An exploration of the implications, musical and social, of Arnold Schoenberg’s decision to renounce traditional tonal practice. Students will study the musical works, aesthetic goals, and personal philosophy of the composer within his cultural surroundings, and more specifically within Vienna of the fin-de-siècle and the first two decades of the twentieth century. We will consider examples of the literature, philosophy, science, art, music, film, and politics that surrounded Schoenberg and inquire how these may have influenced his aesthetic beliefs and his approach to musical composition. We will also discuss Schoenberg’s influence by looking at two of his pupils (Berg and Webern), as well as the further development of serialism after the Second World War both in Europe and the United States. Excursions to historic sites will complement course material.
Prerequisites:
Prior studies in music history, basic skills in music analysis.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the course, students should:
• be familiar with Schoenberg’s aesthetic beliefs and how these influenced his approach to musical composition
• have developed an understanding of the cross-influences between the arts in the early years of the twentieth century
• be aware of Schoenberg’s influence in the development of twentieth-century music
Method of presentation:
Lectures, discussions, excursions
Required work and form of assessment:
Reading and listening assignments for each lecture are listed below. Students are expected to have completed the reading assignments before coming to class. Copies of the reading assignments and CDs of the listening assignments are on reserve in the library. All participants are required to purchase a score of Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet, which can be acquired from IES. There will be a midterm and a final exam as well as a journal. The journal consists of assignments relevant to the topic under discussion. Class participation is also evaluated. The course is graded as follows:
class participation 20%
Journal 20%
midterm exam 30%
final exam 30%
content:
The following is a list of class meetings by week giving topics, major works, readings, and listening assignments. For full reference on the readings, see the Required Readings list below.
Week 1
Course Introduction
Torn Between Tradition and Modernism: Fin-de-siècle Vienna
Opposites Reconciled: Brahms and Wagner
Reading Assignment: Schorske 3-10
Timms 10-22
Schoenberg, Style and Idea, 398-405 and 428-435
Listening Assignment: String Quartet in D major, 1st movement
Verklärte Nacht, op. 4
Week 2
Correspondences I: Rediscovering Schoenberg’s Aesthetic Identity
Absolute Music
Klimt and the Secession
Mahler
Excursion: The Secession
Reading Assignment: Kugel 1-31
Schoenberg, Harmonielehre, 300-321
Listening Assignment: Second String Quartet op. 10, movement 1
Week 4
Alles ist hin
Theories of Form
Schoenberg’s Use of Form
Genesis, Analysis, and Reception of the Second String Quartet
Excursion: The Arnold Schoenberg Center
Week 5
Correspondences II: Schoenberg and Kandinsky
Reading Assignment: da Costa Meyer 33-45
Schorske 324-326 and 344-351
Kandinsky 1-20
Listening Assignment: Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, op. 15, nos. 1, 2, 14, 15
Herzgewächse, op. 20
Reading Assignment: Schoenberg, Style and Idea, 207-245
Listening Assignment: Suite for Piano, op. 25 (excerpts) Variations for Orchestra, op. 31 (excerpts)
Week 9
Schoenberg’s Pupils
“Our Puccini:” Expressionism and Verismo in Berg’s Wozzeck
Order and Chaos in Webern
Reading Assignment: Carner 163-183 and 204-214
Whittall 184-86 and 210-217
Grant 103-110
Listening Assignment: Berg, Wozzeck, Act III
Webern: Variations for Piano, op. 27
Webern: String Quartet, op. 28
Week 10
Schoenberg’s Legacy
Reading Assignment: Boulez, “Schoenberg is Dead”
Straus, “The Myth of Serial Tyranny” Listening Assignment: Boulez, Le marteau sans maître
Babbitt, Three Compositions for Piano
Required readings:
Boulez, Pierre. “Schoenberg Is Dead.” In Music in the Western World: A History in Documents, ed. Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, 507-509. New York: Schirmer, 1984.
Carner, Mosco. Alban Berg: The Man and the Work. London: Duckworth, 1983.
Citron, Marcia J. Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
da Costa Meyer, Esther. “Schönberg and Kandinsky: Emancipations.” Schönberg, Kandinsky,
Blauer Reiter und die Russische Avantgarde (Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center 1/2000) (Vienna: Arnold Schönberg Center, 2000): 33-45.
