Atonality:

1
Chapter 66

• Atonality
• Schoenberg and Scriabin

2
Lecture Overview

• Atonality in music
• Nonrepresentational painting
• Arnold Schoenberg
• Piano Piece, Op. 11, No. 1
• Pierrot lunaire, No. 8 (Nacht - Passacaglia)
• The spread of the atonal style
• Alexander Scriabin
• life and music
• Piano Prelude, Op. 74, No. 5
• Review

3
Features of Atonal Music (ca. 1910 - )

• dissonant chords used freely, interchangeably
  with triads
• all tones of chromatic scale drawn upon as though
  structurally equivalent
• basic chords made from any number of tones and
  intervallic structures
• no large-scale functional harmonic progressions

4
Abstract painting

• Early in the 20th century important artists in
  different locations around the world explored a
  new style of painting in which familiar objects
  were absent or only hinted at. Their style was
  thus non-representational or abstract, and the
  meaning of such works turned on the inherent
  expressive power of materials themselvesof
  colors and shapes. At about the same time that
  abstract paintings appeared, composers such as
  Schoenberg began to write atonal music, which
  invites a comparison of such music with
  non-representational art works such as
  Kandinskys Impression 3 (Concert), shown above.

5
The Life of Arnold Schoenberg (18741951)

• 1874 born in Vienna
• c1895 informal private study in music with
  Alexander Zemlinsky
• 1901 moves to Berlin, works as orchestrator and
  cabaret conductor
• 1903 returns to Vienna, lives mainly as private
  teacher
• 1908 begins to compose atonal music
• 1911 again moves to Berlin, publishes a treatise
  on tonal harmony (the Harmonielehre)
• 1913 triumphant premiere in Vienna of the
  romantic oratorio Gurrelieder
• 1917 follow service in the Austrian military,
  Schoenberg settles in Mödling (a Vienna suburb)
• 1923 begins to compose twelve-tone music
• 1925 appointed Professor of Composition at the
  Academy of the Arts in Berlin
• 1933 dismissed by the Nazis from his Berlin
  position, flees to Paris, then to America
• 1936 appointed Professor at the University of
  California, Los Angeles
• 1951 dies in Los Angeles

6
Principal Compositions by Arnold Schoenberg

• Operas 4, including
• Erwartung
• Moses und Aron (incomplete)
• Orchestra chamber symphonies (2), tone poem
  Pelleas und Melisande, concertos (violin, piano),
  character pieces
• Chamber music includes 5 string quartets and a
  woodwind quintet
• Songs numerous collections, also the melodrama
  Pierrot lunaire
• Piano character pieces
• Chorus including
• Gurrielieder (cantata)
• A Survivor from Warsaw (narration with chorus)

7
Arnold Schoenberg, Piano Piece Op. 11, No. 1, 1909
Ternary form
8
Arnold Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire, 1912, No. 8
(Nacht-Passacaglia)
Through-composed passacaglia (with a hint of
ternary form)
9
The Life of Alexander Scriabin (18721915)

• 1872 born in Moscow
• 1888-92 studies at Moscow Conservatory
• 1898-1903 teaches piano at Moscow Conservatory
  amid European and American tours
• 1902-1908 concert tours of Europe and America
• 1915 dies in Petrograd of blood poisoning

10
Principal Compositions by Alexander Scriabin

• Piano sonatas (10), character pieces
• Orchestra 5 symphonies, Piano Concerto

11
Alexander Scriabin, Piano Prelude, Op. 74, No.
5, 1914
Free rondo (ABAB) form
12
Review Key Terms

• Vasili Kandinsky
• emancipation of dissonance
• atonal music
• tone-color melody (Klangfarbenmelodie)
• piano harmonics
• melodrama
• Albert Giraud
• Sprechgesang
• passacaglia
• basso ostinato
• twelve-tone method of composition
• octatonic scale
• mystic chord
• (symmetric) inversion