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116-552: In 1852–53, the composer Johannes Brahms (1833–97) set " In dem Schatten meiner Locken " from the collection for voice and piano under the title " Spanisches Lied ", published as his Op. 6 No. 1. In 1864 Brahms also set " Die ihr schwebet " based on Cantarcillo de la Virgen by the Spanish writer Lope de Vega (1562–1635) as Geistliches Wiegenlied , one of the Two Songs for Alto with Viola and Piano, Op. 91 , published in 1884. In 1891,

232-458: A programmatic work for string sextet that develops several distinctive " leitmotif "-like themes , each one eclipsing and subordinating the last. The only motivic elements that persist throughout the work are those that are perpetually dissolved, varied, and re-combined, in a technique, identified primarily in Brahms's music, that Schoenberg called " developing variation ". Schoenberg's procedures in

348-586: A Master Class in Composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, Schoenberg was appointed to this post the next year, but because of health problems was unable to take up his post until 1926. Among his notable students during this period were the composers Robert Gerhard, Nikos Skalkottas , and Josef Rufer . Along with his twelve-tone works, 1930 marks Schoenberg's return to tonality, with numbers 4 and 6 of

464-624: A circle of artists and intellectuals who included Lene Schneider-Kainer , Franz Werfel , Herwarth Walden , and Else Lasker-Schüler . In 1910 he met Edward Clark , an English music journalist then working in Germany. Clark became his sole English student, and in his later capacity as a producer for the BBC he was responsible for introducing many of Schoenberg's works, and Schoenberg himself, to Britain (as well as Webern , Berg and others). Another of his most important works from this atonal or pantonal period

580-571: A citizen of the United States. Here he was the first composer in residence at the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory. Schoenberg's superstitious nature may have triggered his death. The composer had triskaidekaphobia , and according to friend Katia Mann, he feared he would die during a year that was a multiple of 13. This possibly began in 1908 with the composition of the thirteenth song of

696-519: A composer; Strauss when he encountered Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder , and Mahler after hearing several of Schoenberg's early works. Strauss turned to a more conservative idiom in his own work after 1909, and at that point dismissed Schoenberg. Mahler adopted him as a protégé and continued to support him, even after Schoenberg's style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand. Mahler worried about who would look after him after his death. Schoenberg, who had initially despised and mocked Mahler's music,

812-499: A concert tour with Reményi, visiting the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim at Hanover in May. Brahms had earlier heard Joachim playing the solo part in Beethoven's violin concerto and been deeply impressed. Brahms played some of his own solo piano pieces for Joachim, who remembered fifty years later: "Never in the course of my artist's life have I been more completely overwhelmed". This

928-492: A crisis in his development. Military service disrupted his life when at the age of 42 he was in the army. He was never able to work uninterrupted or over a period of time, and as a result he left many unfinished works and undeveloped "beginnings". On one occasion, a superior officer demanded to know if he was "this notorious Schoenberg, then"; Schoenberg replied: "Beg to report, sir, yes. Nobody wanted to be, someone had to be, so I let it be me". According to Norman Lebrecht , this

1044-459: A critical one: 7 + 6 = 13. This stunned and depressed the composer, for up to that point he had only been wary of multiples of 13 and never considered adding the digits of his age. He died on Friday, 13 July 1951, shortly before midnight. Schoenberg had stayed in bed all day, sick, anxious, and depressed. His wife Gertrud reported in a telegram to her sister-in-law Ottilie the next day that Arnold died at 11:45 pm, 15 minutes before midnight. In

1160-550: A fantasy by Sigismund Thalberg . His first full piano recital, in 1848, included a fugue by Bach as well as works by Marxsen and contemporary virtuosi such as Jacob Rosenhain . A second recital in April 1849 included Beethoven's Waldstein sonata and a waltz fantasia of his own composition and garnered favourable newspaper reviews. Persistent stories of the impoverished adolescent Brahms playing in bars and brothels have only anecdotal provenance, and many modern scholars dismiss them;

1276-504: A friend that Agathe was his "last love". Brahms had hoped to be given the conductorship of the Hamburg Philharmonic, but in 1862 this post was given to baritone Julius Stockhausen . Brahms continued to hope for the post. But he demurred when he was finally offered the directorship in 1893, as he had "got used to the idea of having to go along other paths". In autumn 1862 Brahms made his first visit to Vienna, staying there over

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1392-765: A growing circle of supporters, friends, and musicians. Eduard Hanslick celebrated them polemically as absolute music , and Hans von Bülow even cast Brahms as Beethoven's musical heir, an idea Richard Wagner mocked. Settling in Vienna , Brahms conducted the Singakademie and Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde , programming the early and often "serious" music of his personal studies. He considered retiring from composition late in life but continued to write chamber music, especially for Richard Mühlfeld . His contributions and craftsmanship were admired by his contemporaries like Antonín Dvořák , whose music he enthusiastically supported, and

1508-647: A keen interest in Wagner's music, helping with preparations for Wagner's Vienna concerts in 1862/63, and being rewarded by Tausig with a manuscript of part of Wagner's Tannhäuser (which Wagner demanded back in 1875). The Handel Variations also featured, together with the first Piano Quartet, in his first Viennese recitals, in which his performances were better received by the public and critics than his music. In February 1865 Brahms's mother died, and he began to compose his large choral work A German Requiem , Op. 45, of which six movements were completed by 1866. Premieres of

1624-692: A letter of introduction from Joachim, was welcomed by the Schumanns. Robert, greatly impressed and delighted by the 20-year-old's talent, published an article entitled "Neue Bahnen" ("New Paths") in the 28 October issue of the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik nominating Brahms as one who was "fated to give expression to the times in the highest and most ideal manner". This praise may have aggravated Brahms's self-critical standards of perfection and dented his confidence. He wrote to Schumann in November 1853 that his praise "will arouse such extraordinary expectations by

