3 S’s: Schoenberg, Serialism and The Second Viennese School

1. 3 S’s:Schoenberg, Serialism andThe Second Viennese School Please take a handout

2. Listening Quiz: A. Piano Work by Arnold Schoenberg? B. That crazy Saunders playing random notes? That's Music??

3. Marcel Duchamp, Replica of a Bicycle Wheel

4. Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means something, language of a flow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is. Respectable girl meet after mass. Thanks awfully muchly. Wise Bloom eyed on the door a poster, a swaying mermaid smoking mid nice waves. Smoke mermaids, coolest whiff of all. James Joyce, Ulysses

5. Green Piece, performance art by Johann Bjogvinsson

6. Arnold Schoenberg: Trio from Suite for Piano (1924)

7. Arnold Schoenberg

8. Serialism Serial Composition Twelve-tone Composition Arnold Schoenberg

9. Schoenberg’s Late Romantic (Tonal) Period A. Until ca. 1908: Late or Post-Romanticism 1 2 3 5 7 8 4 6

10. Schoenberg’s Late Romantic (Tonal) Period A. Until ca. 1908: Late or Post-Romanticism B. Important Early Works: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) & Guerrelieder II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20) Schoenberg Rejects: 1. Rules of Simultaneity (=music not based on triads or traditional chords) 2. Rules for resolution of dissonance) 3. Rules of Progression

14. Kokoshka, “The Tempest”

16. “Madonna” from Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire Arise, O Mother of all sorrows On the altar of my verse! Blood from your thin breast Has spilled the rage of the sword. You eternally fresh wounds Like eyes, red and open, Arise, O Mother of all sorrows On the altar of my verse! Instrumental Interlude In your thin and wasted hands You hold the body of your Son To show him to all mankind Yet the look of men avoids You, O Mother of all sorrows.

18. “Madonna” from Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire Arise, O Mother of all sorrows On the altar of my verse! Blood from your thin breast Has spilled the rage of the sword. You eternally fresh wounds Like eyes, red and open, Arise, O Mother of all sorrows On the altar of my verse! Instrumental Interlude In your thin and wasted hands You hold the body of your Son To show him to all mankind Yet the look of men avoids You, O Mother of all sorrows.

19. Pierrot lunaire and Sprechstimme

20. Schoenberg’s Late Romantic (Tonal) Period A. Until ca. 1908: Late or Post-Romanticism B. Important Early Works: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) & Guerrelieder II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20) Schoenberg Rejects: 1. Rules of Simultaneity (=music not based on triads or traditional chords) 2. Rules for resolution of dissonance) 3. Rules of Progression B. The Gains: 1. Freedom and Originality 2. Musical Language apt for Expressionist texts

21. Schoenberg’s Late Romantic (Tonal) Period A. Until ca. 1908: Late or Post-Romanticism B. Important Early Works: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) & Guerrelieder II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20) Schoenberg Rejects: 1. Rules of Simultaneity 2. Rules of Progression B. The Gains: 1. Freedom from rules of tonal composition 2. Musical Language apt for Expressionist texts C. The Tradeoffs: 1. Tonal Expectation, tricks don’t operate 2. No Tonality as organizing principle

22. Schoenberg: “There is no form without logic, no logic without unity”

23. III. Serial Period ca. 1920- Serialism (a.k.a twelve-tone composition)= Compositional method developed by Schoenberg with students: Alban Berg, Anton Webern B. Second Viennese School = Schoenberg, Berg, Webern C. Serial Composition Basics 1. Serial composition based on a 12-note series (row, set) 2. Series or row contatains all 12 pitches used only once 0 2 4 5 7 9 11 1 3 6 8 10

24. III. Serial Period ca. 1920- Serialism (a.k.a twelve-tone composition)= Compositional method developed by Schoenberg with students: Alban Berg, Anton Webern B. Second Viennese School = Schoenberg, Berg, Webern C. Serial Composition Basics 1. Serial composition based on a 12-note series (row, set) 2. Series or row contatains all 12 pitches used only once 3. Series = 12 pitches ordered in particular order 4. Four forms of the row: original {P}, retrograde {R}, inversion {I}, retrograde inversion {RI} 5. Transposition does not change basic row (index numbers) 6. Set complex=48 possible forms of the row 7. Serial Composition = Decisions: which form? Disposition? 8 Result = Perpetual Variation on Forms of Row

25. Arnold Schoenberg: Trio from Suite for Piano (1924) Line 10 {I-6} Line 2=original row {P} Line 9 {P-6} Line 4 {I} Line 3{R-0}

28. IV. The Appeal of Serial Composition: (Ordering vs. Content) • Tonal Music based on Content • sound possibilities similar for all pieces (sound familiar?) • Serial Music based on Ordering order fixes available intervals ∴ each row produces a different sound world

29. IV. The Appeal of Serialism (cont.) (Ordering vs. Content) A. New Unique Sound Universe for Each Piece B. Logic, System C. Richness of Abstract Note Relationships Serial work = continuous variation of the row

32. Arnold Schoenberg Trio from Suite for Piano, Op. 21

33. Listening Quiz: A. Piano Work by Arnold Schoenberg? B. That crazy Saunders playing random notes? Schoenberg:Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19 (no. 6)

34. Concert Programs and Paper due in Class Friday