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{{Infobox musical composition|name=Five Pieces for Orchestra|composer=]|image=Arnold Schönberg Richard Gerstl.jpg|caption=Portrait of Arnold Schoenberg by ], ca. June 1905.|native_name=''Fünf Orchesterstücke''|opus=Op. 16|style=]|composed=1909|movements=Five|scoring=Orchestra|premiere_date={{start date|1912|09|03}}|premiere_conductor=]|premiere_location=London}}The '''Five Pieces for Orchestra''' ('''''Fünf Orchesterstücke'''''), Op. 16, were composed by ] in 1909. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upon the request of his publisher, are as follows: {{Infobox musical composition|name=Five Pieces for Orchestra|composer=]|image=Arnold Schönberg Richard Gerstl.jpg|caption=Portrait of Arnold Schoenberg by ], ca. June 1905.|native_name=''Fünf Orchesterstücke''|opus=Op. 16|style=]|composed=1909|movements=Five|scoring=Orchestra|premiere_date={{start date|1912|09|03}}|premiere_conductor=]|premiere_location=London}}The '''Five Pieces for Orchestra''' ('''''Fünf Orchesterstücke'''''), Op. 16, were composed by ] in 1909, and first performed in London in 1912. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upon the request of his publisher, are as follows:


{{Ordered list|type=upper-roman {{Ordered list|type=upper-roman
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The ''Five Pieces'' further develop the notion of "total ]" that Schoenberg introduced in his '']'', Op. 11 (composed earlier that year) and were composed during a time of intense personal and artistic crisis for the composer, this being reflected in the tensions and, at times, extreme violence of the score, mirroring the ] movement of the time, in particular its preoccupation with the subconscious and burgeoning madness.{{cn|date=June 2021}} The ''Five Pieces'' further develop the notion of "total ]" that Schoenberg introduced in his '']'', Op. 11 (composed earlier that year) and were composed during a time of intense personal and artistic crisis for the composer, this being reflected in the tensions and, at times, extreme violence of the score, mirroring the ] movement of the time, in particular its preoccupation with the subconscious and burgeoning madness.{{cn|date=June 2021}}


==Premiere==
The work had its world premiere in London at a ] on 3 September 1912, conducted by ].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/five-pieces-for-orchestra-op-16-arnold-schoenberg |title=LA Phil |access-date=2013-01-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121208080234/http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/five-pieces-for-orchestra-op-16-arnold-schoenberg |archive-date=2012-12-08 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref></ref>


The work had its world premiere in London at a ] on 3 September 1912, conducted by ], a constant champion of new music. During rehearsals for Schoenberg's suite he urged his reluctant players, "Stick to it, gentlemen! This is nothing to what you'll have to play in 25 years' time"<ref>Jacobs, p. 137</ref><ref name=lamb/> The work was not well received; the critic ], who was receptive to Schoenberg's music, wrote after the performance:
{{blockindent|It is not often that an English audience hisses the music it does not like, but a good third of the people at Queen's Hall last Tuesday permitted themselves that luxury after the performance of the five orchestral pieces of Schoenberg. Another third of the audience was only not hissing because it was laughing, and the remaining third seemed too puzzled either to laugh or to hiss; so that on the whole it does not look as if Schoenberg has so far made many friends in London."<ref>Newman, Ernest, "The Case of Arnold Schoenberg", ''The Nation'', 7 September 1912, p. 830, ''quoted'' in Lambourn, pp. 422–427</ref>|}}
==Instrumentation== ==Instrumentation==
The work exists in two different scorings: the original 1909 version for a very large orchestra and the revised version of 1949 which reduces the size of the orchestra to more-or-less normal proportions, "giving up the contrabass clarinet, as well as the four-fold scoring of the other woodwinds and two of the six horns".{{ref|7}} This version was published posthumously in 1952. The work exists in two different scorings: the original 1909 version for a very large orchestra and the revised version of 1949 which reduces the size of the orchestra to more-or-less normal proportions, "giving up the contrabass clarinet, as well as the four-fold scoring of the other woodwinds and two of the six horns".{{ref|7}} This version was published posthumously in 1952.
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==Second performance and influence== ==Second performance and influence==
At Wood's suggestion, Schoenberg's British pupil and friend ] (later to become a BBC music producer and conductor) invited the composer to make his British conducting debut with this work at the ], and on 17 January 1914 he conducted it there.<ref></ref><ref name=keller></ref><ref></ref> This may have been attended by ], who obtained a copy of the score, the only Schoenberg score he ever owned. Echoes of the work appear in '']'' (originally titled ''Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra''), and in the opening of his ballet ''The Lure'' (1921), which closely resembles the third of Schoenberg's ''Five Pieces''.<ref name=lamb> Lambourn, David. https://www.jstor.org/stable/965003 "Henry Wood and Schoenberg"], ''The Musical Times'' , August 1987, pp. 422–427 {{subscription}}</ref> Wood invited Schoenberg to conduct London's second performance of the work in 1914. The composer's only British pupil, ], conveyed the invitation and on 17 January 1914 Schoenberg conducted the work at the Queen's Hall.<ref></ref><ref name=keller></ref><ref></ref> The laughter and hissing of the first performance were not repeated, and the work was heard in silence and politely applauded.<ref>Short, pp. 118–119</ref> The composer was delighted with the performance and congratulated Wood and the orchestra warmly: "I must say it was the first time since ] that I heard such music played again as a musician of culture demands."<ref>Letter dated 23 January 1914, quoted in Lambourn, p. 426</ref> This concert may have been attended by ],<ref>Holst, p. 32</ref> who obtained a copy of the score, the only Schoenberg score he ever owned. Echoes of the work appear in '']'' (originally titled ''Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra''), and in the opening of his ballet ''The Lure'' (1921), which closely resembles the third of Schoenberg's ''Five Pieces''.<ref name=lamb> Lambourn, David. , ''The Musical Times'' , August 1987, pp. 422–427 {{subscription}}</ref>

