Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer known for innovating new musical styles in the 20th century. He began in the late Romantic period writing tonal works but became atonal in 1908, abandoning traditional harmony. From 1908-1923, he developed expressionist and atonal styles using the "emancipation of the dissonance." In 1912, he composed Pierrot lunaire which used sprechstimme, a sung-speech technique. In 1923, Schoenberg developed the twelve-tone technique or dodecaphony, a method of composition using a pre-determined series of all 12 notes. His students Berg and Webern formed the Second Viennese School and spread his influential serial

1. ARNOLD SCHOENBERG
(1874-1951)
Innovator of a new aesthetic to speak to
the 20th century

2. Romantic Period
 Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)
 1899
 String sextet
 Gurrelieder (Songs of Gurre)
 1901-1911
 Large ensemble
 Drama-symphony: transcends symphonic form
 Still tonal, but extremely chromatic

3. Atonal Period
 1908-1923
 Really ends in 1918
 Not based on harmony revolving around a
key
 “Emancipation of the dissonance”
 Where is the structure?

4. Expressionism
 Music should express inner feelings rather
than represent objects of external world as
they affect feelings
 Feelings might include: isolation,
fear, anxiety, tension
 The number of cheerful
expressionists is EXTREMELY
small!

5. MUNSCH – “The Scream”

6. Pierrot lunaire (Moonstruck Pierre)
 1912
 5 instrumentalists, 8 parts
 fl/pic, cl/bcl, vn/va, vc, pf
 21 song cycle in which singer poses as Pierre
 Sprechstimme
 sung-speech

7. THE SPEECH-SONG CONTINUUM
Speech - Rhythmic Speech - Limited Pitch - Song

8. Pierrot lunaire, NA 141, page 827
 No. 8: Nacht
 Passacaglia: rising minor 3rd, descending maj 3rd
 No. 13: Enthauptung (Beheading)
 Pierrot fears he will be beheaded by a moonbeam

9. Third Period (1923-1951)
 1918-1923: No composition
 Developed “dodecaphonic technique”
 Method of musical composition
 Based on serial ordering of 12 chromatic pitches
 Series of pitches called a “tone row”
 Reference for pitch appearance in the piece
 "Method of Composing with Twelve Tones Which
are Related Only with One Another" (Schoenberg)

10. Piano Suite, Op. 25, NA 142, page 837
 Full use of dodecaphony is in Piano Suite
 Use of contrapuntal techniques, new vocabulary
 Retrograde: tone row played backward
 Begin with last note and end with first note
 Inversion: change in melodic direction
 Retrograde inversion: Backwards and upside down

11. Other “Serial” works
 Violin Concerto (1936)
 Ode to Napoleon (1942)
 A Survivor from Warsaw (1947)

12. Lasting Influence
 Second Viennese School
 Students are Berg and Webern