Complete Piano Music

Arnold Schoenberg - Complete Piano Music

Performed by Edward Steuermann - piano

The piano music of Arnold Schoenberg holds an especially significant place in his oeuvre. Every important change in style announced itself in compositions for "piano solo," as if to test the complete autonomy and self-sufficiency of the new works by resorting to this genre of the most absolute music - the most absolute music, as there are no words to explain, no colors to enhance, no dialectics of a chamber music ensemble to differentiate the expression or the meaning.
...
The novelty and originality of Schoenberg's piano style is often overlooked. It seems that in the post-romantic period there is hardly a composer, with the possible exception of Debussy, whose writing for piano is so personal and so intimately connected with the idea it has to express. The pianist is confronted with new problems. It is mainly the extremely scarce use of pedal which often deprives the sound of the romantic vibration for which the piano is known, and the polyphony requires the most exact differentiation by the use of all kinds of touch.
Even a master like Busoni, who was one of the first great musicians (and at this time almost the only one) to understand the importance of these works (Op. 11), thought it necessary to adjust one of the pieces to the more accepted piano sonority. (He recognized this as a mistake later on.) The reception by audiences and press was for a long time frosty or outright negative. But, by the time Op. 23 appeared, Schoenberg's name was world famous after the great success of some of the earlier works; one has learned now to listen with more confidence, trust, and devotion. (Edward Steuermann)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Drei Klavierstuke, Op. 11 {13:02}

2. Funf Klavierstuke, Op. 23 {9:51}

Side 2

1. Sechs kleine Klavierstuke, Op. 19 {4:35}

2. Suite fur Klavier, Op. 25 {14:00}

3. Zwei Klavierstuke, Op. 33a and b {5:27}

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Quintet for Wind Instruments, Op. 26

Arnold Schoenberg - Quintet for Wind Instruments, Op. 26

Performed by The Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet:

William Kincaid - flute
John de Lancie - oboe
Anthony Gigliotti - clarinet
Sol Schoenbach - bassoon
Mason Jones - French horn