== Recordings == == Recordings ==


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* Erickson, Robert. ''Sound Structures in Music.'' University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1975. {{ISBN|0-520-02376-5}} {{note|1}} p.&nbsp;37. * Erickson, Robert. ''Sound Structures in Music.'' University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1975. {{ISBN|0-520-02376-5}} {{note|1}} p.&nbsp;37.
* Förtig, Peter. "Arnold Schönberg über Klangfarbe". ''Melos'' 36 (1969): 206–209. * Förtig, Peter. "Arnold Schönberg über Klangfarbe". ''Melos'' 36 (1969): 206–209.

* Johnston, Blair. "Pieces (5) for Orchestra, Op. 16". , .{{note|3}}
* {{cite book | last=Holst | first= Imogen| title=Gustav Holst: A Biography | year=2008|origyear=1969 | location= London| edition=second|publisher=Faber & Faber | isbn=978-0-571-24199-6 }}
*{{cite book | last=Jacobs | first=Arthur | title=Henry J. Wood: Maker of the Proms | location=London | publisher=Methuen | year=1994 | isbn=978-0-41-369340-2}}* Johnston, Blair. "Pieces (5) for Orchestra, Op. 16". , .{{note|3}}
* Mäckelmann, Michael. ''Arnold Schönberg: Fünf Orchesterstücke op. 16''. W. Fink, Munich, 1987. {{ISBN|3-7705-2415-2}} * Mäckelmann, Michael. ''Arnold Schönberg: Fünf Orchesterstücke op. 16''. W. Fink, Munich, 1987. {{ISBN|3-7705-2415-2}}
* Neighbour, O. W. "Schoenberg, Arnold." ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. Macmillan, London, 2001.{{note|2}} * Neighbour, O. W. "Schoenberg, Arnold." ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. Macmillan, London, 2001.{{note|2}}
Line 143: Line 146:
* Schoenberg, Arnold. ''Style and Idea.'' University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1984. {{ISBN|0-520-05294-3}} * Schoenberg, Arnold. ''Style and Idea.'' University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1984. {{ISBN|0-520-05294-3}}


* {{cite book | last= Short | first= Michael | title= Gustav Holst: The Man and his Music| year= 1990| location =Oxford and New York | publisher= Oxford University Press | isbn=978-0-19-314154-4 }}
==Further reading== ==Further reading==
* Burkhart, Charles. "Schoenberg's ''Farben'': An Analysis of op. 16, no. 3". ''Perspectives of New Music'' 12 (1973–74): 141–72. * Burkhart, Charles. "Schoenberg's ''Farben'': An Analysis of op. 16, no. 3". ''Perspectives of New Music'' 12 (1973–74): 141–72.