Crawford, John C. and Dorothy L. Crawford. Expressionism in Twentieth-Century Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Dahlhaus, Carl. The Idea of Absolute Music. Translated by Roger Lustig. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Unconscious.” In The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay, 572-583. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.
Grant, M. J. Serial Music, Serial Aesthetics: Compositional Theory in Post-War Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Translated by Michael Sadleir, Francis Golffing, Michael Harrison, and Ferdinand Ostertag. New York: George Wittenborn, Inc., 1947; reprint, 1964.
Kugel, James L. The Techniques of Strangeness in Symbolist Poetry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971.
Neff, Severine, ed. Arnold Schoenberg: The Second String Quartet in F-sharp minor, Opus 10. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.
Schoenberg, Arnold. Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg. Edited by Leo
Stein. Translated by Leo Black. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. . Theory of Harmony. Translated by Roy E. Carter. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
Schorske, Carl E. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1980.
Straus, Joseph N. “The Myth of Serial ‘Tyranny’ in the 1950s and 1960s.” Musical Quarterly 83
No. 3: 301-343.
Sudendorf, Werner. “Expressionism and Film: The Testament of Dr. Caligari.” In Expressionism
Reassessed, ed. Shulamith Behr, David Fanning, and Douglas Jarman, 91-102. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993.
Timms, Edward. Karl Kraus, Apocalyptic Satirist: Culture and Catastrophe in Habsburg
Vienna. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Whittall, Arnold. Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999.
Recommended readings:
Adorno, Theodor. Philosophy of Modern Music. Translated by Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V.
Blomster. New York: Seabury Press, 1980.
Boehmer, Konrad, ed. Schoenberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997.
Covach, John. “Schoenberg’s ‘Poetics of Music,’ the Twelve-Tone Method, and the Musical
Idea.” In Schoenberg and Words: The Modernist Years, ed. Charlotte M. Cross and Russell A. Berman, 243-271. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000.
Düchting, Hajo. Wassily Kandinsky, 1866-1944: A Revolution in Painting. Cologne: Taschen,
2000.
Dunsby, Jonathan. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Frisch, Walter. The Early Works of Arnold Schoenberg, 1893-1908. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993.
Goehr, Lydia. The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Lessem, Alan Philip. Music and Text in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg: The Critical Years,
1908-1922. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1979.
Lindsay, Kenneth C., and Peter Vergo, eds. Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art. New York: Da Capo, 1989.
Plato. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.
Schoenberg-Nono, Nuria, ed. Arnold Schoenberg: Self Portrait. A Collection of Articles,
Program Notes and Letters by the Composer About His Own Works. Pacific Palisades: Belmont
Music Publishers, 1988.
Simms, Bryan R. The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg, 1908-1923. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000.
. “’My Dear Hagerl’: Self-Representation in Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2.” 19th
Century Music 26 No. 3: 258-77.
Simms, Bryan R., ed. Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese
School. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.
Reich, Willi. The Life and Work of Alban Berg. Translated by Cornelius Cardew. London: Thames and Hudson, 1965.
Weiss, Peg. “Evolving Perceptions of Kandinsky and Schoenberg: Toward the Ethnic Roots of
the ‘Outsider.’” In Constructive Dissonance: Arnold Schoenberg and the Transformations of Twentieth-Century Culture, ed. Juliane Brand and Christopher Hailey, 35-57. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Brief Biography of Instructor:
John Moraitis earned a Ph.D in Musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His teaching experience includes courses in Music History, Music Theory, Music Appreciation, and Piano at the University of Georgia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as private harpsichord lessons and master classes on Baroque performance practice. Current research areas include twentieth-century Modernism and Baroque performance practice. He has been teaching at IES Abroad Vienna since 2004.
Arnold Schoenberg and the Early 20th Century
An exploration of the implications, musical and social, of Arnold Schoenberg’s decision to renounce traditional tonal practice. Students will study the musical works, aesthetic goals, and personal philosophy of the composer within his cultural surroundings, and more specifically within Vienna of the fin-de-siècle and the first two decades of the twentieth century. We will consider examples of the literature, philosophy, science, art, music, film, and politics that surrounded Schoenberg and inquire how these may have influenced his aesthetic beliefs and his approach to musical composition. We will also discuss Schoenberg’s influence by looking at two of his pupils (Berg and Webern), as well as the further development of serialism after the Second World War both in Europe and the United States. Excursions to historic sites will complement course material.
