The Listening Service

We listen to Schoenberg’s praise of his pupil, Alban Berg - and his surprise that this “soft-hearted young man” could write an opera of the ferocity and tragedy of Wozzeck.

'When Alban Berg, in 1904, came to me he was a very tall youngster and extremely timid… I was greatly surprised when this soft-hearted, timid young man had the courage to engage in a venture which seemed to invite misfortune: namely to compose Wozzeck, a drama of such extraordinary tragedy that it seemed forbidding to music. And even more: it contained scenes of everyday life which were contrary to the concept of the opera which still lived on stylized costumes and conventionalized characters. He succeeded. Wozzeck was one of the greatest successes of opera…He succeeded with his opera like he had succeeded in his insistence on studying with me. Making the belief in ideas one's own destiny is the substance of are made the great man.' - Arnold Schoenberg, 1949

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Tom looks at Schoenberg’s own demonstration of how to harmonize a melody to maximum effect, using his Orchestral Variations as an example. As Schoenberg says: "There is nothing I long for more intensely than to be taken for a better sort of Tchaikovsky”.

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Tom listens to Schoenberg’s distillation and defence of his theory of composition with 12 tones: serialism in a nutshell.

'The method of composing with twelve tones substitutes for the order granted by the permanent reference to tonal centers an order according to which every unit of a piece being a derivative of the tonal relations in a basic set of twelve tones, the "Grundgestalt," is coherent because of this permanent reference to it. Shall I repeat this?

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Tom looks at Schoenberg’s own experience in the new atonal world that he entered, which Schoenberg likened to being dropped in boiling water.

‘Personally I had the feeling as if I had fallen into an ocean of boiling water, and not knowing how to swim or to get out in another manner, I tried with my legs and arms as best as I could. I do not know what saved me; why I was not drowned or cooked alive. I have perhaps only one merit: I never gave up! I had fallen into an ocean, into an ocean of overheated water and it burned not only my skin, it burned also internally. And I could not swim.

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Schoenberg’s conception of what the “idea” of a piece of music really was - something even bigger than the sounds it makes.

‘I personally believe in "l'art pour l'art." In the creation of a work of art, nothing should interfere with the real idea. A work of art must elaborate on its own idea and follow the conditions which this idea establishes. This does not mean that an artist must have principles for which he obeys...’

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Tom explores what Schoenberg meant by the dissonance and how he broke free from tonality in his music.

‘Contemporary music has taken advantage of my adventurous use of dissonances. Let us not forget that I came to that gradually, as a result of a convincing development, which enabled me to establish the law of the emancipation of the dissonance, which I mentioned before already, according to which the comprehensibility of the dissonance is considered tantamount to the comprehensibility of the consonance. I do not say the dissonance is the same as the consonance. I say the comprehensibility of both is tantamount. Thus, dissonances need not be a spicy addition to dull sounds. They are natural and logic substantiation of an organism. And this organism lives as vitally on its phrases, rhythms, motives and also melodies, as ever before.'

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Tom illustrates why Schoenberg felt such a strong lineage from Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Bach.

‘there is a possibility to learn something of my technical achievements. But I think it is even better to go back to those men from whom I learned them: I mean, to Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Bach. I can really, you can really contend that I owe very, very much to Mozart; and if one studies, for instance, the way in which I write for string quartet, then one cannot deny that I have learned this directly from Mozart. And I am proud of it!’ - Arnold Schoenberg 1949

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Tom explores Schoenberg’s objection to being dubbed a “famous theoretician and controversial musician”.

‘I wonder sometimes who I am. When the Committee on Lectures and Drama announced my lecture in the newspapers, someone was afraid the readers might not know who I am. So they informed them as follows: "famous theoretician and controversial musical figure, known for the influence he has brought to bear on modern music." Up to now, I thought I compose for different reasons.’ - Arnold Schoenberg, 1949

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Tom tunes into the background, exploring what background music really is; telling the surprising story of the Muzak corporation, and discovering that there's a range of background functions that music can have: from the 'furniture music' of Erik Satie to the Stimulus Progression albums used in Lyndon B Johnson's White House. Daniel Barenboim, Julian Lloyd-Webber and Brian Eno help explain the power of and problems with background music.

Tom Service considers the semitone. Music's most fundamental building block, it can mean sorrow when it falls, triumph when it rises, but also provoke fear (in the theme from Jaws). It can become a glittering decoration when repeated as a trill. Tom talks to mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly about the tragic falling semitones of Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas, and also to musicologist Sarha Moore about the varied significances of the semitone in musical traditions of the Middle East and India, and its special effect in the riffs of Heavy Metal rock music.