Revision as of 14:40, 20 June 2021

Five Pieces for Orchestra
by Arnold Schoenberg
Portrait of Arnold Schoenberg by Richard Gerstl, ca. June 1905.
Native nameFünf Orchesterstücke
OpusOp. 16
StyleFree atonality
Composed1909
MovementsFive
ScoringOrchestra
Premiere
DateSeptember 3, 1912 (1912-09-03)
LocationLondon
ConductorSir Henry Wood

The Five Pieces for Orchestra (Fünf Orchesterstücke), Op. 16, were composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1909, and first performed in London in 1912. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upon the request of his publisher, are as follows:

  1. "Vorgefühle", Sehr rasch ("Premonitions", very fast)
  2. "Vergangenes", Mäßige Viertel ("The Past", moderate crotchets)
  3. "Farben", Mäßige Viertel ("Summer Morning by a Lake: Chord-Colors", moderate crotchets)
  4. "Peripetie", Sehr rasch ("Peripeteia", very fast)
  5. "Das obligate Rezitativ", Bewegte Achtel ("The Obbligato Recitative", busy quavers)

The Five Pieces further develop the notion of "total chromaticism" that Schoenberg introduced in his Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11 (composed earlier that year) and were composed during a time of intense personal and artistic crisis for the composer, this being reflected in the tensions and, at times, extreme violence of the score, mirroring the expressionist movement of the time, in particular its preoccupation with the subconscious and burgeoning madness.

Premiere

The work had its world premiere in London at a Promenade Concert on 3 September 1912, conducted by Sir Henry Wood, a constant champion of new music. During rehearsals for Schoenberg's suite he urged his reluctant players, "Stick to it, gentlemen! This is nothing to what you'll have to play in 25 years' time" The work was not well received; the critic Ernest Newman, who was receptive to Schoenberg's music, wrote after the performance:

It is not often that an English audience hisses the music it does not like, but a good third of the people at Queen's Hall last Tuesday permitted themselves that luxury after the performance of the five orchestral pieces of Schoenberg. Another third of the audience was only not hissing because it was laughing, and the remaining third seemed too puzzled either to laugh or to hiss; so that on the whole it does not look as if Schoenberg has so far made many friends in London."

Instrumentation

The work exists in two different scorings: the original 1909 version for a very large orchestra and the revised version of 1949 which reduces the size of the orchestra to more-or-less normal proportions, "giving up the contrabass clarinet, as well as the four-fold scoring of the other woodwinds and two of the six horns". This version was published posthumously in 1952.

Original 1909 Version

Woodwinds
Piccolo
3 Flutes (3rd doubling on 2nd Piccolo)
3 Oboes
English Horn
Clarinet in D
3 Clarinets (3rd doubling on Contrabass Clarinet in A)
Bass Clarinet
3 Bassoons
Contrabassoon
Brass
6 Horns
3 Trumpets
4 Trombones
Tuba
Percussion
Timpani
Bass Drum
Crash cymbals
Suspended cymbals
Triangle
Tam-tam
Xylophone
Celesta
Strings
Harp
Violins I, II
Violas
Violoncellos
Double Basses

Revised 1949 Version

Woodwinds
Piccolo
3 Flutes (3rd doubling on 2nd Piccolo)
2 Oboes
English Horn
E♭ Clarinet
2 Clarinets
Bass Clarinet
2 Bassoons
Contrabassoon
Brass
4 Horns
3 Trumpets
3 Trombones
Tuba
Percussion
Timpani
Bass Drum
Cymbals
Suspended cymbals
Triangle
Tam-tam
Xylophone
Celesta
Strings
Harp
Violins I, II
Violas
Violoncellos
Double Basses

Third movement

Klangfarbenmelodie in mm. 8–11 of "Summer Morning by a Lake" Play MIDI approximation

According to Robert Erickson, "harmonic and melodic motion is curtailed, in order to focus attention on timbral and textural elements." Blair Johnston claims that this movement is actually titled "Chord-Colors", that Schoenberg "removes all traditional motivic associations" from this piece, that it is generated from a single harmony: C-G♯-B-E-A (the Farben chord, shown below), found in a number of chromatically altered derivatives, and is scored for "a kaleidoscopically rotating array of instrumental colors".

 {
\override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
\relative c' { \new PianoStaff << 
  \new Staff { \clef treble \time 4/4 <e a>1 } 
  \new Staff { \clef bass \time 4/4  <c, gis' b>1 }
>> } }

Whether or not this was an early example of what Schoenberg later called Klangfarbenmelodie (in his 1911 book Harmonielehre) is a matter of dispute. One scholar holds that Schoenberg's "now-famous statements about 'Klangfarbenmelodie' are, however, reflections, which have no direct connection to the Orchestra Piece op. 16, no. 3". An attempt to refute this view was published in the same journal issue.

