Schoenberg's String Research Articles

Homage to Schoenberg and Bartók: Symmetry, Transpositional Combination and Octatonicism in the First Movement of Roberto Gerhard's Quartetto No. 3

ABSTRACTThe first movement of Roberto Gerhard's Quartetto No. 3 (ca. 1927), his final assignment under Schoenberg, represents a direct homage to the teacher. Gerhard finished the movement with a clearly identifiable allusion to the minor and major chords that close Schoenberg's String Quartet in F♯ minor No. 2, Op. 10 (1907–8). Furthermore, he employed the four‐note set resulting from the fusion of these chords (pc set 4–17) as the movement's generative idea, expanding its main structural properties, namely inversional symmetry and transpositional combination, to inform the movement's large‐scale sonata layout and a number of configurations of key structural importance throughout the movement. In the development, he elaborated Schoenberg's materials by implementing a technique used extensively by Bartók at the time, namely the combination of dyads with one or more transpositions of themselves for generating larger (often octatonic) structures. Gerhard's compositional method in the movement shows not only the decisive impact of Schoenberg's principles but also his indebtedness to the music of Bartók, to whom the composition seems to pay tribute as equally as to Schoenberg. This article utilises these perspectives to offer an analysis of the first movement of Gerhard's Quartetto No. 3/Concertino.

LA CREACIÓN MUSICAL DE ROBERTO GERHARD DURANTE EL MAGISTERIO DE ARNOLD SCHOENBERG: NEOCLASICISMO, OCTATONISMO Y ORGANIZACIÓN PROTO-SERIAL (1923-1928)

This thesis studies the impact of Gerhard's acquaintance with Arnold Schoenberg in his music and aesthetic thought of the 1920s. In the first part I examine Gerhard's relationship to Schoenberg's compositional and pedagogical principles, particularly during the period of studies in Vienna and Berlin (1923- 28). Schoenberg's teachings are contextualized with respect to Gerhard's earlier musical education. In the second part I study the transformation of Gerhard's musical language in the period 1921 - 1927. I compare the first Apunt for piano (1921) -composed shortly before moving to Vienna- with three pieces composed for Schoenberg that I consider particularly interesting: the Divertiment for wind instruments (1926), the Andantino for violin, clarinet and piano (ca. 1927) and the first movement of the 1927 string quartet, written as final project of his studies in overt homage to Schoenberg's String Quartet Nr. 2 Op. 10. None of these works has been thoroughly analyzed up to now. My study gives a detailed account of the compositional techniques implemented in these pieces and of the relationships with the music and ideas of Schoenberg. Significant affinities of Gerhard's compositional methods with the music of other 2 contemporary composers such as J. Matthias Hauer, Frederic Mompou, Igor Stravinsky and Bela Bartok are also examined. My analysis explains Gerhard's methods of motivic integration, his use of symmetry and transpositional combination as key constructive determinants, the penchant to octatonic constructions in his harmony, his earliest techniques of serial pitch-class organization, the abundant (and often ironic) allusions to elements from the musical past (particularly from the 17th and 18th centuries) and the ascription of the pieces composed between 1926 and 1928 to neoclassical formalism. The understanding of Gerhard's compositional technique and its transformations during the period of studies with Schoenberg is essential for an adequate comprehension of his mature works and the subsequent developments in his musical language.

Silence and Slow Time (review)

