#dodecaphony

Igor Stravinsky

( 17 June 1882 - 6 April 1971 )

Arnold Schoenberg, Suite for Piano, Op. 25 (1921-23)

Schoenberg gets a really bad rap, even sometimes among people that like his music. He has this image in the culture as the ultimate revolutionary, the guy who “liberated dissonance” or destroyed tonality or whatever (I’m leaving aside my issues with the tonality/atonality dichotomy, my issues with which are fodder for another post...).

Anyway.

Schoenberg tried very, very hard to contextualize his work as a logical extension of certain developments in German music (he was very much influenced by Wagner, Brahms, Mahler) and he saw himself as a part of a tradition of Germanic music-making that went all the way back to J. S. Bach (or further). He was both an avantgardist and not, and so he felt for very good reason that nobody at the time understood what he was doing. And this is on particularly good display in this Suite, which is a collection of Baroque dances. The forms have been updated and modified, yes, but they are still recognizable. And this is a significant, deliberate statement when you consider that this is S’s first deployment of his infamous “method of composition with twelve tones related only to one another” for the duration of an entire piece.

Oh, yes, the twelve-tone method. The spookiest, scariest, most controversial compositional technique of the 20th century. (To relate to my earlier point - the twelve-tone method itself is an elaboration of renaissance and baroque contrapuntal techniques...) There’s another post in unpacking that whole beautiful fascinating mess. 

Connotations for orchestra has been a turning point in Aaron Copland's career. Career that took a hard hit the evening of the premiere. The score is in twelve-tone style. At the time, the audience was not ready for such a revolutionary Copland!

Connotations for orchestra (1962) has been a turning point in Aaron Copland’s (1900-1990) career. Career that took a hard hit the evening of the premiere.The score is in twelve-tone style, rhythmically disjunctive, for a full orchestra with augmented percussion and piano. At the time, the audience was not ready for such a revolutionary Copland. A concert for a new opening Bernstein was in…