Prior studies in music history, basic skills in music analysis.
By the end of the course, students should:
• be familiar with Schoenberg’s aesthetic beliefs and how these influenced his approach to musical composition
• have developed an understanding of the cross-influences between the arts in the early years of the twentieth century
• be aware of Schoenberg’s influence in the development of twentieth-century music
Lectures, discussions, excursions
Reading and listening assignments for each lecture are listed below. Students are expected to have completed the reading assignments before coming to class. Copies of the reading assignments and CDs of the listening assignments are on reserve in the library. All participants are required to purchase a score of Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet, which can be acquired from IES. There will be a midterm and a final exam as well as a journal. The journal consists of assignments relevant to the topic under discussion. Class participation is also evaluated. The course is graded as follows:
class participation 20%
Journal 20%
midterm exam 30%
final exam 30%
The following is a list of class meetings by week giving topics, major works, readings, and listening assignments. For full reference on the readings, see the Required Readings list below.
Week 1
Course Introduction
Torn Between Tradition and Modernism: Fin-de-siècle Vienna
Opposites Reconciled: Brahms and Wagner
Reading Assignment: Schorske 3-10
Timms 10-22
Schoenberg, Style and Idea, 398-405 and 428-435
Listening Assignment: String Quartet in D major, 1st movement
Verklärte Nacht, op. 4
Week 2
Correspondences I: Rediscovering Schoenberg’s Aesthetic Identity
Absolute Music
Klimt and the Secession
Mahler
Excursion: The Secession
Reading Assignment: Dahlhaus 1-18
Schorske 208-221
Schoenberg, Harmonielehre, introduction and 1-20
Listening Assignment: Chamber Symphony No. 1, op. 9
Week 3
Correspondences I: Rediscovering Schoenberg’s Aesthetic Identity (continued) Plato
The Symbolists
Schoenberg’s Aesthetic Project
Reading Assignment: Kugel 1-31
Schoenberg, Harmonielehre, 300-321
Listening Assignment: Second String Quartet op. 10, movement 1
Week 4
Alles ist hin
Theories of Form
Schoenberg’s Use of Form
Genesis, Analysis, and Reception of the Second String Quartet
Excursion: The Arnold Schoenberg Center
Reading Assignment: Citron 132-145
Neff 128-185
Listening Assignment: Second String Quartet op. 10, movements 2-4
Week 5
Correspondences II: Schoenberg and Kandinsky
Reading Assignment: da Costa Meyer 33-45
Schorske 324-326 and 344-351
Kandinsky 1-20
Listening Assignment: Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, op. 15, nos. 1, 2, 14, 15
Herzgewächse, op. 20
Week 6
Expressionism Redefined Freud’s Unconscious Schoenberg’s Unconscious
Excursion: Leopold Museum
Reading Assignment: Freud 572-583
Listening Assignment: Five Orchestral Pieces, op. 16
Week 7
Expressionism in the Arts
Schoenberg the Painter
Film: Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (1919)
Reading Assignment: Crawford 1-21
Sudendorf 91-102
Listening Assignment: Pierrot Lunaire, op. 21, Nos. 1, 5, 8, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21
Week 8
The Method of Composing With Twelve Tones
Reading Assignment: Schoenberg, Style and Idea, 207-245
Listening Assignment: Suite for Piano, op. 25 (excerpts) Variations for Orchestra, op. 31 (excerpts)
Week 9
Schoenberg’s Pupils
“Our Puccini:” Expressionism and Verismo in Berg’s Wozzeck
Order and Chaos in Webern
Reading Assignment: Carner 163-183 and 204-214
Whittall 184-86 and 210-217
Grant 103-110
Listening Assignment: Berg, Wozzeck, Act III
Webern: Variations for Piano, op. 27
Webern: String Quartet, op. 28
Week 10
Schoenberg’s Legacy
Reading Assignment: Boulez, “Schoenberg is Dead”
Straus, “The Myth of Serial Tyranny” Listening Assignment: Boulez, Le marteau sans maître
Babbitt, Three Compositions for Piano
Boulez, Pierre. “Schoenberg Is Dead.” In Music in the Western World: A History in Documents, ed. Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, 507-509. New York: Schirmer, 1984.