MUSIC THEORY / FILM THEORY Silence and Slow Time. By Martin Boykan. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2004. [ix, 255 p. ISBN 0-8108-4751-5. $49.95.] Music examples, index. Musical time and the various ways musical phenomena are transformed over time are the fundamental themes considered by Martin Boykan in his insightful and thought-provoking book. The author suggests way of thinking [about music] that is faithful the experience of playing or listening during a performance (p. 3) and, Boykan would argue, an approach musical analysis that more closely resembles the act of composition. Boykan proposes a diachronic mode of musical analysis that considers not only the function of musical details but also the temporal location of such details. He contrasts his diachronic mode of analysis with a synchronic view of music whereby a composition is understood a spatial object, something outside of time that we can perceive all at once (p. 3). In his words, to construe a musical event is learn how place it within a narrative that unfolds by step (p. 29). By focusing our attention on events and their transformations and developments within musical time, a unique musical narrative emerges. The book is divided into two parts. In part 1, Boykan's views relating musical time and musical narrativity are presented and applied the analysis of tonal and pre-tonal music. Musical time, Boykan argues, unfolds at a much slower pace than real time. In this dramatically decelerated experience of musical time, each event assumes a much greater potential for significance or meaning. The various changes undergone by specific musical phenomena within this time frame contribute the work's unique narrative. Boykan is careful point out that narrative should not be understood as something akin a literary plot but as a description of the individual musical processes that emerge over the course of a work. Numerous passages from the tonal repertoire are examined in part 1. Boykan's description of the ambiguous E that opens the first movement of Haydn's String Quartet, op. 50, no. 6, offers a compact and illuminating introduction many of the ideas he pursues throughout the book. Noting that the work appears begin in the middle of a cadence, Boykan examines the ensuing musical narrative by focusing on the many formal implications and developmental processes associated with this opening and the troublesome E. In chapter 4, Inventing Tonality-And a Backward Look, Boykan extends his ideas of narrativity and musical time two madrigals by Monteverdi and a motet attributed Josquin. His analyses of these works are perceptive, suggesting alternative conceptualizations for the analysis of early music. In part 2, Boykan turns his attention the music of the twentieth century, focusing primarily on the music of Arnold Schoenberg, Anton von Webern, and Igor Stravinsky. Here, Boykan argues that, despite the many dramatic transformations and developments encountered in the music of the twentieth century, a strong sense of continuity persists in this music in relation the music of the past-a continuity based upon notions of musical narrativity. The strongest chapter in the book is Boykan's extended analysis of Schoenberg's String Trio (chapter 9). His analysis focuses on the changing meaning of smaller elements associated with specific row forms (usually tetrachords or trichords) and their relation the harmonic regions formed by combinatorial row pairs. Boykan convincingly details Schoenberg's formal decisions relating these regions as well as how Schoenberg is able imply, evade, or merge into or out of one region the other. Recognizing the rather enigmatic conclusion of the work, Boykan relates this provisional ending the trio's program. Boykan compares the sense of continuation experienced at the end of the work with the composer's feelings relating death and mortality following his heart attack. …

Schoenberg's String Quartets

SCHOENBERG: String Quartets Nos.1–4; String Quartet in D major; Presto in C major; Scherzo in F major. Aron Quartet (Ludwig Müller, Barna Kobori, Georg Hamann, Christophe Pantillon) with Anna Maria Pammer (sop). Preiser Records PR 90572 (3-CD set).

"My Dear Herzerl": Self-Representation in Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2

A reassessment of the compositional documents and chronology of Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2, op. 10, shows that the composer, in an effort to make the work acceptable to the public, at first intended it to be an absolute composition close to the Classical norm. But midway through its period of creation this conception was discarded in favor of a more original formative model that grew from an intense process of self-reflection. The content of hitherto unpublished letters from his wife written during these months suggests that this transformation was driven by an objectification of Schoenberg's private world.

Memory and Rhetorical Trope in Schoenberg's String Trio

Memory and Rhetorical Trope in Schoenberg's String Trio

Memory and Rhetorical Trope in Schoenberg's String Trio

Conceived of by Schoenberg as depicting a near fatal illness that he experienced on 2 August 1946, the String Trio, Op. 45 is noteworthy for its extreme contrasts and even apparent non sequiturs. Beyond that, the work seems alternately to remember and then abandon the musical languages of its antecedents; these "memorial" aspects include form, phrase design, evocations of tonality, associations with the music of Beethoven, and the centrality of an emergent "waltz strand." The paper develops two tropes, distraction and imperfection, that interpret the work's rhetoric and provide a general framework within which to interpret Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique and its grounding in the compositional sketches.

