Page 245 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

MODERN 1900–1950 243

See also: The Ring Cycle 180–187 ■ Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune 228–231 ■
Le Sacre du printemps 246–251 ■ Webern’s Symphonie, Op. 21 264–265 ■
Ionisation 268–269 ■ Gruppen 306–307

legacies of Haydn and Mozart, and
Wagner. He was not alone in trying
to find a new way of approaching
these legacies. In France, for
example, Erik Satie was producing
The expression, “atonal coolly detached and often static
music” is most unfortunate— music, and Claude Debussy was
it is on a par with calling developing his free-flowing style
swimming “the art of using the less dissonant of the
not drowning.” chromatic harmonies.
Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg
Embracing dissonance
In his early forays into atonality, Born in 1874 in Vienna to a
Schoenberg used chromatic chords Jewish family, Schoenberg
to create an ethereal atmosphere was primarily self-taught
through an unexpected but still in music but took theory
lessons with the composer
harmonious combination of notes. Alexander Zemlinsky, whose
the 17th century, was being However, his interest in the new sister, Mathilde, Schoenberg
stretched to its limits. In 1908, he expressionist movement of writers married. In 1898, he converted
also faced a personal crisis when and artists in Vienna led him to to Christianity, hoping for
his wife, Mathilde, had an affair with develop a starker musical language. greater acceptance in
the artist Richard Gerstl, who then Above all, he saw his task as the Viennese cultural life. His
committed suicide. Schoenberg’s “emancipation of dissonance,” first compositions, in a late
resulting sense of despair was allowing a dissonant chord to Romantic style, were well
reflected in a more chaotic, free stand by itself as a harmony, not received. In the 1920s, after
chromatic style, with little tonal as a “subsidiary” chord requiring his “middle period” rejection
structure, first in a setting of “Du resolution onto a consonance. This of traditional tonality, he
lehnest wider eine Silberweide” by was similar to Debussy’s use of invented a new method of
the German symbolist poet Stefan chromatic chords, but Schoenberg composition, systematically
George, and more dramatically in did not confine himself to mild using all 12 notes of the
chromatic scale.
his String Quartet No. 2, which dissonance; he also boldly used With the rise of Nazism,
moves in and out of keys, seemingly harsh and jarring dissonances. ❯❯ Schoenberg felt increasingly
at random, and adds the surprise vulnerable in Europe, and in
of a soprano voice to its third and 1933 he moved to the US,
fourth movements. having reverted to Judaism
Soon, Schoenberg recognized a during a short stay in Paris.
drawback to his new compositional He became a US citizen in
technique: while free chromaticism 1941 and spent the rest of
allowed a more varied harmonic It is the organization of a his life in California, where
range for emotional expression, piece which helps the listener he died in 1951.
it lacked the structural discipline to keep the idea in mind, to
of classical forms, such as the follow its development. Other key works
sonata, which are based mainly Arnold Schoenberg
on relationships between keys. 1899 Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4
1909 Erwartung, Op. 17
Schoenberg therefore set about 1926–1928 Variations for
finding a way to reconcile atonality Orchestra, Op. 31
with classical structure and 1930–1932 Moses und Aron
romantic expression—the opposing

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