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The Second Viennese School () was the group of
composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...
s that comprised
Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...
and his pupils, particularly
Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...
and
Anton Webern Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...
, and close associates in early 20th-century
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
. Their music was initially characterized by late- Romantic expanded tonality and later, a totally chromatic
expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
without a firm tonal centre, often referred to as
atonality Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...
; and later still, Schoenberg's serial
twelve-tone technique The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...
. Twelve tone Composition was revolutionized by Arnold Schoenberg. Using this technique when composing he made sure he used all 12 notes in a chromatic scale when forming a melody, this would be called the "Primeseries". This series would later be enhanced in his compositions through permutations such as, Retrogrades, Inversions, Transformations etc. How this happens is, Schoenberg taking the pitches of the Primeseries and through his "Magic Square" of permutations takes said pitches and depending on which permutation he is utilizing, creates a new series of pitches to form a new melody. Later a French composer named Pierre Boulez takes Schoenberg's development and enhances it even further by serializing not only Pitch, but Rhythm, Articulation, and Dynamics as well. Adorno said that the twelve-tone method, when it had evolved into maturity, was a "veritable message in a bottle", addressed to an unknown and uncertain future. Though this common development took place, it neither followed a common time-line nor a cooperative path. Likewise, it was not a direct result of Schoenberg's teaching—which, as his various published textbooks demonstrate, was highly traditional and conservative. Schoenberg's textbooks also reveal that the Second Viennese School spawned not from the development of his serial method, but rather from the influence of his creative example.


Members

The principal members of the school, besides Schoenberg, were
Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...
and
Anton Webern Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...
, who were among his first composition pupils. Both of them had already produced copious and talented music in a late Romantic idiom but felt they gained new direction and discipline from Schoenberg's teaching. Other members of this generation included Ernst Krenek, Heinrich Jalowetz, Erwin Stein and Egon Wellesz, and somewhat later
Eduard Steuermann Eduard Steuermann (June 18, 1892, Sambor, Austria-Hungary – November 11, 1964, New York City) was an Austrian-born American pianist and composer. Steuermann studied piano with Vilém Kurz at the Lemberg Conservatory and Ferruccio Busoni in ...
, Hanns Eisler, Robert Gerhard, Norbert von Hannenheim, Rudolf Kolisch, Paul A. Pisk, Karl Rankl, Josef Rufer, Nikos Skalkottas, Viktor Ullmann, and Winfried Zillig. Schoenberg's brother-in-law Alexander Zemlinsky is sometimes included as part of the Second Viennese School, though he was never Schoenberg's pupil and never renounced a traditional conception of tonality. Though Berg and Webern both followed Schoenberg into total chromaticism and both, each in his own way, adopted twelve-tone technique soon after he did, not all of these others did so, or waited for a considerable time before following suit. Several yet later disciples, such as Zillig, the Catalan Gerhard, the
Transylvania Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...
n Hannenheim and the Greek Skalkottas, are sometimes covered by the term, though (apart from Gerhard) they never studied in Vienna but as part of Schoenberg's masterclass in Berlin. Membership in the school is not generally extended to Schoenberg's many pupils in the United States from 1933, such as
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...
,
Leon Kirchner Leon Kirchner (January 24, 1919 – September 17, 2009) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he won a Pulitzer Pr ...
and Gerald Strang, nor to many other composers who, at a greater remove, wrote compositions evocative of the Second Viennese style, such as the
Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
pianist Glenn Gould. By extension, however, certain pupils of Schoenberg's pupils, such as Berg's pupil Hans Erich Apostel and Webern's pupils René Leibowitz, Leopold Spinner and Ludwig Zenk, are usually included in the roll-call. The broader circle of the Second Viennese School included, among others, Oskar Adler, Theodor W. Adorno, Hans Erich Apostel, Robert Gerhard, Norbert von Hannenheim, Heinrich Jalowetz, Hanns Jelinek, Sándor Jemnitz, , Rudolf Kolisch of the
Kolisch Quartet The Kolisch Quartet was a string quartet musical ensemble founded in Vienna, originally (early 1920s) as the New Vienna String Quartet for the performance of Arnold Schoenberg, Schoenberg's works, and (by 1927) settling to the form in which it was l ...
, Ernst Krenek, , , Olga Novakovic, Paul Pisk, Rudolf Ploderer, Josef Polnauer, Erwin Ratz, , Josef Rufer, Peter Schacht, Julius Schloss, Nikos Skalkottas, Erwin Stein,
Eduard Steuermann Eduard Steuermann (June 18, 1892, Sambor, Austria-Hungary – November 11, 1964, New York City) was an Austrian-born American pianist and composer. Steuermann studied piano with Vilém Kurz at the Lemberg Conservatory and Ferruccio Busoni in ...
, Viktor Ullmann, Rudolf Weirich, Adolph Weiss, Egon Wellesz, Alexander Zemlinsky, and Winfried Zillig. Contemporaneous performers, friends, admirers, and supporters of the circle at various times included figures as diverse as Guido Adler, David Josef Bach, Ernst Bachrich, Imre merichBalabán and
Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...
of the New Hungarian Music Society, Julius Bittner, Artur Bodanzky, Mark Brunswick, Richard Buhlig, Edward Clark, Henry Cowell, Herbert Eimert, , Marya Freund, Felix Galimir of the Galimir Quartet, Rudolph Ganz,
George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular music, popular and classical music. Among his best-known works are the songs "Swan ...
, Richard Gerstl,
Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...
, Marie Gutheil-Schoder, Alois Hába, Emil Hertzka, Jascha Horenstein, Felicie Hüni-Mihacsek, Erich Itor Kahn,
Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...
, Hans Keller, Erich Kleiber, Gustav Klimt, Wilhelm Klitsch, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Louis Krasner, Józef Koffler, Oskar Kokoschka, René Leibowitz, Erich Leinsdorf, Adolf Loos, Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc of '' Les Six'', Elisabeth Lutyens, Gustav and Alma Mahler, Frank Martin, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Soma Morgenstern, Johanna Müller-Hermann,
Dika Newlin Dika Newlin (November 22, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was a composer, pianist, professor, musicologist, and punk rock singer. She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University at the age of 22. She was one of the last living students of Arnold Schoenberg ...
, Will Ogdon, Max Oppenheimer, Otakar Ostrčil,
Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...
, Rudolph Reti, , Arnold Rosé et al. of the Rosé Quartet, Hans Rosbaud, Nikolai Roslavets et al. of the Association for Contemporary Music, Hermann Scherchen,
Egon Schiele Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painters, painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude sel ...
, , , Erich Schmid, Franz Schreker,
Erwin Schulhoff Erwin Schulhoff (; 8 June 189418 August 1942) was an Austro-Czech composer and pianist. He was one of the figures in the generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germ ...
, Eugenie Schwarzwald,
Rudolf Serkin Rudolf Serkin (28 March 1903 – 8 May 1991) was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Beethoven interpreters of the 20th century. Early life, childhood debut, and education Serkin was born in ...
, Roger Sessions, Peter Stadlen, ,
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
, Georg Trakl,
Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French and American composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; h ...
et al. of the International Composers Guild, Steuermann's sister Salka Viertel, Imre Waldbauer et al. of the , Franz Werfel, Arnold Zweig, and '' Jung-Wien'' writers Peter Altenberg, Hermann Bahr, Karl Kraus, and Arthur Schnitzler.


