Please take a handout. Listening Quiz: A. Piano Work by Arnold Schoenberg? B. That crazy Saunders playing random notes?

Please take a handout

Listening Quiz:Listening Quiz:A. Piano Work by Arnold Schoenberg?

B. That crazy Saunders playing random notes?

Marcel Duchamp, Replica of a Bicycle Wheel

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

Green Piece, performance art by Johann Bjogvinsson

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

Arnold Schoenberg

SerialismSerialism

Serial CompositionSerial Composition

Twelve-tone CompositionTwelve-tone Composition

Arnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg

I.I. SchoenbergSchoenberg’’s Late Romantic (Tonal) Periods Late Romantic (Tonal) Period

A. Until ca. 1908: Late or Post-Romanticism

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

I.I. SchoenbergSchoenberg’’s Late Romantic (Tonal) Periods Late Romantic (Tonal) Period

A. Until ca. 1908: Late or Post-Romanticism

B. Important Early Works: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) &

II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20)II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20)A. Schoenberg Rejects: 1. Rules of Simultaneity (=music not based on triads or

traditional chords)2. Rules for resolution of dissonance)

Guerrelieder

3. Rules of Progression

Kokoshka, “The Tempest”

Arise, O Mother of all sorrowsOn the altar of my verse!Blood from your thin breastHas spilled the rage of the sword.

You eternally fresh woundsLike eyes, red and open,Arise, O Mother of all sorrowsOn the altar of my verse!

Instrumental Interlude

In your thin and wasted handsYou hold the body of your SonTo show him to all mankindYet the look of men avoids You, O Mother of all sorrows.

“Madonna” from Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire

Arise, O Mother of all sorrowsOn the altar of my verse!Blood from your thin breastHas spilled the rage of the sword.

You eternally fresh woundsLike eyes, red and open,Arise, O Mother of all sorrowsOn the altar of my verse!

Instrumental Interlude

In your thin and wasted handsYou hold the body of your SonTo show him to all mankindYet the look of men avoids You, O Mother of all sorrows.

“Madonna” from Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire

Pierrot lunairePierrot lunaire and and SprechstimmeSprechstimme

I.I. SchoenbergSchoenberg’’s Late Romantic (Tonal) Periods Late Romantic (Tonal) Period

A. Until ca. 1908: Late or Post-Romanticism

B. Important Early Works: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) &

II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20)II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20)A. Schoenberg Rejects: 1. Rules of Simultaneity (=music not based on triads or

traditional chords)2. Rules for resolution of dissonance)

B. The Gains: 1. Freedom and Originality

Guerrelieder

2. Musical Language apt for Expressionist texts

3. Rules of Progression

I.I. SchoenbergSchoenberg’’s Late Romantic (Tonal) Period s Late Romantic (Tonal) Period A. Until ca. 1908: Late or Post-Romanticism

B. Important Early Works: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) &

II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20)II. Expressionist or Free Atonal Period (1908-20)A. Schoenberg Rejects: 1. Rules of Simultaneity

2. Rules of Progression

B. The Gains: 1. Freedom from rules of tonal composition

C. The Tradeoffs: 1. Tonal Expectation, tricks don’t operate

2. No Tonality as organizing principle

Guerrelieder

2. Musical Language apt for Expressionist texts

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

III. Serial Period ca. 1920-III. Serial Period ca. 1920-A. Serialism (a.k.a twelve-tone composition)= Compositional

method developed by Schoenberg with students: Alban Berg, Anton WebernB. Second Viennese School = Schoenberg, Berg, Webern

C. Serial Composition Basics1. 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

III. Serial Period ca. 1920-III. Serial Period ca. 1920-A. Serialism (a.k.a twelve-tone composition)= Compositional

method developed by Schoenberg with students: Alban Berg, Anton WebernB. Second Viennese School = Schoenberg, Berg, Webern

C. Serial Composition Basics1. 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 row7. Serial Composition = Decisions re: disposition of row8 Result = Perpetual Variation on Forms of Row

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

Line 2=original row

{P}

Line 10 {I-6}

Line 4 {I}

Line 9{P-6}

Line 3{R-0}

IV. IV. The Appeal of Serial CompositionThe Appeal of Serial Composition: : (Ordering vs. Content)(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

IV. IV. The Appeal of Serialism The Appeal of Serialism (cont.)(cont.)

A. New Unique Sound Universe for Each Piece

B. Logic, System

C. Richness of Abstract Note Relationships

(Ordering vs. Content)

Serial work = continuous variation of the row

Arnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg

Trio fromTrio from

Suite for Piano, Op. 21Suite for Piano, Op. 21

Listening Quiz:Listening Quiz:A. Piano Work by Arnold Schoenberg?

B. That crazy Saunders playing random notes?

Schoenberg:Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19 (no. 6)

Concert Programsand Paper due in Class Friday