Mark Berry introduces the three composers labelled as key members of the 'Second Viennese School', each influential in his own way on musical modernism throughout the remainder of the 20th century.
In 1908 with his 2nd String Quartet, Schoenberg led the musical world, whether it liked it or not, to breathe, in the words of its soprano soloist, "the air of another planet," not necessarily the tonal air of the so-called 'common practice era' of the previous three centuries. A decade-and-a-half later, he announced to the world of his new method of 'composing with twelve note or dodecaphonic ('twelve-tone', in US English) music. Webern, Berg and many others followed suit. Many others did not, some composers and some audiences remaining not just resistant, but angry and hostile.
Schoenberg and his school remain, for many, intensely controversial figures. For many others, they are 'just' great composers, of great music, much of it too little performed. . .
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Excerpt from article written by: Mark Berry (Head of Music and Reader in Music History at Royal Holloway, University of London).
Read more @ www.bl.uk/20th-century-music/articles/the-second-viennese-school
In 1908 with his 2nd String Quartet, Schoenberg led the musical world, whether it liked it or not, to breathe, in the words of its soprano soloist, "the air of another planet," not necessarily the tonal air of the so-called 'common practice era' of the previous three centuries. A decade-and-a-half later, he announced to the world of his new method of 'composing with twelve note or dodecaphonic ('twelve-tone', in US English) music. Webern, Berg and many others followed suit. Many others did not, some composers and some audiences remaining not just resistant, but angry and hostile.
Schoenberg and his school remain, for many, intensely controversial figures. For many others, they are 'just' great composers, of great music, much of it too little performed. . .
_________
Excerpt from article written by: Mark Berry (Head of Music and Reader in Music History at Royal Holloway, University of London).
Read more @ www.bl.uk/20th-century-music/articles/the-second-viennese-school