Carner, Mosco. Alban Berg: The Man and the Work. London: Duckworth, 1983.
Citron, Marcia J. Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
da Costa Meyer, Esther. “Schönberg and Kandinsky: Emancipations.” Schönberg, Kandinsky,
Blauer Reiter und die Russische Avantgarde (Journal of the Arnold Schönberg Center 1/2000) (Vienna: Arnold Schönberg Center, 2000): 33-45.
Crawford, John C. and Dorothy L. Crawford. Expressionism in Twentieth-Century Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Dahlhaus, Carl. The Idea of Absolute Music. Translated by Roger Lustig. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Unconscious.” In The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay, 572-583. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.
Grant, M. J. Serial Music, Serial Aesthetics: Compositional Theory in Post-War Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Translated by Michael Sadleir, Francis Golffing, Michael Harrison, and Ferdinand Ostertag. New York: George Wittenborn, Inc., 1947; reprint, 1964.
Kugel, James L. The Techniques of Strangeness in Symbolist Poetry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971.
Neff, Severine, ed. Arnold Schoenberg: The Second String Quartet in F-sharp minor, Opus 10. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.
Schoenberg, Arnold. Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg. Edited by Leo
Stein. Translated by Leo Black. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. . Theory of Harmony. Translated by Roy E. Carter. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
Schorske, Carl E. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1980.
Straus, Joseph N. “The Myth of Serial ‘Tyranny’ in the 1950s and 1960s.” Musical Quarterly 83
No. 3: 301-343.
Sudendorf, Werner. “Expressionism and Film: The Testament of Dr. Caligari.” In Expressionism
Reassessed, ed. Shulamith Behr, David Fanning, and Douglas Jarman, 91-102. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993.
Timms, Edward. Karl Kraus, Apocalyptic Satirist: Culture and Catastrophe in Habsburg
Vienna. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Whittall, Arnold. Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999.
Adorno, Theodor. Philosophy of Modern Music. Translated by Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V.
Blomster. New York: Seabury Press, 1980.
Boehmer, Konrad, ed. Schoenberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997.
Covach, John. “Schoenberg’s ‘Poetics of Music,’ the Twelve-Tone Method, and the Musical
Idea.” In Schoenberg and Words: The Modernist Years, ed. Charlotte M. Cross and Russell A. Berman, 243-271. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000.
Düchting, Hajo. Wassily Kandinsky, 1866-1944: A Revolution in Painting. Cologne: Taschen,
2000.
Dunsby, Jonathan. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Frisch, Walter. The Early Works of Arnold Schoenberg, 1893-1908. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993.
Goehr, Lydia. The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Lessem, Alan Philip. Music and Text in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg: The Critical Years,
1908-1922. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1979.
Lindsay, Kenneth C., and Peter Vergo, eds. Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art. New York: Da Capo, 1989.
Plato. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.
Schoenberg-Nono, Nuria, ed. Arnold Schoenberg: Self Portrait. A Collection of Articles,
Program Notes and Letters by the Composer About His Own Works. Pacific Palisades: Belmont
Music Publishers, 1988.
Simms, Bryan R. The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg, 1908-1923. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000.
. “’My Dear Hagerl’: Self-Representation in Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2.” 19th
Century Music 26 No. 3: 258-77.
Simms, Bryan R., ed. Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern: A Companion to the Second Viennese
School. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.
Reich, Willi. The Life and Work of Alban Berg. Translated by Cornelius Cardew. London: Thames and Hudson, 1965.
Weiss, Peg. “Evolving Perceptions of Kandinsky and Schoenberg: Toward the Ethnic Roots of
the ‘Outsider.’” In Constructive Dissonance: Arnold Schoenberg and the Transformations of Twentieth-Century Culture, ed. Juliane Brand and Christopher Hailey, 35-57. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
John Moraitis earned a Ph.D in Musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His teaching experience includes courses in Music History, Music Theory, Music Appreciation, and Piano at the University of Georgia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as private harpsichord lessons and master classes on Baroque performance practice. Current research areas include twentieth-century Modernism and Baroque performance practice. He has been teaching at IES Abroad Vienna since 2004.