The Second Viennese School

Question 1

Who are the main composers?

Answer 1

Arnold Schoenberg and his students Anton Webern and Alban Berg

Question 2

What is atonality?

Answer 2

A term used for the absence of a key. Decried by Schoenberg as “like describing swimming as ‘not drowning’ “

Question 3

What is expressionism?

Answer 3

The forgoing of longer melodies and ideas for moment to moment expression, guided by feeling. Following ‘associative logic’ rather than an objective ‘linear logic’

See: Webern ‘Bagatelles for String Quartets’, ‘Five Movements for String Quartet’, Schoenberg ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ ‘Sechs kleine klavierstucke’

Question 4

What is developing variation?

Answer 4

The variation of an elemental theme in such a way that it develops the composition. Schoenberg often treated this as variation around a single interval or very set of intervals, inspired by Brahms and Beethoven

See: Schoenberg Op. 22, Pierrot Lunaire

Question 5

What is Grundgestalt?

Answer 5

Just a fancy name for a theme, from which a whole composition is derived

Question 6

What is Klangfarbenmelodie?

Answer 6

‘Sound colour melody’. Individual tones, or small melodic fragments, passed across a whole orchestra or group of sounds, rather than having the melody in just one instrument

See: Schoenberg ‘Farben’ from Five Pieces for Orchestra, Webern Symphony Op. 21

Question 7

What is Sprechstimme?

Answer 7

‘Speech singing’ used in Schoenberg’s vocal works. A kind of half-sung, half-spoken, ‘grotesque’ vocal delivery

See: Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire

Question 8

What is emancipation of the dissonance?

Answer 8

The idea that everyone, throughout history, is getting more acclimatised to increasingly dissonant harmonies

Question 9

What is a tone row?

Answer 9

The twelve notes of the chromatic scale in a set order. The ‘hard’ rule was that the series had to be presented in order. Soft rules were: one series per composition (but the series could be presented in inverted, retrograde and retrograde-inverted form), notes at extremes of register should be avoided or not last too long, no octave doubling, no note sustained so that it becomes focal, and the avoidance of consonant intervals. All of these rules were broken by almost every composer that used this method

Question 10

What is a palindrome?

Answer 10

Something that reads the same backwards as forwards (I.e. ‘SATAN OSCILLATE MY METALLIC SONATAS’). Webern wrote many palindromic compositions.

See: Webern Variations Op. 27, Webern Symphony Op. 21

Question 11

What is an all-interval row?

Answer 11

A tone row that contains every interval (from m2 to M7)

Question 12

What is a derived row?

Answer 12

A row that is made of the repitition of a smaller set (I.e. (014) repeated four times in such a way that it contains all 12 tones)

Question 13

What is a twelve-tone aggregate?

Answer 13

A statement of all 12 notes of the chromatic scale

Question 14

What is functional orchestration?

Answer 14

Orchestrating the pitches in a tone row so that certain pitch sets or melodic ideas are highlighted in the melody

See: Schoenberg String Trio Op. 45 or Phantasy Op. 47

Question 15

What is combinatoriality?

Answer 15

A property of a tone row where part of the row can be combined with a transformed part of itself to form a twelve-tone aggregate. Rows are always combinatorial with themselves (any segment of the row can be combined with the remainder of the row to form a twelve-tone aggregate), so combinatoriality is only interesting when it occurs with a transformed version of the row

See: Webern Variations Op. 27, Schoenberg String Trio Op. 45 or Phantasy Op. 47

Question 16

What is fractal form?

Answer 16

A form where a single elemental pattern or shape (I.e. ABB’A) is replicated at every level of the piece’s organisation. Schoenberg’s Phantasy Op. 47 could be argued to have this kind of form, where the row itself, the form of every phrase, the form of its melodic contour, and its rhythmic organisation, all echo the same formal structure of the whole piece