Practices

Though the school included highly distinct musical personalities (the styles of Berg and Webern are in fact very different from each other, and from Schoenberg—for example, only the works of Webern conform to the rule stated by Schoenberg that only a single row be used throughout all movements of a composition—while Gerhard and Skalkottas were closely involved with the folk music of their respective countries) the impression of cohesiveness was enhanced by the literary efforts of some of its members. Wellesz wrote the first book on Schoenberg, who was also the subject of several
Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
en put together by his friends and pupils; Rufer and Spinner both wrote books on the technique of twelve-tone composition; and Leibowitz's influential study of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, ''Schoenberg et son école'', helped to establish the image of a school in the period immediately after World War II in France and abroad. Several of those mentioned (e.g. Jalowetz, Rufer) were also influential as teachers, and others (e.g. Kolisch, Rankl, Stein, Steuermann, Zillig) as performers, in disseminating the ideals, ideas and approved repertoire of the group. Perhaps the culmination of the school took place at Darmstadt almost immediately after World War II, at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, wherein Schoenberg—who was invited but too ill to travel—was ultimately usurped in musical ideology by the music of his pupil, Webern, as composers and performers from the Second Viennese School (e.g. Leibowitz, Rufer, Adorno, Kolisch, Heiss, Stadlen, Stuckenschmidt, Scherchen) converged with the new serialists (e.g. Boulez, Stockhausen, Maderna, Nono, et al.).


First Viennese School

German musical literature refers to the grouping as the "Wiener Schule" or "Neue Wiener Schule". The existence of a " First Viennese School" is debatable. The term is often assumed to connote the great Vienna-based masters of the Classical style working in the late 18th and early 19th century, particularly
Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( ; ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...
,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...
,
Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...
and
Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...
. Though Mozart and Schubert did not study with Haydn, Beethoven did for a time receive lessons from the older master, Haydn, though he was not a pupil in the sense that Berg and Webern were pupils of Schoenberg. Furthermore the First Viennese School comprised many great musicians unlike the Second Viennese School.


In art and culture

Berg, Schoenberg, or Webern featured (or were inferred) in the work of composers Michael Dellaira, Ernst Krenek, and René Staar and writers William H. Gass, Gert Jonke,
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
,
Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), th ...
, and Amelia Rosselli. Erika Fox named her "Malinconia Militare" (2003) after the first line of Rosselli's "Webern Opus 4". Webern's Op. 27 was used in ''
The Sopranos ''The Sopranos'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime drama television series created by David Chase. The series follows Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey American Mafia, Mafia boss who suffers from panic attacks. He reluct ...
'' episode " Bust Out".


See also

* Skandalkonzert


References


Citations


Sources

* * * *


Further reading

* René Leibowitz, ''Schoenberg et son école'' (Paris, Editeur J B Janin, 1947) translated by
Dika Newlin Dika Newlin (November 22, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was a composer, pianist, professor, musicologist, and punk rock singer. She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University at the age of 22. She was one of the last living students of Arnold Schoenberg ...
as ''Schoenberg and His School: The Contemporary Stage of the Language of Music'' (New York, Philosophical Library, 1949)


External links


Post-Romantic Classical Radio

Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna
{{Authority control 20th-century classical composers