1740-538: A letter to Ottilie dated 4 August 1951, Gertrud explained, "About a quarter to twelve I looked at the clock and said to myself: another quarter of an hour and then the worst is over. Then the doctor called me. Arnold's throat rattled twice, his heart gave a powerful beat and that was the end". Schoenberg's ashes were later interred at the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna on 6 June 1974. Schoenberg's significant compositions in

1856-671: A motivic unit "varied and developed in manifold ways" in Four Orchestral Songs , Op. 22 (1913–1916), writing that he was "in the preliminary stages of a procedure ... which allows for a motif to be a constant basis". Straus considered that the designation "'motivic' music" might apply "in a modified way" to twelve-tone music more generally. In the aftermath of World War I , Schoenberg sought an ordering principle that would make his musical texture simpler and clearer. Thus he arrived at his "method of composing with twelve tones which are related only with one another". All twelve pitches of

1972-698: A musical family in Hamburg , he began composing and concertizing locally in his youth. He toured Central Europe as a pianist in his adulthood, premiering many of his own works. He worked with Ede Reményi and Joseph Joachim and met Franz Liszt in Weimar . With Joachim's assistance, Brahms sought Robert Schumann 's approval, receiving both his and Clara Schumann 's vigorous support and guidance. Amid Robert's insanity and institutionalization, Brahms stayed with Clara in Düsseldorf , to whom he became devoted. After Robert's death,

2088-552: A native of Prague, was a piano teacher. Arnold was largely self-taught. He took only counterpoint lessons with the composer Alexander Zemlinsky , who was to become his first brother-in-law. In his twenties, Schoenberg earned a living by orchestrating operettas , while composing his own works, such as the string sextet Verklärte Nacht ("Transfigured Night") (1899). He later made an orchestral version of this, which became one of his most popular pieces. Both Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler recognized Schoenberg's significance as

2204-460: A number of books, ranging from his famous Harmonielehre ( Theory of Harmony ) to Fundamentals of Musical Composition , many of which are still in print and used by musicians and developing composers. Schoenberg viewed his development as a natural progression, and he did not deprecate his earlier works when he ventured into serialism. In 1923 he wrote to the Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart : For

2320-418: A performer in a private concert including Beethoven 's quintet for piano and winds Op. 16 and a piano quartet by Mozart . He also played as a solo work an étude of Henri Herz . By 1845 he had written a piano sonata in G minor. His parents disapproved of his early efforts as a composer, feeling that he had better career prospects as a performer. From 1845 to 1848 Brahms studied with Cossel's teacher,

2436-459: A position as musician to the tiny court of Detmold , the capital of the Principality of Lippe , where he spent the winters of 1857 to 1860 and for which he wrote his two Serenades (1858 and 1859, Opp. 11 and 16). In Hamburg he established a women's choir for which he wrote music and conducted. To this period also belong his first two Piano Quartets ( Op. 25 and Op. 26 ) and the first movement of

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2552-607: A putative tenth symphony of Beethoven). Brahms was now recognised as a major figure in the world of music. He had been on the jury which awarded the Vienna State Prize to the (then little-known) composer Antonín Dvořák three times, first in February 1875, and later in 1876 and 1877, and had successfully recommended Dvořák to his publisher, Simrock. The two men met for the first time in 1877, and Dvořák dedicated to Brahms his String Quartet, Op. 34 of that year. He also began to be

2668-487: A representative of the American inventor Thomas Edison , visited the composer in Vienna and invited him to make an experimental recording. Brahms played an abbreviated version of his first Hungarian Dance and of Josef Strauss 's Die Libelle on the piano. Although the spoken introduction to the short piece of music is quite clear, the piano playing is largely inaudible due to heavy surface noise . In that same year, Brahms

2784-411: A soprano vocal line, breaking with previous string-quartet practice, and daringly weaken the links with traditional tonality . Both movements end on tonic chords, and the work is not fully non-tonal. During the summer of 1910, Schoenberg wrote his Harmonielehre ( Theory of Harmony , Schoenberg 1922), which remains one of the most influential music-theory books. From about 1911, Schoenberg belonged to

2900-583: A staple of the concert repertoire, continuing to influence composers into the 21st century. Brahms's father, Johann Jakob Brahms, was from the town of Heide in Holstein. Against his family's will, Johann Jakob pursued a career in music, arriving in Hamburg at age 19. He found work playing double bass for jobs; he also played in a sextet in the Alster-pavilion in Hamburg's Jungfernstieg . In 1830, Johann Jakob

3016-437: A variety of later composers. Max Reger and Alexander Zemlinsky reconciled Brahms's and Wagner's often contrasted styles. So did Arnold Schoenberg , who emphasized Brahms's "progressive" side. He and Anton Webern were inspired by the intricate structural coherence of Brahms's music, including what Schoenberg termed its developing variation . Brahms saw his music became internationally important in his own lifetime. It remains

3132-500: A version of the first movement had been announced by Brahms to Clara and to Albert Dietrich) in the early 1860s. During the decade it evolved very gradually; the finale may not have begun its conception until 1868. Brahms was cautious and typically self-deprecating about the symphony during its creation, writing to his friends that it was "long and difficult", "not exactly charming" and, significantly, "long and in C Minor ", which, as Richard Taruskin points out, made it clear "that Brahms

3248-415: Is a reference to Schoenberg's apparent "destiny" as the "Emancipator of Dissonance" . Schoenberg drew comparisons between Germany's assault on France and his assault on decadent bourgeois artistic values. In August 1914, while denouncing the music of Bizet , Stravinsky , and Ravel , he wrote: "Now comes the reckoning! Now we will throw these mediocre kitschmongers into slavery, and teach them to venerate

3364-412: Is fundamentally different from that of his Phantasy for Violin and Piano, Op. 47 (1949). Ten features of Schoenberg's mature twelve-tone practice are generally characteristic, interdependent, and interactive according to Ethan Haimo: After some early difficulties, Schoenberg began to win public acceptance with works such as the tone poem Pelleas und Melisande at a Berlin performance in 1907. At