Generalized Interval Systems for Babbitt's Lists, and for Schoenberg's String Trio

Generalized Interval Systems for Babbitt's Lists, and for Schoenberg's String Trio

Generalized Interval Systems for Babbitt's Lists, and for Schoenberg's String Trio

Generalized Interval Systems for Babbitt's Lists, and for Schoenberg's String Trio

The State of Research in Twelve-Tone and Atonal Theory

The study of twelve-tone and atonal music is a young discipline, because its subject, as music history goes, is a very recent arrival upon the scene. We measure our tradition in decades, rather than centuries, and, various spurious obituary notices to the contrary, twelve-tone composition is still a vital, if not particularly audible, part of today's musical culture. Thus, our subject is not easily subjugated, and its constant expansion defies circumscription. However, the very vitality of our subject has itself spawned a lively and diverse body of thought abut twelve-tone and atonal music, in large part because so many of the participants wear two hats. We need only remember that two of the brightest lights of the twelve-tone theoretical firmament are Arnold Schoenberg and Milton Babbitt to remind us that many of the proponents of twelve-tone and atonal music are themselves practitioners. The result is a wealth of engaging musical thought that ranges from considerations of the most general issues to the equivalent of a proud parent exhibiting photographs of its most recent offspring. In trying to offer an overview of the current state of research in twelve-tone and atonal theory I can only provide a personal perspective, colored by my affinities and preoccupations as a general proponent of this music, and admittedly infected by my own parental biases and enthusiasms. Nevertheless, I hope the following notes will provide a scaffold from which to view the growing edifice, bearing in mind that scaffolds are built to be dismantled when they are no longer useful. I find it useful to divide twelve-tone and atonal theory into four broad areas of concern. Most writings on twelve-tone and atonal music tend to concentrate on fewer than all of them, but in most cases tacit assumptions about the others may be inferred. These four areas will give us a way of viewing the wealth of articles that have appeared over the past several years, and will also allow me to highlight some of the issues addressed. My first area of concern is the parsing of the musical surface, the basic process of grouping events as intelligible entities. As we shall observe later, this is by no means a simple problem, although it is possible to get a great deal of analytical mileage by using common sense. The critical importance of considering surface grouping structures is brought out in a number of writings in explicit ways. William Benjamin is assiduous in this regard in Ideas of Order in Motivic Music, as is Stephen Peles in Interpretations of Sets in Multiple Dimensions: Notes on the Second Movement of Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 3. Interpretation of the musical surface has been a central concern of Christopher Hasty, who most recently articulated it in his presentation at the 1986 SMT conference, Material and Form in Webern's Twelve-Tone Music. but whose other writ-

Interpretations of Sets in Multiple Dimensions: Notes on the Second Movement of Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet #3

The thougt was near at hand to substitute the natural scale of seven tones by an artificial scale of 12 tones; and it followed automatically that this scale had to be invented just as a melody or as a motiv, for each piece anew. This scale ought always to be the first positiv musical thought, just so as a motiv, for it ought to act in the same manner as a motive .... And so in splendid manner was proved true, what I hat expected of the first beginning: It is only to follow the basing-set, but besides you may compose in the same manner as before. 1

Some Thoughts on Schoenberg's String Quartets

Some Thoughts on Schoenberg's String Quartets

On Some Celebrated Measures of the Schoenberg String Trio

The following pages chart a passage through measures 12-17.5 of the Trio, Op. 45, of Schoenberg. These measures were chosen for examination because they form an intuitively grasped, completed phrase, and because much of what is in them is a synthesis of previous parts of the piece, to be developed in later sections. In the course of viewing mm. 12-17.5 I have tried to indicate some of the many paths of progression to, and a few of those away from, these measures, by sightings and soundings, fore and aft.

A Note on Schoenberg's String Quartets

A Note on Schoenberg's String Quartets