Rhythmic Structure in Schoenberg's Atonal Compositions

Abstract

PRIOR TO HIS FIRST atonal ventures, Schoenberg had been actively composing for over ten years. Up to the time of the song cycle Op. 15, begun in 1908, his music maintained tonalities and structures based on i9th-century models. After the Lieder Op. 22, completed in 1916, he evolved the twelve-tone technique as a method of organizing music. Only the relatively few works completed within this eight-year period, therefore, are strictly atonal in that they were written without any previously articulated methods of procedure. A number of different stages can be noted within this short period. The first stage contains those compositions still preserving traces of tonal structures: the songs Op. 15 (1908-9), the first two of the piano pieces Op. i i (i 909), and the first four of the orchestral pieces Op. 16 (i 9o9). Vestiges of tonality reveal themselves in: (i) octave doublings in the bass, which strengthen the overtones; (2) voice leading in half-steps, which gives the illusion of harmonic movement; and (3) the recapitulation of opening material at the original pitch, which clearly delineates principal and subsidiary areas. The song cycle even contains scattered tonal progressions, and a few major triads. The second stage of atonality begins with the 'elimination of all thematic repetition, the so-called athematic compositions, where virtually no material ever returns. The first works written in this manner are the final movements of both Op. ix and Op. 16 (1909), and Erwartung Op. 17 (i909). Erwartung is Schoenberg's only lengthy work in an athematic style, incidentally a venture he never attempted again. The third stage is represented by the radically reduced form, which offers a temporary solution to the problem presented by the nonstructural elements of athematic composition. These works are the unfinished orchestral pieces (19 io),1 the piano pieces Op. 19 (1911 ), Herzgew?ichse Op. 20 (1911), and Pierrot Lunaire Op. 21 (I912). Pierrot Lunaire contains 21 separate numbers, the longest 45 bars. Some of these are athematic, while others return to recognizable themes which are developed and varied in a traditional manner.