3480-729: Is identified in the legacy of the high-Romantic composers of the late nineteenth century, as well as with expressionist movements in poetry and art. The second, 1908–1922, is typified by the abandonment of key centers , a move often described (though not by Schoenberg) as " free atonality ". The third, from 1923 onward, commences with Schoenberg's invention of dodecaphonic , or "twelve-tone" compositional method. Schoenberg's best-known students, Hanns Eisler , Alban Berg , and Anton Webern , followed Schoenberg faithfully through each of these intellectual and aesthetic transitions, though not without considerable experimentation and variety of approach. Beginning with songs and string quartets written around

3596-513: Is preserved as a museum. In Vienna Brahms became an associate of two close members of Wagner's circle, his earlier friend Peter Cornelius and Karl Tausig , and of Joseph Hellmesberger Sr. and Julius Epstein , respectively the Director and head of violin studies, and the head of piano studies, at the Vienna Conservatoire . Brahms's circle grew to include the notable critic (and opponent of

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3712-403: Is remarkable for its tonal development of whole-tone and quartal harmony , and its initiation of dynamic and unusual ensemble relationships, involving dramatic interruption and unpredictable instrumental allegiances. Many of these features would typify the timbre -oriented chamber-music aesthetic of the coming century. Schoenberg's music from 1908 onward experiments in a variety of ways with

3828-570: Is reported to have responded, "As far as the text is concerned, I confess that I would gladly omit even the word German and instead use Human; also with my best knowledge and will I would dispense with passages like John 3:16 . On the other hand, I have chosen one thing or another because I am a musician, because I needed it, and because with my venerable authors I can't delete or dispute anything. But I had better stop before I say too much." Brahms also experienced at this period popular success with works such as his first set of Hungarian Dances (1869),

3944-521: Is significant", Berg asserted, parenthetically praising Schoenberg's "excess unheard-of since Bach ". Webern marveled at how "Schoenberg creates an accompaniment figure from a motivic particle", proclaiming "everything is thematic! There is ... not a single note ... that does not have a thematic basis." The urgency of musical constructions lacking in tonal centers or traditional dissonance-consonance relationships can be traced as far back as Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1 , Op. 9 (1906). This work

4060-722: Is the highly influential Pierrot lunaire , Op. 21, of 1912, a novel cycle of expressionist songs set to a German translation of poems by the Belgian-French poet Albert Giraud . Utilizing the technique of Sprechstimme , or melodramatically spoken recitation, the work pairs a female vocalist with a small ensemble of five musicians. The ensemble, which is now commonly referred to as the Pierrot ensemble , consists of flute (doubling on piccolo ), clarinet (doubling on bass clarinet ), violin (doubling on viola), violoncello, speaker, and piano. Wilhelm Bopp  [ de ] ), director of

4176-617: The Academic Festival Overture (written following the conferring of an honorary degree by the University of Breslau ) and Tragic Overture of 1880. In May 1876, Cambridge University offered to grant honorary degrees of Doctor of Music to both Brahms and Joachim, provided that they composed new pieces as "theses" and were present in Cambridge to receive their degrees. Brahms was averse to traveling to England and requested to receive

4292-579: The Liebeslieder Waltzes , Op. 52 , (1868/69), and his collections of lieder (Opp. 43 and 46–49). Following such successes he finally completed a number of works that he had wrestled with over many years such as the cantata Rinaldo (1863–1868), his first two string quartets Op. 51 nos. 1 and 2 (1865–1873), the third piano quartet (1855–1875), and most notably his first symphony which appeared in 1876, but which had been begun as early as 1855. During 1869, Brahms felt himself falling in love with

4408-812: The Marseillaise . Post-war Vienna beckoned with honorary citizenship , but Schoenberg was ill as depicted in his String Trio (1946). As the world learned of the Holocaust , he memorialized its victims in A Survivor from Warsaw (1947). The Israel Conservatory and Academy of Music elected him honorary president (1951). His innovative music was among the most influential and polemicized of 20th-century classical music. At least three generations of composers extended its somewhat formal principles. His aesthetic and music-historical views influenced musicologists Theodor W. Adorno and Carl Dahlhaus . The Arnold Schönberg Center collects his archival legacy. Arnold Schoenberg

4524-526: The Variations for Orchestra , Op. 31 (1928); Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene , Op. 34 (1930); Piano Pieces , Opp. 33a & b (1931), and the Piano Concerto , Op. 42 (1942). Contrary to its reputation for doctrinaire strictness, Schoenberg's technique varied according to the musical demands of each composition. Thus the musical structure of his unfinished opera Moses und Aron

4640-699: The Vier ernste Gesänge (Four Serious Songs), Op. 121 (1896), which were prompted by the death of Clara Schumann and dedicated to the artist Max Klinger , who was his great admirer. The last of the Eleven Chorale Preludes for organ, Op. 122 (1896) is a setting of "O Welt ich muss dich lassen" ("O world I must leave thee") and the last notes that Brahms wrote. Many of these works were written in his house in Bad Ischl , where Brahms had first visited in 1882 and where he spent every summer from 1889 onwards. In

4756-425: The csardas , which was later to prove the foundation of his most lucrative and popular compositions, the two sets of Hungarian Dances (1869 and 1880). 1850 also marked Brahms's first contact (albeit a failed one) with Robert Schumann; during Schumann's visit to Hamburg that year, friends persuaded Brahms to send the former some of his compositions, but the package was returned unopened. In 1853 Brahms went on

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4872-519: The German Requiem , the Alto Rhapsody , and the patriotic Triumphlied , Op. 55, which celebrated Prussia's victory in the 1870/71 Franco-Prussian War ). 1873 saw the premiere of his orchestral Variations on a Theme by Haydn , originally conceived for two pianos, which has become one of his most popular works. Brahms's First Symphony , Op. 68, appeared in 1876, though it had been begun (and