Schoenberg's first two creative "periods" were both crowded into the sixteen years before the First World War. During this comparatively short space of time, he traversed such different styles as those of Verklarte Nacht, Op. 4, and Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 From 1914 to 1923, however, he published no music at all. It would almost surely be incorrect to suppose lying fallow during these years, and were to spring completely rejuvenated to loftier conceptions at their end. Actually, the time was spent in serving two rather brief stretches in the Austrian army, doing some literary writing, sketching the music for Die Jakobsleiter (an oratorio that he was never able to bring himself to complete), and teaching some of his best pupils.
Schoenberg was never a man to write music merely for the sake of doing something. He seems always to have felt that he must have something definite to say, and he preferred that that something should be fresh and new. In his later compositions, this general attitude caused him to avoid exact repetitions of his thematic materials. But in addition to this characteristic, there are reasons for supposing that by 1914 he had come to realize, consciously or unconsciously, that the freedom he had gained through espousing atonal music with its equal use of all twelve tones of the chromatic scale was simply not enough. Music may seem to flourish from a completely free use of fancy, but past centuries have demonstrated very conclusively that the difference between man-made music and that of the birds is that man prefers to work within the prescribed limitations of an organized system of tones.
At any rate, Schoenberg only started to compose once more when he moved to Modling near Vienna in 1920 and met Josef Matthias Hauer. Schoenberg has hotly maintained that he "invented" the row-technique and, conversely, that he was uninfluenced by Hauer, but those who were close to him during those years, notably Egon Wellesz, have admitted that this was not quite true. However much the row-technique differs from Hauer's Tropes and Grundgestalten, the idea of organizing the twelve tones according to some new principle, together with details of method and terminology, are sparks from Hauer that set Schoenberg's tinder once more in flame.
It is easy to see from the first compositions of this period that the technique had not matured during any previous "fallow" period. The five piano pieces of Opus 23 show a definite striving towards new types of organization, but only the last of them, Walzer, is completely realized in the row-technique. And even it uses the row in the most primitive fashion possible. There is a single 12-tone row, used only in its prime position without recourse to a mirror inversion, and only two statements of the crab of the row are introduced near the end of the piece by way of furnishing accompaniment. In the Serenade for baritone and seven instruments, Op. 24, the picture is not much different. Of its seven movements, the third, Variationen, is based on a theme of 14 notes (one of the twelve notes is omitted and three are repeated), and only the fourth movement, Sonett Nr. 217 von Petraca, uses the technique consistently. In both movements, the first regular use of the mirror inversion may be found, but still no transpositions of either the row or the mirror. Indeed, the baritone (who sings only in the fourth movement) must negotiate nearly thirteen straight statements of the prime row, varied only rhythmically and by occasional octave displacements of the notes.
With the Suite fur Klavier, Op. 25, the first use of a transposition occurs, but even here it is introduced for a special purpose. The row includes a tritone, G to D-flat, and Schoenberg inverts it about an axis that will produce the interval on the same two notes; he also transposes both row and mirror up a tritone, so that the same notes will also appear in these transpositions. Needless to say, the emphasis on these two notes make them predominate throughout the Suite, and Schoenberg has to display considerable ingenuity to restore the balance between his "twelve equal notes."
Thus only with the Wind Quintet, Op. 26, does Schoenberg's experimentation with the method reach its logical end and give us the first composition written with all of the resources that we now associate with the technique. This, of course, is not to say that for Schoenberg the Quintet marks the end of the road. It was, in fact, only a beginning, and periodically he instituted changes in the method to perfect it further. For example, in the Quintet he used the various transpositions merely to provide himself with different series of notes. Since they had no functional significance for him at this stage, he could use more than one transposition simultaneously. Starting with the Begleitungsmusik, Op. 34, however, the transpositions were treated exactly like keys. By using only one at a time, he could establish pitch-levels and build structures resembling the forms of classical music. What he gained thereby from the point of view of form, however, deprived him of a free use of the transpositions and lessened motility in the design of subtly varied themes. It is precisely this characteristic that is exemplified at its richest in the Wind Quintet, making it a work particularly worth close listening and study. (Richard S. Hill)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Quintet for Wind Instruments, Op. 26: I. Schwungvoll {10:53}

2. Quintet for Wind Instruments, Op. 26: II. Ammutig und heiter; scherzando {11:50}

Side 2

1. Quintet for Wind Instruments, Op. 26: III. Etwas langsam (Poco Adagio) {10:25}

2. Quintet for Wind Instruments, Op. 26: IV. Rondo {9:33}

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Olivier Messiaen/Arnold Schoenberg split release

Olivier Messiaen/Arnold Schoenberg - split release

All music on LP performed by Domaine Musicale Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez

Other performers on "Seven Haikai":

Yvonne Loriod - piano
Strassbourg Percussion Ensemble

SEVEN HAIKAI

This work was written in 1962, following a trip to Japan. Although no poems are included in it, the title HAIKAI denotes that the seven pieces are short, like the Japanese poems bearing that name. The dedication, on the other hand, is long, but bears citation:

"TO YVONNE LORIOD, TO PIERRE BOULEZ, TO MME. FUMI YAMAGUCHI, TO SEIJI OZAWA, TO YORITSUNE MATSUDAIRA, TO SANDAU BEKKU AND MITSUAKI HAYAMA, TO THE ORNITHOLOGIST HOSHINO, TO THE LANDSCAPE, TO THE MUSIC, AND TO ALL THE BIRDS OF JAPAN."

Here is a brief analysis of each of the seven pieces:

I - INTRODUCTION

Cencerros, bells, trumpet, trombone and metallic percussion introduce Indian rhythms dedicated to the three Shakti. The piano and woodwinds play a retrograded rhythmic canon. The xylophone and marimba play a Metabole of the Tala Simhavikrama (force of the lion) and of Tala Micra-Varna (mixture of colors). The violins then play a melodic phrase, of which we hear only the first strophe (the second strophe is heard in the seventh piece).

II - THE PARK OF NARA AND THE STONE LANTERNS

The Nara region in Japan. Four Buddhist temples in a park. Does and stags roam about freely. The sun's rays play among the Cryptomerias along the main path. 3,000 stone lanterns press together and out of view.

