Programme

Piccolo
3 Flutes
3 Oboes
English Horn
3 Clarinets
Bass Clarinet
Contrabass Clarinet
3 Bassoon
Contrabassoon
PROGRAMME NOTES
Instruments
6 Horns
3 Trumpets
4 Trombones
Tuba
Timpani
Drums
Celesta
Harp
Strings
The early works by Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951) had been steeped in the late
19th-century musical world of German Romanticism and composers like Brahms,
Wagner, Mahler and Richard Strauss. But Schönberg began to feel constrained
by traditional structures and compositional techniques, and was concerned
about where music was heading. Reacting against Romanticism, he believed the
age-old methods had run their course, and it was time to develop new methods
of organizing music. As he wrote at the time, “I am a conservative who was forced
to become a revolutionary.” Until then, the main element of music had been
pitch. What we call a melody or a tune, after all, is just a sequence of pitches or notes.
What notes were played had been more important than other elements, like
instrumental colour, or dynamics, or texture, rhythm and harmony. Starting in
1908, Schönberg sought to alter this organizational structure by writing music
without a strong tonal centre or key — like C Major or G-sharp minor.
This new approach opened up a whole new world of music and our perception
of it. The Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, composed in 1909 and premiered in
London in 1912, are among the best illustrations of Schönberg’s new technique.
They are sometimes likened to the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
that emerged about the same time, in which Kandinsky avoided reality, creating
a more abstract experience instead. Meanwhile, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) —
the founder of psychoanalysis — was opening up new concepts of dreams, the
human mind and the subconscious.
In his Five Pieces, Schönberg strove for more simplicity and economy.
Although scored for a large orchestra, he seldom uses all the instruments together,
instead combining one instrumental colour with others — like a palette of
sounds. Without the focus on pitch or melody, the new musical style is more
austere and severe, and with the avoidance of a tonal centre, it often creates
music of more dissonance than consonance.
The influence of the Five Pieces was huge. Composers were not only granted new
methods of composition, but they, and their audiences, now had a new perspective
on music itself.
In hindsight, as the start of World War I crept closer, these shifts could be seen to
represent the end of one age and the beginning of another. The sweeping social,
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PROGRAMME NOTES
political and cultural changes that would result from World War I would affect
Europe, and the world, forever.
In 1909, Schönberg wrote of the Five Pieces, “I am expecting colossal things
of them, sound and mood especially. That is all they are about: absolutely not
symphonic — precisely the opposite — no architecture, no structure. Merely a
bright, uninterrupted interchange of colours, rhythms and moods.”
Webern: Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6b — reduced version from 1928
Born: Vienna, Austria, December 3, 1883
Died: Mittersill, Austria, September 15, 1945
Composed: Original version in 1909; reduced version in 1928.
World Premiere: This piece premiered on March 31, 1913 in the original version
(opus 6) at Vienna Musikvereins under the direction of Arnold Schonberg; the
Berliner Philharmoniker first performed this piece on January 27,1928 under the
direction of Hermann Scherchen.
Instruments
2 Flutes (2 nd also Piccolos)
2 Oboes
2 Clarinets
Bass Clarinet
2 Bassoons
(2 nd also Contrabassoons)
Programme Note by Toronto writer, teacher, lecturer and
musical-tour host Rick Phillips
www.soundadvice1.com
4 Horns
4 Trumpets
4 Trombones
Tuba
Timpani
Drums
Celesta
Harp
Strings
Anton Webern entered the University of Vienna in 1902, completing his doctorate
on the works of Heirich Adler in 1906. While at the university, he had two encounters
which had an important bearing on his later work. First, he studied composition
with Arnold Schönberg, from whom he learned 12-tone composition techniques.
His other significant encounter was with the music of the 15th- and 16th-century
Flemish masters; their complicated contrapuntal style can be observed at different
levels in Webern’s own works. Along with their colleague Alban Berg, Webern and
Schönberg originated what now is called the Second Viennese School of serialism,
which has had such a far-reaching influence upon the development of 20thcentury
music.
Webern recognized that the twelve-note principle sanctioned a severity and
virtuosity of polyphony that he could compare with that of the Renaissance masters
he had studied. Unlike Schönberg, he never again sought to compose in any other
way. Having had leftist sympathies, he lost all his public position when the Nazis
came to power. The composer was shot and killed in error by a soldier who mistook
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