4988-590: The Gängeviertel  [ de ] quarter of Hamburg and struggled economically. (Johann Jakob even considered emigrating to the United States when an impresario , recognizing Johannes's talent, promised them fortune there.) Eventually Johann Jakob became a musician in the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg playing double bass , horn, and flute . For enjoyment, he played first violin in string quartets . The family moved over

5104-519: The Variations on a Theme of Schumann . Clara continued to support Brahms's career by programming his music in her recitals. After the publication of his Op. 10 Ballades for piano, Brahms published no further works until 1860. His major project of this period was the Piano Concerto in D minor , which he had begun as a work for two pianos in 1854 but soon realized needed a larger-scale format. Based in Hamburg at this time, he gained, with Clara's support,

5220-551: The Vienna Conservatory from 1907, wanted a break from the stale environment personified for him by Robert Fuchs and Hermann Graedener . Having considered many candidates, he offered teaching positions to Schoenberg and Franz Schreker in 1912. At the time Schoenberg lived in Berlin. He was not completely cut off from the Vienna Conservatory, having taught a private theory course a year earlier. He seriously considered

5336-1017: The chromatic scale in his twelve-tone music, often exploiting combinatorial hexachords and sometimes admitting tonal elements. Schoenberg resigned from the Prussian Academy of Arts (1926–1933), emigrating as the Nazis took power; they banned his (and his students') music, labeling it " degenerate ". He taught in the US, including at the University of California, Los Angeles (1936–1944), where facilities are named in his honor . He explored writing film music (as he had done idiosyncratically in Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene , 1929–1930) and wrote more tonal music, completing his Chamber Symphony No. 2 in 1939. With citizenship (1941) and US entry into World War II , he satirized fascist tyrants in Ode to Napoleon (1942, after Byron ), deploying Beethoven's fate motif and

5452-495: The third Piano Quartet , which eventually appeared in 1875. The end of the decade brought professional setbacks for Brahms. The premiere of the First Piano Concerto in Hamburg on 22 January 1859, with the composer as soloist, was poorly received. Brahms wrote to Joachim that the performance was "a brilliant and decisive – failure ... [I]t forces one to concentrate one's thoughts and increases one's courage ... But

5568-429: The "truly revolutionary nature" of his new system, misinformation disseminated by some early writers about the system's "rules" and "exceptions" that bear "little relation to the most significant features of Schoenberg's music", the composer's secretiveness, and the widespread unavailability of his sketches and manuscripts until the late 1970s. During his life, Schoenberg was "subjected to a range of criticism and abuse that

5684-433: The ' Three Bs '; in a letter to his wife he wrote: "You know what I think of Brahms: after Bach and Beethoven the greatest, the most sublime of all composers." The following years saw the premieres of his Third Symphony , Op. 90 (1883) and his Fourth Symphony , Op. 98 (1885). Richard Strauss , who had been appointed assistant to von Bülow at Meiningen, and had been uncertain about Brahms's music, found himself converted by

5800-492: The 'New German School') Eduard Hanslick , the conductor Hermann Levi and the surgeon Theodor Billroth , who were to become among his greatest advocates. In January 1863 Brahms met Richard Wagner for the first time, for whom he played his Handel Variations Op. 24, which he had completed the previous year. The meeting was cordial, although Wagner was in later years to make critical, and even insulting, comments on Brahms's music. Brahms however retained at this time and later

5916-438: The Brahms family was relatively prosperous, and Hamburg legislation very strictly forbade music in, or the admittance of minors to, brothels. Brahms's juvenilia comprised piano music, chamber music and works for male voice choir. Under the pseudonym 'G. W. Marks', some piano arrangements and fantasies were published by the Hamburg firm of Cranz in 1849. The earliest of Brahms's works which he acknowledged (his Scherzo Op. 4 and

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6032-689: The German spirit and to worship the German God". Alex Ross described this as an "act of war psychosis". The deteriorating relation between contemporary composers and the public led him to found the Society for Private Musical Performances ( Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen in German) in Vienna in 1918. He sought to provide a forum in which modern musical compositions could be carefully prepared and rehearsed, and properly performed under conditions protected from

6148-453: The Hollywood orchestrator Edward B. Powell studied with Schoenberg at this time. After his move to the United States, where he arrived on 31 October 1933, the composer used the alternative spelling of his surname Schoenberg , rather than Schönberg , in what he called "deference to American practice", though according to one writer he first made the change a year earlier. He lived there

6264-400: The Schumanns' daughter Julie (then aged 24 to his 36). He did not declare himself. When later that year Julie's engagement to Count Marmorito was announced, he wrote and gave to Clara the manuscript of his Alto Rhapsody (Op. 53). Clara wrote in her diary that "he called it his wedding song" and noted "the profound pain in the text and the music". From 1872 to 1875, Brahms was director of

6380-662: The Six Pieces for Male Chorus Op. 35, the other pieces being dodecaphonic. Schoenberg continued in his post until the Nazis seized power in 1933. While on vacation in France, he was warned that returning to Germany would be dangerous. Schoenberg formally reclaimed membership in the Jewish religion at a Paris synagogue, then emigrated to the United States with his family. He subsequently gave brief consideration to moving again, either to England or

6496-728: The Six Songs Op. 3, and the Scherzo Op. 4), whilst Bartholf Senff published the Third Piano Sonata Op. 5 and the Six Songs Op. 6. In Leipzig, he gave recitals including his own first two piano sonatas, and met with Ferdinand David , Ignaz Moscheles , and Hector Berlioz , among others. After Schumann's attempted suicide and subsequent confinement in a mental sanatorium near Bonn in February 1854 (where he died of pneumonia in 1856), Brahms based himself in Düsseldorf, where he supported

6612-521: The Soviet Union. His first teaching position in the United States was at the Malkin Conservatory ( Boston University ). He moved to Los Angeles, where he taught at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles , both of which later named a music building on their respective campuses Schoenberg Hall. He was appointed visiting professor at UCLA in 1935 on