Schoenberg explains in a note added to the 1949 revision of the score, "The conductor need not try to polish sounds which seem unbalanced, but watch that every instrumentalist plays accurately the prescribed dynamic, according to the nature of his instrument. There are no motives in this piece which have to be brought to the fore".

Second performance and influence

Wood invited Schoenberg to conduct London's second performance of the work in 1914. The composer's only British pupil, Edward Clark, conveyed the invitation and on 17 January 1914 Schoenberg conducted the work at the Queen's Hall. The laughter and hissing of the first performance were not repeated, and the work was heard in silence and politely applauded. The composer was delighted with the performance and congratulated Wood and the orchestra warmly: "I must say it was the first time since Gustav Mahler that I heard such music played again as a musician of culture demands." This concert may have been attended by Gustav Holst, who obtained a copy of the score, the only Schoenberg score he ever owned. Echoes of the work appear in The Planets (originally titled Seven Pieces for Large Orchestra), and in the opening of his ballet The Lure (1921), which closely resembles the third of Schoenberg's Five Pieces.

Recordings

References

  1. Jacobs, p. 137
  2. ^ Lambourn, David. "Henry Wood and Schoenberg", The Musical Times , August 1987, pp. 422–427 (subscription required)
  3. Newman, Ernest, "The Case of Arnold Schoenberg", The Nation, 7 September 1912, p. 830, quoted in Lambourn, pp. 422–427
  4. Anon., "Herr Schönberg in London. His Theory and His Practice", Daily News Leader (January 17, 1914), quoted in full on the Arnold Schoenberg Centre website (accessed 29 October 2013).
  5. Alison Garnham, Hans Keller and the BBC: The Musical Conscience of British Broadcasting, 1959–79.
  6. Jennifer Doctor, The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922-1936: Shaping a Nation's Tastes
  7. Short, pp. 118–119
  8. Letter dated 23 January 1914, quoted in Lambourn, p. 426
  9. Holst, p. 32
  • Doflein, Erich. "Schönbergs Opus 16 Nr. 3: der Mythos der Klangfarbenmelodie". Melos 36 (1969): 203–205. p. 204.
  • Doflein, Erich. "Schönbergs Opus 16 Nr. 3: Geschichte einer Uberschrift". Melos 36 (1969): 209–12. p. 211.
  • Erickson, Robert. Sound Structures in Music. University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1975. ISBN 0-520-02376-5 p. 37.
  • Förtig, Peter. "Arnold Schönberg über Klangfarbe". Melos 36 (1969): 206–209.
  • Holst, Imogen (2008) . Gustav Holst: A Biography (second ed.). London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-24199-6.
  • Jacobs, Arthur (1994). Henry J. Wood: Maker of the Proms. London: Methuen. ISBN 978-0-41-369340-2.* Johnston, Blair. "Pieces (5) for Orchestra, Op. 16". Allmusic.com, .
  • Mäckelmann, Michael. Arnold Schönberg: Fünf Orchesterstücke op. 16. W. Fink, Munich, 1987. ISBN 3-7705-2415-2
  • Neighbour, O. W. "Schoenberg, Arnold." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. Macmillan, London, 2001.
  • Rufer, Josef. "Noch einmal Schönbergs Opus 16". Melos 36 (1969): 366–68.
  • Schoenberg, Arnold. Five Orchestra Pieces, Opus 16, score. Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York, 1999. ISBN 0-486-40642-3 p. 29.
  • Schoenberg, Arnold. Style and Idea. University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1984. ISBN 0-520-05294-3
  • Short, Michael (1990). Gustav Holst: The Man and his Music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-314154-4.

Further reading

  • Burkhart, Charles. "Schoenberg's Farben: An Analysis of op. 16, no. 3". Perspectives of New Music 12 (1973–74): 141–72.
  • Craft, Robert. "Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra". In Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky, revised edition, edited by Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone, 3–24. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1972.
  • Forte, Allen. The Structure of Atonal Music. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973.
  • Rahn, John. "Analysis Two: Schoenberg's Five Peces for Orchestra: Farben, op. 16 no. 3". In his Basic Atonal Theory, 59–73. New York and London: Longman, 1980. ISBN 0-582-28117-2.

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