansons, Kegel, Kubelik, Levine, Mehta, Ozawa, Rattle, Salonen, Sinopoli, and Stokowski had recorded it. Oh, wait.. 

Zing! I love it! Good one, Karlo.

[Mandryka]

Indeed!  The superfluous politicization of Schoenberg aside, he did not write, later, in ways which at all "rejected" his earlier self.  He always remained essentially a High Romantic.

Can we focus on this a bit?  "Romantic" is not a clear idea really, maybe Karl could expand on it a bit. And "High"? What's that about?

And Karl, do you think the 3rd quartet is romantic? Or the suite for piano? Or what about the late trio?

There's something called expressionism. I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think it's supposed to be the same as romanticism or high romanticism is it?

Indeed!  The superfluous politicization of Schoenberg aside, he did not write, later, in ways which at all "rejected" his earlier self.  He always remained essentially a High Romantic.

Is this right: that Gurrelieder is consoling? And the later works are more disturbing? That's to say, after the 2nd quartet Schoenberg's vision of the world as expressed in his music is much less comfortable.

[xochitl]

ode to napoleon <3

[North Star]

ode to napoleon <3

An excellent candidate. 

[Karl Henning]

Very, very true. Even those who rejected him.

Sure. And the guy who broke wind influenced you, because you chose to leave the room.

[Karl Henning]

There's something called expressionism. I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think it's supposed to be the same as romanticism or high romanticism is it?

Well, in the sense that the Romantics believed in a sort of symbiosis between Word and Music, I think that Expressionism is not a break from, but one refinement of, Romanticism.

Still, there must be a musical Romanticism which applies to Absolute Music (or aren't the Brahms clarinet sonatas Romantic?)  So, yes, I think the Op.30 Quartet (with its Intermezzo movement!) quite Romantic.

And, like Brahms, Schoenberg not only wrote in a manner steeped in the Romantic, but made creative use of his inquiry into music history.

[Cato]

Well, in the sense that the Romantics believed in a sort of symbiosis between Word and Music, I think that Expressionism is not a break from, but one refinement of, Romanticism.

Yes, this is why e.g. Erwartung and Die Glueckliche Hand are seen as "Expressionist" operas: in general,one can say that the conscious emotionalism of the Romantic era is now taken into darker areas of the unconscious by the Expressionists: one sees this in the German Expressionist paintings in the same era, with violent images and unusual colors attempting to evoke or describe those parts of the psyche.

Underrated: Die Glueckliche Hand !

[North Star]

Yes, this is why e.g. Erwartung and Die Glueckliche Hand are seen as "Expressionist" operas: in general,one can say that the conscious emotionalism of the Romantic era is now taken into darker areas of the unconscious by the Expressionists: one sees this in the German Expressionist paintings in the same era, with violent images and unusual colors attempting to evoke or describe those parts of the psyche.

Underrated: Die Glueckliche Hand !

Speaking of underrated Schönberg and German Expressionist painting

[Cato]

Great example!  You could use that for the opening of the Five Pieces for Orchestra!

[Mandryka]

Well, in the sense that the Romantics believed in a sort of symbiosis between Word and Music, I think that Expressionism is not a break from, but one refinement of, Romanticism.

This is an area I know nothing about,  I'd like to know more. This relation between words amd music, can you suggest something for me to read?  I think one of J S Bach's most striking gifts is in expressing in music ideas which came out of liturgical texts and Lutherian exegesis.

[Karl Henning]

If you can grab this at your library, the chapters on Pierrot, Die glückliche Hand & Erwartung are good and juicy.

[asin]B003GAN21U[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

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.