6728-599: The Third Symphony and was enthusiastic about the Fourth: "a giant work, great in concept and invention". Another, but more cautious, supporter from the younger generation was Gustav Mahler , who first met Brahms in 1884 and remained a close acquaintance. He considered Brahms a conservative master who was more turned toward the past than the future. He rated Brahms as technically superior to Anton Bruckner , but more earth-bound than Wagner and Beethoven. In 1889, Theo Wangemann ,

6844-563: The Vienna première of the Gurre-Lieder in 1913, he received an ovation that lasted a quarter of an hour and culminated with Schoenberg's being presented with a laurel crown. Nonetheless, much of his work was not well received. His Chamber Symphony No. 1 premièred unremarkably in 1907. However, when it was played again in the Skandalkonzert on 31 March 1913, (which also included works by Berg , Webern and Zemlinsky ), "one could hear

6960-428: The absence of traditional keys or tonal centers . His first explicitly atonal piece was the second string quartet , Op. 10, with soprano. The last movement of this piece has no key signature, marking Schoenberg's formal divorce from diatonic harmonies. Other important works of the era include his song cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten , Op. 15 (1908–1909), his Five Orchestral Pieces , Op. 16 (1909),

7076-471: The age of 63. Brahms is buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery in Vienna, under a monument designed by Victor Horta with sculpture by Ilse von Twardowski . Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first modernists who transformed

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7192-456: The art of serious music in Germany today" led to a bilious comment from Wagner in his essay "On Poetry and Composition": "I know of some famous composers who in their concert masquerades don the disguise of a street-singer one day, the hallelujah periwig of Handel the next, the dress of a Jewish Czardas -fiddler another time, and then again the guise of a highly respectable symphony dressed up as Number Ten" (referring to Brahms's First Symphony as

7308-769: The central figure of the Second Viennese School . They consorted with visual artists, published in Der Blaue Reiter , and wrote atonal , expressionist music , attracting fame and stirring debate. In his String Quartet No. 2 (1907–1908), Erwartung (1909), and Pierrot lunaire (1912), Schoenberg visited extremes of emotion; in self-portraits he emphasized his intense gaze. While working on Die Jakobsleiter (from 1914) and Moses und Aron (from 1923), Schoenberg confronted popular antisemitism by returning to Judaism and substantially developed his twelve-tone technique . He systematically interrelated all notes of

7424-449: The composer Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) published a collection of 44 Lieder (settings for voice and piano) on poems from the volume, also under the title Spanisches Liederbuch . This article about a collection of written poetry is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms ( / b r ɑː m z / ; German: [joˈhanəs ˈbʁaːms] ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897)

7540-630: The concerts of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde , where he ensured that the orchestra was staffed only by professionals. He conducted a repertoire noted and criticized for its emphasis on early and often "serious" music, running from Isaac , Bach, Handel, and Cherubini to the nineteenth century composers who were not of the New German School. Among these were Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Joachim, Ferdinand Hiller , Max Bruch and himself (notably his large scale choral works,

7656-412: The conductor Bernhard Scholz : "I am coming with a large beard! Prepare your wife for a most awful sight." The singer George Henschel recalled that after a concert "I saw a man unknown to me, rather stout, of middle height, with long hair and a full beard. In a very deep and hoarse voice he introduced himself as 'Musikdirektor Müller' ... an instant later, we all found ourselves laughing heartily at

7772-485: The debate on the future of German music which seriously misfired. Together with Joachim and others, he prepared an attack on Liszt's followers, the so-called " New German School " (although Brahms himself was sympathetic to the music of Richard Wagner , the School's leading light). In particular they objected to the rejection of traditional musical forms and to the "rank, miserable weeds growing from Liszt-like fantasias". A draft

7888-412: The degree 'in absentia', offering as his thesis the previously performed (November 1876) symphony. But of the two, only Joachim went to England and was granted a degree. Brahms "acknowledged the invitation" by giving the manuscript score and parts of his First Symphony to Joachim, who led the performance at Cambridge 8 March 1877 (English premiere). The commendation of Brahms by Breslau as "the leader in

8004-565: The dictates of fashion and pressures of commerce. From its inception until its dissolution amid Austrian hyperinflation , the Society presented 353 performances to paying members, sometimes weekly. During the first year and a half, Schoenberg did not let any of his own works be performed. Instead, audiences at the Society's concerts heard difficult contemporary compositions by Scriabin , Debussy , Mahler, Webern, Berg, Reger , and other leading figures of early 20th-century music. Later, Schoenberg

8120-605: The difficult Violin Concerto , Op. 36 (1934/36), the Kol Nidre , Op. 39, for chorus and orchestra (1938), the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte , Op. 41 (1942), the haunting Piano Concerto , Op. 42 (1942), and his memorial to the victims of the Holocaust , A Survivor from Warsaw , Op. 46 (1947). He was unable to complete his opera Moses und Aron (1932/33), which was one of

8236-533: The effort, three weeks before his death, to attend the premiere of Johann Strauss's operetta Die Göttin der Vernunft (The Goddess of Reason) in March 1897. After the successful Vienna premiere of his Second String Quintet , Op. 111 in 1890, the 57-year-old Brahms came to think that he might retire from composition, telling a friend that he "had achieved enough; here I had before me a carefree old age and could enjoy it in peace." He also began to find solace in escorting

8352-518: The first three movements were given in Vienna, but the complete work was first given in Bremen in 1868 to great acclaim. A seventh movement (the soprano solo "Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit") was added for the equally successful Leipzig premiere (February 1869). The work went on to receive concert and critical acclaim throughout Germany and also in England, Switzerland and Russia, marking effectively Brahms's arrival on

8468-657: The first works of its genre written completely using dodecaphonic composition . Along with twelve-tone music, Schoenberg also returned to tonality with works during his last period, like the Suite for Strings in G major (1935), the Chamber Symphony No. 2 in E ♭ minor, Op. 38 (begun in 1906, completed in 1939), the Variations on a Recitative in D minor, Op. 40 (1941). During this period his notable students included John Cage and Lou Harrison . In 1941, he became