III - Yamanaka - CADENZA

The birds singing in this place were heard in the forest near Lake Yamanaka at the foot of Mount Fuji. They are almost the same birds heard in the sixth piece, but one must add Misoszai, a Japanese Troglodyte portrayed by the xylophone, and Aka-Hara, a red-sided thrush, portrayed by the English horn. Aoji, a Japanese masked bird and Oruri, a blue Japanese fly eater were observed at Subashiri. The three piano "cadenzas" portray successively:
(a) first cadenza: KIBITKA, a narcissistic fly eater;
(b) second cadenza: HOAKA, a grey-headed bird and Hibari, a Japanese meadow-sparrow;
(c) third cadenza: KURU TSUGUMI, a Japanese blackbird.

IV - GAGAKU

GAGAKU is the noble Japanese music of the VIIth century. It is still performed at the Imperial court. We hear only the two main timbres of this music: SHO (mouth organ), replaced by an ensemble of 8 violins, and HICHIRIKI (primitive oboe), replaced by trumpet.

V - MIYAJIMA AND THE TORII IN THE SEA

This is perhaps the most beautiful spot in Japan. It is a mountain island covered with dark green Japanese pines and maples that turn red in autumn. A Shinto Temple, white and red, with a great red portal opening onto the deep blue sea. To all these colors, the musical harmonies of woodwinds, brass, violins and bells (and also the resources of CROTALES, piano and triangle) add other combinations: grey and orange-gold, silvery red, lilac and violet-purple.

VI - THE BIRDS OF KARUIZAWA

The birds singing in this piece were heard in the vicinity of Karuizawa, in a mountain and Japanese pine setting. Some were heard in the woods, near a gorge and a small stream not far from the Asama volcano, where bright-red azaleas flourish. Some of the main birds are:
(a) UGUISO, a Japanese songbird that has two songs: the first is a long, swelling note, followed by a victorious, rapidly descending trill and continuing in a third, interrupted and repeated many times, slowing progressively. UGUISO is represented by the trumpet and woodwind ensemble. (b) HOTOTOGUISO, a small grey-headed cuckoo that sings an odd fanfare of five or six notes. HOTOTOGUISO is represented by trombone, bassoons and clarinet.
(c) KIBITAKI, a narcissistic fly eater whose song is of repeated strophes, sometimes quite numerous. Its plumage is yellow-orange and black, a great yellow brown, great white spots on the wings. KIBITAKI is played by four clarinets, as well as xylophone and marimba.
(d) ORURI, a blue Japanese fly eater. Its head and coat are blue, and the belly white, throat and breast black.
(e) AOJI, a Japanese masked bird, whose song consists of rapid, separated leaps.
(f) SAN KO CHO, another fly eater with head and throat of violet-black, white belly, a reddish-brown coat, and a pale-blue circle around each eye, with a very long tail. SAN KO CHO is played by xylophone and marimba.
(g) KURO TSUGUMI, the Japanese blackbird, whose varied song differs from that of the European blackbird.
(h) MEJIRO, a bird of tender green plumage with white circles about its eyes. In the piano cadenzas we hear BINZUI, Hodgson's songbird, and O-YOSHIKIRI, a reddish oriental bird. There are at least a dozen other Japanese birds heard in this work.

VII - CODA

Given by the CENCERROS, bells, trumpet, and metallic percussion, a suite of Indian rhythms, dedicated to the three SHAKTI. Piano and woodwinds again take up the retrograded rhythmic canon of the first piece. The sequence is reversed, however, and the violins play the conclusion, or second strophe, of the melodic phrase heard in the first piece. (Olivier Messiaen)

CHAMBER SYMPHONY OP. 9 (1906) for fifteen solo instruments

The CHAMBER SYMPHONY, composed in 1906, is years ahead in concept and content. Although the romantic heritage of Brahms, Mahler and Wagner is not to be denied, one may already discern the forces which were to emerge fully in the mature Schoenberg. The form itself reveals a compactness: the different parts of a symphony in one unit, a device favored by the Vienna school, particularly by Alban Berg. The symphony corresponds to the following scheme:

I - Exposition of two themes, with a repeat of the principal theme and transitional segments between each.
II - Scherzo and trio with repeat.
III - Development (in three parts)
IV - Slow movement
V - Repeat of the thematic material of the first part in a more elaborate form, modified and in the nature of a Finale.

