Neuerscheinungen
Simms, Bryan R. The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg 1908-1923.
New York: Oxford University Press 2000
ISBN 0-19-512826-5
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Abbreviations
Chapter 1: Atonality and the Critical Imagination
Chapter 2: Schoenberg's Evolution toward Atonality
Chapter 3: Settings of the Poetry of Stefan George. Opp. 10, 14, and 15
Chapter 4: Small Instrumental Works: Opp. 11, 16, and 19 and Three Pieces
for Chamber Orchestra
Chapter 5: The Operas Erwartung and Die glückliche Hand
Chapter 6: New Uses of the Voice: Herzgewächse, Pierrot lunaire, and Four
Songs, Op. 22
Chapter 7: On the Road from Earth to Heaven: Symphony and Die Jakobsleiter
Chapter 8: Composing with Tones: Five Piano Pices, Op. 23, and Serenade,
Op. 24
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Abstrakt
This book contains a historical and analytic protrait of Arnold Schoenberg's
atonal music, a body of some fifteen major compositions and numerous fragments
created between 1908 and 1923. These include such masterpieces as Pierrot
lunaire, the opere Erwartung Five Orchestra Pieces, Op. 16, and songs
from Stefan George's Book of the Hanging Gardens. The atonal works are
distinguished from the composer's earlier compositions by their lack of
traditional key, among many other innovative features, and stand apart
in style and compositional technique from his later works composed according
to his twelve-tone method. My presentation of this complex musical oeuvre
rests both on a close analytic study of the works themselves and a review
of the historical circumstances through which they came into being, by
which I hope to show how the musical language of this period in Schoenberg's
creative life continually evolved to reflect his personal circumstances
and changing artistic outlook. The music is also a product of its time,
coming on the heels of the collapsing romantic style, persisting through
the angst-ridden period before and after World War I, and reaching its
own end in the materialistic and cynical atmosphere of the 1920s. This
book is shaped also by an assessment of the many writings that already
exist on the subject. In attempting to cope with the remarkably large
literature on each of Schoenberg's atonal compositions (see the Bibliography
for examples), I have attached the greatest importance to Schoenberg's
own writings, in which the composer provocatively addresses the constructive
and expressive content of his music, including its atonal phase. To the
extent possible I also comment upon and synthesize other important critical
and analytic points of view, despite the great diversity of method and
objective that characterizes this literature. Schoenberg was himself well
aware of the ambiguities and limitations inherent in any analysis of a
musical work, especially an atonal composition. In a lecture of 1932 on
the Four Orchestral Songs, he cautiones his listeners in a way that the
author of this book can only echo: "I would not have you believe, ladies
and gentlemen, that with this analysis all aspects of this section have
been elucidated. ...I state what I see, as far as I am able to express
it. Yet in the end, this is still a path on which one must feel one's
way, step by step, with the tip of one's toes." I am indebted in the writing
of this book to the staff of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute at the University
of Southern California, especially to Leonard Stein, director of the institute,
and to its archivists Clara Steuermann (1922-82), Jerry McBride, and R.
Wayne Shoaf. Their work since 1976 with the composer's literary and musical
legacy has been indispensable to every major study of Schoenberg undertaken
after that time. I am also grateful for the assistance of my wife, Charlotte
E. Erwin, who read the entire manuscript and had many recommendations
for its improvement, and for the help of Eika Vorndran, who checked the
accuracy of the German texts.