8584-484: The hissing was too much of a good thing ..." At a second performance, audience reaction was so hostile that Brahms had to be restrained from leaving the stage after the first movement. As a consequence of these reactions Breitkopf and Härtel declined to take on his new compositions. Brahms consequently established a relationship with other publishers, including Simrock , who eventually became his major publishing partner. Brahms further made an intervention in 1860 in

8700-562: The household and dealt with business matters on Clara's behalf. Clara was not allowed to visit Robert until two days before his death, but Brahms was able to visit him and acted as a go-between. Brahms began to feel deeply for Clara, who to him represented an ideal of womanhood. But he was conflicted about their romantic association and resisted it, choosing the life of a bachelor in an apparent effort to focus on his craft. Nonetheless, their intensely emotional relationship lasted until Clara's death. In June 1854 Brahms dedicated to Clara his Op. 9,

8816-534: The idea of emigrating to New Zealand. His secretary and student Richard Hoffmann , the nephew of Schoenberg's mother-in-law Henriette Kolisch, lived in New Zealand in 1935–1947. Schoenberg had since childhood been fascinated with islands and with New Zealand in particular, possibly because of its postage stamps. He abandoned the idea of moving to New Zealand after his health began to decline in 1944. During this final period, he composed several notable works, including

8932-696: The influential Pierrot lunaire , Op. 21 (1912), as well as his dramatic Erwartung , Op. 17 (1909). Surveying Schoenberg's Opp. 10, 15–16, and 19, Webern argued: "It creates entirely new expressive values; therefore it also needs new means of expression. Content and form cannot be separated." Analysts (most prominently Allen Forte ) so emphasized motivic shapes in Schoenberg's (and Berg's and Webern's) "free atonal" music that Benjamin Boretz and William Benjamin suggested referring to it as "motivic" music. Schoenberg himself described his use of

9048-574: The limits of the Lied genre. Schoenberg's Six Songs, Op. 3 (1899–1903), for example, exhibit a conservative clarity of tonal organization typical of Brahms and Mahler, reflecting an interest in balanced phrases and an undisturbed hierarchy of key relationships. However, the songs also explore unusually bold incidental chromaticism and seem to aspire to a Wagnerian "representational" approach to motivic identity. The synthesis of these approaches reaches an apex in his Verklärte Nacht , Op. 4 (1899),

9164-549: The mezzo-soprano Alice Barbi and may have proposed to her (she was only 28). His admiration for Richard Mühlfeld , clarinettist with the Meiningen orchestra, revived his interest in composing and led him to write the Clarinet Trio , Op. 114 (1891); Clarinet Quintet , Op. 115 (1891); and the two Clarinet Sonatas , Op. 120 (1894). Brahms also wrote at this time his final cycles of piano pieces, Opp. 116–119 and

9280-598: The next few years included "dance pieces, preludes and fugues for organ, and neo- Renaissance and neo- Baroque choral works". After meeting Joachim, Brahms and Reményi visited Weimar , where Brahms met Franz Liszt , Peter Cornelius , and Joachim Raff , and where Liszt performed Brahms's Op. 4 Scherzo at sight . Reményi claimed that Brahms then slept during Liszt's performance of his own Sonata in B minor ; this and other disagreements led Reményi and Brahms to part company. Brahms visited Düsseldorf in October 1853, and, with

9396-442: The next year Schoenberg married Gertrud Kolisch (1898–1967), sister of his pupil, the violinist Rudolf Kolisch . They had three children: Nuria Dorothea (born 1932), Ronald Rudolf (born 1937), and Lawrence Adam (born 1941). Gertrude Kolisch Schoenberg wrote the libretto for Schoenberg's one-act opera Von heute auf morgen under the pseudonym Max Blonda. At her request Schoenberg's (ultimately unfinished) piece, Die Jakobsleiter

9512-448: The octave (usually unrealized compositionally) are regarded as equal, and no one note or tonality is given the emphasis it occupied in classical harmony. Schoenberg regarded the twelve-tone system as the equivalent in music of Albert Einstein 's discoveries in physics. Schoenberg told Josef Rufer , "I have made a discovery which will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years". Among Schoenberg's twelve-tone works are

9628-404: The offer, but he declined. Writing afterward to Alban Berg, he cited his "aversion to Vienna" as the main reason for his decision, while contemplating that it might have been the wrong one financially, but having made it he felt content. A couple of months later he wrote to Schreker suggesting that it might have been a bad idea for him as well to accept the teaching position. World War I brought

9744-494: The perfect success of Brahms's disguise." The incident also displays Brahms's love of practical jokes. In 1882 Brahms completed his Piano Concerto No. 2 , Op. 83, dedicated to his teacher Marxsen. Brahms was invited by Hans von Bülow to undertake a premiere of the work with the Meiningen Court Orchestra . This was the beginning of his collaboration with Meiningen and with von Bülow, who was to rank Brahms as one of

9860-426: The pianist and composer Eduard Marxsen . Marxsen had been a personal acquaintance of Beethoven and Schubert , admired the works of Mozart and Haydn , and was a devotee of the music of J. S. Bach . Marxsen conveyed to Brahms the tradition of these composers and ensured that Brahms's own compositions were grounded in that tradition. In 1847 Brahms made his first public appearance as a solo pianist in Hamburg, playing

9976-452: The practice of harmony in 20th-century classical music , and a central element of his music was its use of motives as a means of coherence. He propounded concepts like developing variation , the emancipation of the dissonance , and the " unity of musical space ". Schoenberg's early works, like Verklärte Nacht (1899), represented a Brahmsian – Wagnerian synthesis on which he built. Mentoring Anton Webern and Alban Berg , he became

10092-524: The present, it matters more to me if people understand my older works ... They are the natural forerunners of my later works, and only those who understand and comprehend these will be able to gain an understanding of the later works that goes beyond a fashionable bare minimum. I do not attach so much importance to being a musical bogey-man as to being a natural continuer of properly-understood good old tradition! His first wife died in October 1923, and in August of