THREE PIECES FOR ORCHESTRA (1910) for an ensemble of instrumental soloists

The THREE PIECES were only discovered in 1957 among some papers left by the composer. Dating from 1910, a year before Schoenberg wrote the Six Little Pieces for Piano, op. 19, they reflect the composer's preoccupation with extreme economy of means and maximum concentration of form. It also illustrates the principal of non-repetition, emphasizing variability, asymmetry, and plurality, shedding new light on this aspect of Schoenberg's thought. (Jean-Claude Eloy)

Tracklisting:

Side 1 (All tracks by Olivier Messiaen)

1. Seven Haikai: I. Introduction {1:50}

2. Seven Haikai: II. The Park of Nara and the Stone Lanterns {1:30}

3. Seven Haikai: III. Yamanaka-Cadenza {3:39}

4. Seven Haikai: IV. Gagaku {2:57}

5. Seven Haikai: V. Miyajima and the Torii in the Sea {1:24}

6. Seven Haikai: VI. The Birds of Karuizawa {5:33}

7. Seven Haikai: VII. Coda {1:53}

Side 2 (All tracks by Arnold Schoenberg)

1. Chamber Symphony, Op. 9 {17:08}

2. Three Pieces for Orchestra {1:55}

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New Music for Chamber Orchestra

various artists compilation - New Music for Chamber Orchestra

SOME WORDS ABOUT WORDS ABOUT MUSIC by Carman Moore

The attempt of words and symbols to explain the subject of music represents so pure a history of failure that it might be regarded as itself a thing of perfection. The implications of the "sighing" Mozartean score, for example, with such an adjective as "female" thrown in has the makings of poetry but leads us away from the intellectual rigor - no matter how involuntary - represented by Mozart's music. And the term "chamber orchestra" may send the mind galloping off into the four winds. We may know that the "chamber" in question asks that you date and place it - a palace lounge in 1810? a South Rampart Street brothel in 1910? a New York City recording studio in 1970? Must an "orchestra" employ strings?

Even the score must be viewed as a program note, endeavoring to make the sonic journey seem more business-like and less physically hazardous than it really is. Nonetheless, while word and symbol may be imposters, they may also serve music with honor. For they function as that body of expectations over against which the truth of sound as organism performs its magic. The composer has profound need of these expectations, for taking the ear - even his own - by surprise (by storm) lies at the heart of his craft.

Iannis Xenakis - the architect, the mathematician as composer, to many listeners the man representative of all that is inscrutable in modern music (if you can't read his score, how can you presume to respond to his music?) - represents a prime example of the contemporary symbol-vs.-music tension. His very name at the head of a program note may cause the experienced reader-listener to expect a visually beautiful chunk of score and mathematical jargon. Yet the name when thought of relative to most of his works will probably call up memories of vast sonic textures and unforgettable psychic experiences. In his Achorripsis (1957) the Xenakis characteristic of overtly dramatic sound coupled with elegant formal proportions is already central to his style. Almost analogous to this fact, who can avoid noticing how the relatively civilized dryness of the pitched-instrument counterpoint is clubbed again and again into submission by big, primitive smacks from the bass drum? Xenakis's music seems to refuse the term "chamber," and rather transports the ear outdoors onto a rugged landscape. Yet in its juxtapositions of woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings as agglomerate color families Achorripsis slyly reminds us of its debt to the Baroque concerto grosso.

Through Aldo Clementi's little "Triplum" (1961) and the even tinier Three Pieces (1910) for chamber orchestra of Arnold Schoenberg the point of broad expressive power within short time span is made and seems to deepen the mystery of how music works. "Triplum" presents fragile colors which is slipping away from each other seem to touch hands. Mobile pitch lines and densities seem to pause for re-coloring from time to time and then rush or slide away. It's all over in four minutes.

