Sprechstimme and experimental sounds
Pierrot lunaire, op. 21
New Harmony - Paul Klee represented 12-tone music in his painting. Artists like Kandinsky and Klee watched Schoenberg’s performance of Pierrot Lunaire.
This atonal melodrama is about a “moon-struck” pierrot (a clown/pantomime), based on 21 poems (for op. 21). Schoenberg used a combination of spoken text with instrumental accompaniment in Gurre-lieder.
Watch film “Solar plexus of modernism” or read this newspaper review to learn more.
String Quartets and Extended Technique
In addition to extending the norms regarding tonality and singing, Schoenberg also extended instrumental techniques in his string quartet.
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In String Quartet no. 1, listen for harmonic contrast, emphasis or development in motivic writing, and “liquidation” through tremolo, col legno, con sordino, sul ponticello, and silence (mainly movement 3). Some orchestral works already used extended technique for strings, but Schoenberg was one of the first to do so in chamber works:
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In String Quartet no. 2 movement 2, he includes the well-known “O du lieber Augustin” (the same tune as “Did you ever see a lassie?”) at 3:40 in this recording, for example. Continue to listen to movement 3 for a surprise in a string quartet!
WARNING!
“Do not call it Twelve-Tone Theory, call it Composition with Twelve Tones. Personally, it is on the word Composition that I place the emphasis.”
Schoenberg, in a letter to Joseph Rufer (1949)