10208-607: The public that I don't know how I can begin to fulfil them". While in Düsseldorf, Brahms participated with Schumann and Schumann's pupil Albert Dietrich in writing a movement each of a violin sonata for Joachim, the " F-A-E Sonata ", the letters representing the initials of Joachim's personal motto Frei aber einsam ("Free but lonely"). Schumann's accolade led to the first publication of Brahms's works under his own name. Brahms went to Leipzig where Breitkopf & Härtel published his Opp. 1–4 (the Piano Sonatas nos. 1 and 2 ,

10324-678: The recipient of a variety of honours: Ludwig II of Bavaria awarded him the Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 1874, and the music-loving Duke George of Meiningen awarded him the Commander's Cross of the Order of the House of Meiningen in 1881. At this time Brahms also chose to change his image. Having been always clean-shaven, in 1878 he surprised his friends by growing a beard, writing in September to

10440-1161: The recommendation of Otto Klemperer , music director and conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra ; and the next year was promoted to professor at a salary of $ 5,100 per year, which enabled him in either May 1936 or 1937 to buy a Spanish Revival house at 116 North Rockingham in Brentwood Park , near the UCLA campus, for $ 18,000. This address was directly across the street from Shirley Temple 's house, and there he befriended fellow composer (and tennis partner) George Gershwin . The Schoenbergs were able to employ domestic help and began holding Sunday afternoon gatherings that were known for excellent coffee and Viennese pastries. Frequent guests included Otto Klemperer (who studied composition privately with Schoenberg beginning in April 1936), Edgard Varèse , Joseph Achron , Louis Gruenberg , Ernst Toch , and, on occasion, well-known actors such as Harpo Marx and Peter Lorre . Composers Leonard Rosenman and George Tremblay and

10556-540: The repertory of modern art music extend over a period of more than 50 years. Traditionally they are divided into three periods though this division is arguably arbitrary as the music in each of these periods is considerably varied. The idea that his twelve-tone period "represents a stylistically unified body of works is simply not supported by the musical evidence", and important musical characteristics—especially those related to motivic development —transcend these boundaries completely. The first of these periods, 1894–1907,

10672-535: The rest of his life, but at first he was not settled. In 1934, he applied for a teacher of harmony and theory position at the New South Wales State Conservatorium in Sydney. Vincent Plush discovered his application in the 1970s. It bore two notes in different handwriting: "Jewish" in one and "Modernist ideas and dangerous tendencies" in another marked E.B. ( Edgar Bainton ). Schoenberg also explored

10788-508: The shrill sound of door keys among the violent clapping, and in the second gallery the first fight of the evening began." Later in the concert, during a performance of the Altenberg Lieder by Berg, fighting broke out after Schoenberg interrupted the performance to threaten removal by the police of any troublemakers. According to Ethan Haimo, the general understanding of Schoenberg's twelve-tone work has been difficult to achieve because of

10904-494: The song Heimkehr Op. 7 no. 6) date from 1851. However, Brahms was later assiduous in eliminating all his juvenilia. Even as late as 1880, he wrote to his friend Elise Giesemann to send him his manuscripts of choral music so that they could be destroyed. In 1850 Brahms met the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi and accompanied him in a number of recitals over the next few years. This was his introduction to "gypsy-style" music such as

11020-402: The song cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten Op. 15. He dreaded his sixty-fifth birthday in 1939 so much that a friend asked the composer and astrologer Dane Rudhyar to prepare Schoenberg's horoscope . Rudhyar did this and told Schoenberg that the year was dangerous, but not fatal. But in 1950, on his 76th birthday, an astrologer wrote Schoenberg a note warning him that the year was

11136-432: The summer of 1896 Brahms was diagnosed with jaundice and pancreatic cancer , and later in the year his Viennese doctor diagnosed him with liver cancer , from which his father Jakob had died. His last public appearance was on 7 March 1897, when he saw Hans Richter conduct his Symphony No. 4 ; there was an ovation after each of the four movements. His condition gradually worsened and he died on 3 April 1897, in Vienna at

11252-401: The summer of 1908, Schoenberg's wife Mathilde left him for several months for a young Austrian painter, Richard Gerstl (who committed suicide in that November after Mathilde returned to her marriage). This period marked a distinct change in Schoenberg's work. It was during the absence of his wife that he composed "You lean against a silver-willow" (German: Du lehnest wider eine Silberweide ),

11368-570: The thirteenth song in the cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten , Op. 15, based on the collection of the same name by the German mystical poet Stefan George . This was the first composition without any reference at all to a key . Also in this year, Schoenberg completed one of his most revolutionary compositions, the String Quartet No. 2 . The first two movements, though chromatic in color, use traditional key signatures . The final two movements, again using poetry by George, incorporate

11484-445: The turn of the century, Schoenberg's concerns as a composer positioned him uniquely among his peers, in that his procedures exhibited characteristics of both Brahms and Wagner , who for most contemporary listeners, were considered polar opposites, representing mutually exclusive directions in the legacy of German music. Schoenberg's Zwei Gesänge , Op. 1 , first performed in 1903, set two contemporary poems to expressive music bordering

11600-540: The two remained close, lifelong friends. Brahms never married, perhaps in an effort to focus on his work as a musician and scholar. He was a self-conscious, sometimes severely self-critical composer. Though innovative, his music was considered relatively conservative within the polarized context of the War of the Romantics , an affair in which Brahms regretted his public involvement. His compositions were largely successful, attracting

11716-479: The winter. Although Brahms entertained the idea of taking up conducting posts elsewhere, he based himself increasingly in Vienna and soon made it his home. In 1863, he was appointed conductor of the Wiener Singakademie . He surprised his audiences by programming many works by the early German masters such as Heinrich Schütz and J. S. Bach, and other early composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli ; more recent music