Ruggedly dramatic in another sense if Bo Nilsson's Szene III (1961). As if it has given way to total savagery after early attempts to conform to what a mad era insists is civilized, the closing measures of the work become a stretch of unrestrained tumult led into by a shattering crescendo on the tam-tam. Mr. Nilsson on side B shows another aspect of his expressive range through the elegant little Frequenzen (1956). With traditional Western percussion augmented to include jazz drum set, guitar, vibraphone, and xylophone the eruption promised by this heavily-batteried instrumentation never really occurs. Tightly organized of duration, pitch, and the like, it interestingly enough indicates dynamics by number 1-10 (pppp to ffff). Conductor Francis Travis expresses the basically low profile, and the beauty of this performance seems to prove it a sensitive work and performance.

Schoenberg's amazing "Three Pieces" recorded here for the first time (Darmstadt Festival, 1961), is little over 2 1/2 minutes and 28 measures long, but its powers to transport the listener are extensive indeed. Pieces I and II are sections completed by the composer, and Piece III is unfinished. Composed after the "Chamber Symphony" (1906), the "Gurrelieder" (1901: orchestrated 1911), and the "Five Orchestral Pieces" (1909), this work, relatively so slight of means, was obviously undertaken as a study in terse statement and perhaps as a shadow piece to the "Five Pieces." In the next decade or so Schoenberg was to ardently begin and then abandon many works, so it is not so strange perhaps that "Three Pieces" should end suddenly in mid phrase. What is both strange and remarkable is the fact that the third piece, from measure 5 to the end, sounds so like a work that was to be published and performed three years later - Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." And for anyone seeking a precedent for Anton Webern's still, aphoristic style of composition there is the second piece - eight measures and three fermatas long.

Wlodzimierz Kotonski's Canto (1961) for chamber orchestra indicates a dynamic marking for every note, with a range from ppp to fff. From rhythms, almost all of which are long-held notes, the composer evokes, nonetheless, a true sense of momentum. Careful coloration and sensitive pitch choices make of the work a strange kind of high adventure.

As if to combine all of the impulses to formal precision presented in the above-mentioned works, Yuji Takahashi's brutally-difficult Six Stoicheia (1969) for four violins is totally written out and specific about pitch, for example, to the point of indicating "+=1/4 tone sharp" and "*=3/4 tone sharp." But it is the composer's creative imagination and the uncompromising brilliance of Paul Zukofsky (heard here on all four parts) which reveal this tight-looking score to be in reality a full-blooded sonic experience - an experience not at all out of place on a chamber orchestra recording.

These have been words and post-expectations of value to me. Perhaps they will function as an analogy to what each listener might bring to his own first and repeated relationships with these seven extraordinary compositions. It is to be done shamelessly. Just as nature has its still-life, it appears that music will always have its verbiage and symbols - as the last outposts of the outer world before the leap into the dimension of all sound and all form is made.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Iannis Xenakis - Achoripsis {5:39}
Performed by Hamburger Kammersolisten, Conducted by Francis Travis

2. Aldo Clementi - Triplum {3:57}
Performed by Severino Gazzelloni - flute, Lothar Faber - oboe and Guy Deplus - clarinet

3. Bo Nilsson - Szene III {5:36}
Performed by Internationalen Kranichsteiner Kammer-Ensembles, Conducted by Bruno Maderna

4. Arnold Schoenberg - Drei Kleine Stucke {2:42}
Performed by Internationalen Kranichsteiner Kammer-Ensembles, Conducted by Bruno Maderna

Side 2

1. Wlodzimierz Kotonski - Canto {5:07}
Performed by Internationalen Kranichsteiner Kammer-Ensembles, Conducted by Bruno Maderna

2. Yuji Takahashi - Six Stoicheia {6:22}
Performed by Paul Zukofsky - violin (recorded on four separate tracks)

3. Bo Nilsson - Frequenzen {4:01}
Performed by Hamburger Kammersolisten, Conducted by Francis Travis

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Pierre Boulez Conducts The Domaine Musical Ensemble

