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| Arnold Schoenberg: Vision (Satire) - Oil on cardboard (undated). |
As I promised earlier today, here's an extra post dedicated to the memory of Marie Gutheil-Schoder, the soprano who created the solitary role in the original production of Schoenberg's Erwartung in 1924. She was known in her day as not just a great opera singer, but as a great operatic actress. Gustav Mahler called her a musical genius. That's something that should certainly make you sit up and notice! Unfortunately, Gutheil-Schoder left behind only a very few recordings: a couple excerpts from Carmen, an aria from The Merry Wives of Windsor, and some duets from Tales of Hoffmann, all recorded in 1902. But her legacy did live on in the form of the great mezzo Risë Stevens, who was one of her students.
So, it's a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. You're feeling a great emptiness in your life... a vast, gaping hole, one that only post-Romantic Expressionist atonality can fill. You've come to the right place! (Read more below...)
I've always thought Pierrot Lunaire was relatively easy on the ears; more so than Moses and Aaron. Also wasn't Schoenberg also a teacher? He had some pretty famous students like Webern and Cage.
ReplyDeleteIt does sound pretty, I guess thanks to the sparse instrumentation. None of those thick brass & woodwind textures like in Moses. The presence of the celesta doesn't hurt either! S., along with his early students in Vienna, are generally what's meant by the "2nd Viennese School." So, includes Webern, Berg, Egon Wellesz, Eduard Steurmann, Hanss Eisler & a few others, plus some of Berg's & Webern's students. Cage, Lou Harrison & Leon Kirchner were among the many who studied with S. much later, when he was in California. He lived in Hollywood & taught at UCLA for a number of years before he passed. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until July to dig into S. deeper!
ReplyDeleteSilly me, not Hollywood (still haven't had my coffee this morning!)... Beverly Hills!
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