11832-449: The work are organized in two ways simultaneously; at once suggesting a Wagnerian narrative of motivic ideas, as well as a Brahmsian approach to motivic development and tonal cohesion. Citing Berg and Webern on Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 1, Op. 7 (1904–1905), Joseph N. Straus emphasized the importance of "motivic coherence" in the three's œuvres more generally. "Every smallest turn of phrase , even accompanimental figuration

11948-538: The world stage. Baptised into the Lutheran church as an infant and confirmed at age fifteen in St. Michael's Church , Brahms has been described as an agnostic and a humanist. The devout Catholic Antonín Dvořák wrote in a letter: "Such a man, such a fine soul – and he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!" When asked by conductor Karl Reinthaler to add additional explicitly religious text to his German Requiem , Brahms

12064-412: The years to ever better accommodation in Hamburg. Johann Jakob gave his son his first musical training; Johannes also learnt to play the violin and the basics of playing the cello. From 1840 he studied piano with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel. Cossel complained in 1842 that Brahms "could be such a good player, but he will not stop his never-ending composing." At the age of 10, Brahms made his debut as

12180-432: Was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period . His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of his Classical (and earlier) forebears, including Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach . It includes four symphonies , four concertos , a Requiem , and many songs, among other music for symphony orchestra, piano, organ, voices, and chamber ensembles. Born to

12296-436: Was appointed as a horn player in the Hamburg militia. He married Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen the same year. A middle-class seamstress 17 years his senior, she enjoyed writing letters and reading despite an apparently limited education. Johannes Brahms was born in 1833. His sister Elisabeth (Elise) had been born in 1831 and a younger brother Fritz Friedrich was born in 1835. The family then lived in poor apartments in

12412-511: Was born into a lower middle-class Jewish family in the Leopoldstadt district (in earlier times a Jewish ghetto ) of Vienna, at Obere Donaustraße 5. His father Samuel, a native of Szécsény , Hungary, later moved to Pozsony (Pressburg, at that time part of the Kingdom of Hungary, now Bratislava , Slovakia) and then to Vienna, was a shoe- shopkeeper , and his mother Pauline Schoenberg (née Nachod),

12528-586: Was converted by the "thunderbolt" of Mahler's Third Symphony , which he considered a work of genius. Afterward he "spoke of Mahler as a saint". In 1898 Schoenberg converted to Christianity in the Lutheran church. According to MacDonald (2008, 93) this was partly to strengthen his attachment to Western European cultural traditions, and partly as a means of self-defence "in a time of resurgent anti-Semitism". In 1933, after long meditation, he returned to Judaism, because he realised that "his racial and religious heritage

12644-525: Was inescapable", and to take up an unmistakable position on the side opposing Nazism. He would self-identify as a member of the Jewish religion later in life. In October 1901, Schoenberg married Mathilde Zemlinsky, the sister of the conductor and composer Alexander von Zemlinsky , with whom Schoenberg had been studying since about 1894. Schoenberg and Mathilde had two children, Gertrud (1902–1947) and Georg (1906–1974). Gertrud would marry Schoenberg's pupil Felix Greissle  [ de ] in 1921. During

12760-696: Was leaked to the press, and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik published a parody which ridiculed Brahms and his associates as backward-looking. Brahms never again ventured into public musical polemics. Brahms's personal life was also troubled. In 1859 he became engaged to Agathe von Siebold. The engagement was soon broken off, but even after this Brahms wrote to her: "I love you! I must see you again, but I am incapable of bearing fetters. Please write me ... whether ... I may come again to clasp you in my arms, to kiss you, and tell you that I love you." They never saw one another again, and Brahms later confirmed to

12876-449: Was named an honorary citizen of Hamburg . Brahms and Johann Strauss II were acquainted in the 1870s, but their close friendship belongs to the years 1889 and after. Brahms admired much of Strauss's music and encouraged the composer to sign with his publisher Simrock. In autographing a fan for Strauss's wife Adele, Brahms wrote the opening notes of The Blue Danube waltz, adding the words "unfortunately not by Johannes Brahms". He made

12992-491: Was prepared for performance by Schoenberg's student Winfried Zillig . After her husband's death in 1951 she founded Belmont Music Publishers devoted to the publication of his works. Arnold used the notes G and E ♭ (German: Es, i.e., "S") for "Gertrud Schoenberg", in the Suite , for septet, Op. 29 (1925). (see musical cryptogram ). Following the death in 1924 of composer Ferruccio Busoni , who had served as Director of

13108-669: Was represented by works of Beethoven and Felix Mendelssohn . Brahms also wrote works for the choir, including his Motet, Op. 29. Finding however that the post encroached too much of the time he needed for composing, he left the choir in June 1864. From 1864 to 1876 he spent many of his summers in Lichtental , where Clara Schumann and her family also spent some time. His house in Lichtental, where he worked on many of his major compositions including A German Requiem and his middle-period chamber works,

13224-626: Was taking on the model of models [for a symphony]: Beethoven's Fifth ." Despite the warm reception the First Symphony received, Brahms remained dissatisfied and extensively revised the second movement before the work was published. There followed a succession of well-received orchestral works: the Second Symphony Op. 73 (1877), the Violin Concerto Op. 77 (1878; dedicated to Joachim, who was consulted closely during its composition), and

13340-465: Was the beginning of a friendship which was lifelong, albeit temporarily derailed when Brahms took the side of Joachim's wife in their divorce proceedings of 1883. Brahms admired Joachim as a composer, and in 1856 they were to embark on a mutual training exercise to improve their skills in (in Brahms's words) "double counterpoint , canons , fugues , preludes or whatever". Bozarth notes that "products of Brahms's study of counterpoint and early music over

13456-527: Was to develop the most influential version of the dodecaphonic (also known as twelve-tone ) method of composition, which in French and English was given the alternative name serialism by René Leibowitz and Humphrey Searle in 1947. This technique was taken up by many of his students, who constituted the so-called Second Viennese School . They included Anton Webern , Alban Berg , and Hanns Eisler , all of whom were profoundly influenced by Schoenberg. He published

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