The Domaine Musical Ensemble - Pierre Boulez Conducts The Domaine Musical Ensemble

Excerpts from the liner notes:

Arnold Schoenberg - Verklaerte Nacht, Op. 4

Arnold Schoenberg composed the string sextet VERLAERTE NACHT in three weeks during a holiday he took in September of 1899, when he was twenty five years old. The premiere performance took place in Vienna in 1903. Together with Guerrelieder and the symphonic poem Pelleas at Melisande, Verklaerte Nacht is one of the most significant works of Schoenberg's first creative period, full of the flamboyant expressiveness traceable across the metamorphosis of his musical language and that of the Vienna School. Undeniably, there are traces here of Wagner: harmonically, we are reminded of Tristan. The specific nature of Schoenberg's chromaticism, however, unlike Wagner's is linear and transcends tonal control.
Although cast in a unified mould, Verkaerte Nacht is in five parts that follow closely the construction of the poem by Richard Dehmel, that inspired the work. On the one hand, the work is rhythmically unstable and modulates constantly when the two persons express themselves (the woman's confession, etc.). On the other hand, when presenting the idea of place (moonlit universe, gently starlit night, etc.) the tonalities become fixed and rhythms more stable.
The work is often performed in Schoenberg's own transcription for string orchestra, but the version here presented is the original one for string sextet.

Jean-Claude Eloy - Equivalences

The title "Equivalences" refers to numerous aspects of the piece and should be interpreted in the sense of an equilibrium between contrasting forces. In the simplest terms, there is the deployment of musical instruments: A triple symmetry in an arc formed by 6 percussionists, 3 groups of winds and piano-celesta with harp. On a higher plane, we may regard it as a depiction of the contrasting elements that make up the work; density: zero to maximum; registers: fixed to mobile; coordination: absolute to relative, etc. The whole form itself reflects these oppositions, this dialectic play, whence derives a contrasting sonority, an extension of the dynamic field.
Certain structures are variable from one performance to another, utilizing modifiable intensities that affect mainly the duration of the percussion instruments' resonances, to illustrate: a contrast is created between wind instruments producing long held sounds on the one hand, and on the opposite side are percussion instruments, piano, harp, etc., producing sounds of rapid growth and decay. Bit by bit, these sounds are drawn closer until they are confronted. The movement continues, until the sounds are at their initial state, but on opposite sides: the winds producing "pointed" sounds, while the percussion instruments, by means of complicated trills, etc., produce long held sounds. Henri Pousseur describes this development as an "arc of duration".
Equivalences had its premiere performance at the Darmstadt Festival in July 1963 under the direction of Pierre Boulez.

Henri Pousseur - Madrigal III

HENRI POUSSEUR was born at Malmedy, Belgium in 1929. He studied at the Liege and Bruxelles Conservatoires from 1947 to 1953. From 1954 to 1957 he worked at the electronic music studios of Radio Cologne and Milano. He is co-founder and, since 1958, director of the APELAC studio in Bruxelles. He has authored important theoretical works on contemporary music, and has given lecture cycles at Darmstadt and other centres.
Madrigal III for clarinet, violin, cello, 2 percussion instruments and piano was composed in the spring of 1962 and dedicated to the memory of Wolfgang Steinecke, since 1945 the daring promoter of the Darmstadt Festival.
This work comprises almost all of Madrigal I, written four years earlier for clarinet solo. For Pousseur, the earlier work represented a first and almost unconscious attempt to reactivate the harmonic values that post-Webernian music had almost neutralized. Pousseur made a more resolute attempt in this direction in Votre Faust. In Madrigal III, this reactivation is still dependent on dodecaphonic material, and crystalizes around a process of frequent and variable repetition of the constituent notes of an harmonic "field".

Tracklisting:

SIDE 1

1. Arnold Schoenberg - Verklaerte Nacht, Op. 4 {28:27}

SIDE 2

1. Jean-Claude Eloy - Equivalences {8:28}

2. Henri Pousseur - Madrigal III {12:00}

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