Expressionism & Arnold Schoenberg

Expressionism This is a style developed in the early 20th Century as a reaction to the late Romantic era and composers such as Brahms and Wagner. Both composers were moving further away from the more classical ways of writing music, by using more chromatics (#’s & b’s) and less cadences which signify a key e.g. G major. This was making the music more emotional, and full of suspense.

Features The Expressionist movement was strongest in Germany at the end of the 1st World War. There was a strong feeling of disillusionment and discontent regarding living conditions and restrictions imposed on the country. Artist, writers and composers wanted to express there emotions through their art form. They can often make you feel uncomfortable!

Schoenberg Born in Vienna, Austria 1874 Played the violin Taught Berg & Webern. Was a Jew (but adopted Protestantism for a few years) His music was condemned by the Nazis His music did not really take off, he often tried to convince major composers and conductors of the time with little success. He started writing atonal music when his wife left him for his friend an artist. (sad!)

Features of Expressionism Atonal – using all 12 notes/ no key Each piece expresses one intense emotion Full use of pitch range of instruments, - extreme registers Extreme dynamics – ppp – ffff Pieces are often quite short – difficult to write an interesting long piece with no key or structure.

Peripetie from ‘Five Orchestral pieces’ ‘Peripetie’ is the 4th movement It was written when Richard Strauss (another famous composer) offered to take a new piece to fellow composers – they didn’t like it! Schoenberg did not want to give his works titles – he thought the music should speak for itself. His publisher made him. ‘Peripetie’ is Geek for ‘sudden changes’. The sudden changes are in Timbre (instruments) and Texture.

‘Peripetie’ was written for a large orchestra so he could produce contrasts with texture, dynamics & timbre. It is written for quadruple woodwind (4 per section) 3 flutes & piccolo 3 clarinets & bass clarinet 3 bassoons & contrabassoon 3 oboes & cor anglais A large brass section, with and without mutes. A large percussion section – cymbals, timpani, xylophone & of course strings Flute Piccolo clarinet Bass clarinet bassoon contrabassoon Oboe Cor anglais

Important features The parts are very challenging to play A lot of wide leaps, use of the lowest to the highest register of all the instruments. There is no conventional structure – although it is like a ‘free’ Rondo with contrasting textures & tempo. Use of melodic fragments (very short melodic ideas) Use of complicated fragmented rhythms Atonal Use of a hexachord (a group of 6 unrelated different notes) which create dissonances, either played at the same time like a chord, or one after the other like a short melody. (The remaining 6 semitones are called a compliment) The melody is passed around different instruments. It is made up of 5 sections

Every instrument gets to play but alone. Section Description A Every instrument gets to play in families e.g. all strings, but only for a bar or 2 Flutes & clarinets play a short motif – made up of a hexachord. Fanfare like horns marked ff Tempo & rhythm- sehr rash (very quick) contains mostly triplets, sextuplets and demisemiquavers. Rubato clarinet plays an expressive melody. Instrumentation/Texture – full orchestra, homophonic & solo sections. Use of mutes on brass for timbre effects Pitch/melody – Atonal, angular & dissonant leaps. Full pitch range heard. Dynamics – sudden loud bursts. Ranges from fff to pp. B Every instrument gets to play but alone. Has a very thick texture Starts off very quietly Different rhythms which overlap A more frantic section emphasised by high cellos and busy textures in percussion & wind. A1 Variation to A. Return of a hexachord on the horns A menacing mood C Bassoon tune, taken over by the cello & double bass Tempo – alternates between ruhiger (calmer) & heftig (passionate) Sparse texture – with solo instruments overlapping Dynamics- range from pp-fff. A few Loud semi quaver passages A2 Another variation of A Instrumentation – builds up from clarinets & strings to the full orchestra. Double bass play tremolo chord in very high register. Tempo/rhythm – speeds up with use of triplet motifs. Dynamics – crescendos very quickly from pp to fff & immediately dies away to finish with a pp chord

The contrasts Peripetie is very dramatic! Sudden changes in timbre, dynamics and texture which make it exciting. Wide range and extreme dynamics and pitch. Texture – polyphonic, contrapuntal & sparse solo sections Quick changes between instrumental families. Complex rhythms/note lengths, demi-semiquavers to semibreves.

Then came …..Serialism After 5 orchestral piece, Schoenberg created a new Compositional style called the tone row, in which he would use all 12 notes available and put them in a random order creating a Prime order. To gets more notes/orders, the composer would then, play the prime order backwards which would be called retrograde. This would continue until you have enough notes to write a piece. Serialist technique: Prime Order (12 notes in any order) Retrograde – (backwards) Inversion – (prime order upside down) Retrograde inversion – (backwards upside down) Prime order transposed – (order moved up or down by a certain interval) Etc.