Five Pieces for Orchestra explained

Five Pieces for Orchestra
Composer:Arnold Schoenberg
Native Name:Fünf Orchesterstücke
Opus:16
Style:Free atonality
Composed:1909
Movements:Five
Scoring:Orchestra
Premiere Date:3 September 1912
Premiere Conductor:Sir Henry Wood
Premiere Location:London

The Five Pieces for Orchestra (Fünf Orchesterstücke), Op. 16, were composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1909, and first performed in London in 1912. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upon the request of his publisher, are as follows:

The Five Pieces further develop the notion of "total chromaticism" that Schoenberg introduced in his Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11 (composed earlier that year) and were composed during a time of intense personal and artistic crisis for the composer, this being reflected in the tensions and, at times, extreme violence of the score, mirroring the expressionist movement of the time, in particular its preoccupation with the subconscious and burgeoning madness.

Premiere

The work had its world premiere in the Queen's Hall, London at a Promenade Concert on 3 September 1912, conducted by Sir Henry Wood, a constant champion of new music. During rehearsals for Schoenberg's suite he urged his reluctant players, "Stick to it, gentlemen! This is nothing to what you'll have to play in 25 years' time" The work was not well received; the critic Ernest Newman, who was receptive to Schoenberg's music, wrote after the performance:

Instrumentation

The work exists in two different scorings: the original 1909 version for a very large orchestra and the revised version of 1949 which reduces the size of the orchestra to more-or-less normal proportions, "giving up the contrabass clarinet, as well as the four-fold scoring of the other woodwinds and two of the six horns". This version was published posthumously in 1952.

Original 1909 version

Woodwinds
  • Piccolo
  • 3 Flutes (3rd doubling on 2nd piccolo)
  • 3 Oboes
  • English horn
  • Clarinet in D
  • 3 Clarinets (3rd doubling on contrabass clarinet in A)
  • Bass clarinet
  • 3 Bassoons
  • Contrabassoon
    Brass
  • 6 Horns
  • 3 Trumpets
  • 4 Trombones
  • Tuba
    Percussion
  • Timpani
  • Bass drum
  • Crash cymbals
  • Suspended cymbals
  • Triangle
  • Tam-tam
  • Xylophone
  • Celesta
    Strings
  • Harp
  • Violins I, II
  • Violas
  • Violoncellos
  • Double basses

    Revised 1949 version

    Woodwinds:
  • Piccolo
  • 3 Flutes (3rd doubling on 2nd piccolo)
  • 2 Oboes
  • English horn
  • E Clarinet
  • 2 Clarinets
  • Bass clarinet
  • 2 Bassoons
  • Contrabassoon
    Brass:
  • 4 Horns
  • 3 Trumpets
  • 3 Trombones
  • Tuba
    Percussion:
  • Timpani
  • Bass drum
  • Cymbals
  • Suspended cymbals
  • Triangle
  • Tam-tam
  • Xylophone
  • Celesta
    Strings:
  • Harp
  • Violins I, II
  • Violas
  • Violoncellos
  • Double basses

    Third movement

    According to Robert Erickson, "harmonic and melodic motion is curtailed, in order to focus attention on timbral and textural elements". Blair Johnston claims that this movement is actually titled "Chord-Colors", that Schoenberg "removes all traditional motivic associations" from this piece, that it is generated from a single harmony: C–G–B–E–A (the Farben chord, shown below), found in a number of chromatically altered derivatives, and is scored for "a kaleidoscopically rotating array of instrumental colors".

    Whether or not this was an early example of what Schoenberg later called Klangfarbenmelodie (in his 1911 book Harmonielehre) is a matter of dispute. One scholar holds that Schoenberg's "now-famous statements about 'Klangfarbenmelodie' are, however, reflections, which have no direct connection to the Orchestra Piece op. 16, no. 3". An attempt to refute this view was published in the same journal issue.

    Schoenberg explains in a note added to the 1949 revision of the score, "The conductor need not try to polish sounds which seem unbalanced, but watch that every instrumentalist plays accurately the prescribed dynamic, according to the nature of his instrument. There are no motives in this piece which have to be brought to the fore".

    Second performance and influence

    Wood invited Schoenberg to conduct London's second performance of the work in 1914. The composer's only British pupil, Edward Clark, conveyed the invitation and on 17 January 1914 Schoenberg conducted the work at the Queen's Hall.[1] [2] [3] The laughter and hissing of the first performance were not repeated, and the work was heard in silence and politely applauded. The composer was delighted with the performance and congratulated Wood and the orchestra warmly: "I must say it was the first time since Gustav Mahler that I heard such music played again as a musician of culture demands."[4] This concert may have been attended by Gustav Holst, who obtained a copy of the score, the only Schoenberg score he ever owned. Echoes of the work appear in The Planets (originally titled Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra), and in the opening of his ballet The Lure (1921), which closely resembles the third of Schoenberg's Five Pieces.[5]

    Recordings

    References

    Sources

    Further reading

    External links

    Notes and References

    1. http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1014&Itemid=726&lang=en Anon., "Herr Schönberg in London. His Theory and His Practice", Daily News Leader (January 17, 1914), quoted in full on the Arnold Schoenberg Centre website (accessed 29 October 2013).
    2. https://books.google.com/books?id=wo4LhjGd-c4C&dq=edward+clark+schoenberg&pg=PA21 Alison Garnham, Hans Keller and the BBC: The Musical Conscience of British Broadcasting, 1959–79.
    3. https://books.google.com/books?id=CVCtkShvDSkC&q=clark&pg=PA127 Jennifer Doctor, The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922–1936: Shaping a Nation's Tastes
    4. Letter dated 23 January 1914, quoted in
    5. Lambourn. David. 965003. Henry Wood and Schoenberg. The Musical Times. August 1987. 128 . 1734 . 422–427. 10.2307/965003 .

    This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Five Pieces for Orchestra".

    Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.