Chapter 20:
The Twentieth
Century: Early
Modernism
Expressionism
Key Terms
Expressionism
“Emancipation of
dissonance”
Sprechstimme
Passacaglia
Second Viennese
School
Ragtime
“Master rhythm”
Expressionism
A music of increasing emotionality
• Debussy & Stravinsky rejected Romanticism
• Expressionists took it to ultimate conclusion
Exploited extreme psychological states
• Hysteria, nightmare, even insanity – reflected a
fascination with Freud’s work
Similar to parallel movement in art
• Subjective expression of inner turmoil
• Distorted & exaggerated melody & harmony
• Fascination with tone color & color theory
Second Viennese School (1)
Schoenberg attracted two star students
• Alban Berg & Anton Webern
All three shared in many innovations
• The “emancipation of dissonance”
• The breakdown of tonality
• Seeking solutions to the problem of coherence
in an atonal, expressionist idiom
Three very different personalities
• Schoenberg developed 12-tone music
• But each one explored it in his own way
Arnold Schoenberg
(1874-1951)
The leading expressionist composer
Largely self-taught in music
• But wrote important books on music theory
• Gifted amateur expressionist painter
Early music tonal, à la Mahler & Brahms
Began writing atonal music in 1907-08
• Erwartung, 5 Orchestra Pieces, Pierrot lunaire
Developed 12-tone method in early 1920s
• A Survivor from Warsaw, Piano Concerto
Taught at UCLA last 15 years of his life
Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire
Highly influential song cycle
• 21 poems by symbolist poet Albert Giraud
Pierrot is the eternal sad clown
• Lunaire refers to the moon & the bizarre
hallucinations & adventures it inspires
Written in an expressionist idiom
• Kaleidoscopic scoring for voice & 5 players on
8 instruments
• Flute (or piccolo), clarinet (or bass clarinet),
violin (or viola), cello, & piano
• Each song uses a different combination
Sprechstimme
Voice uses Sprechstimme (“speech-song”)
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The soprano does not really sing or speak
She does something in between the two
Schoenberg notated approximate pitches
Singer must speak in an exaggerated, quasimelodic manner
• Sprechstimme technique magnifies, distorts,
parodies, & haunts these bizarre poems
 The actress who commissioned Pierrot requested a
set of melodramas – works for a speaking voice with
instrumental accompaniment!
No. 8: “Night”
• For voice, piano, bass clarinet, cello
Evokes expressionism’s nightmarish side
• Uses low instruments in low register
• Dense polyphonic texture
Schoenberg called this a passacaglia
• Recurring 3-note ostinato used throughout
• Many overlapping versions, freely transposed
• The soprano even sings the motive at the word
verschwiegen (secret silent)
No. 18: “The Moonfleck”
• For voice, piano, piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello
Starts with piano introduction
• Dense, dissonant, & alarmingly intense
The song depicts Pierrot’s obsession &
the flickering moonfleck on his jacket
• High-pitched, quicksilver motives used
throughout the ensemble
• Schoenberg uses fugues & canons
• We hear a fantastic lacework of atonal sounds
Second Viennese School (2)
Anton Webern (1883-1945)
• His life revolved around his composition,
though he held low-profile conducting posts
• Avoided Romantic grandiosity – favored low
dynamics, abstract, pointillistic textures, &
brief but concentrated musical structures
• Some expressionist works are very short
• Composers of the second phase of modernism
revered his vision of abstraction & the brilliant
sophistication of his later serial works
 Symphonie, Cantatas 1 & 2, String Quartet
• Accidentally killed by an American soldier
Second Viennese School (3)
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
• After Schoenberg, the most powerful exponent
of expressionism in music
• Looked back to Romantic tradition more than
Schoenberg & Webern, especially to Mahler
• Use tonal references in Wozzeck & his Violin
Concerto
• His expressionist opera Wozzeck was an
immediate success
• Later 12-tone opera Lulu now also a classic
• Died of an infected insect bite
Berg, Wozzeck
Based on an 1837 play by Georg Büchner
• An almost paranoid vision of the helpless poor
Opera completed in 1923
Conceptually a Wagnerian work
• Relies on orchestra for musical continuity
• It uses leitmotivs & contains no arias
Influenced by earlier expressionist works
• Sprechstimme borrowed from Pierrot lunaire
Berg pays much attention to musical form
• Each scene uses a different, specific form
Story
Wozzeck is a poor, downtrodden soldier
• Troubled by visions
• Tormented by his captain
• Human guinea pig in bizarre experiments
carried out by his regimental doctor
• Beaten up by the drum major who is having an
affair with Wozzeck’s lover, Marie
Wozzeck is finally pushed over the edge
• He murders Marie, goes mad, & drowns himself
• Their young child is left an orphan
Wozzeck
Act III, Scene iii (1)
Invention on a rhythm
• A “master rhythm” is used throughout in many
different tempos
Wozzeck is in a tavern after killing Marie
• The two opening chord crescendos happen
immediately after the murder
• Timpani are first to play the master rhythm –
just after the first chord
• Distorted ragtime piano introduction follows
Wozzeck
Act III, Scene iii (2)
Ragtime introduction & Margret’s song
make use of the master rhythm
Wozzeck
Act III, Scene iii (3)
Margret sees blood on Wozzeck’s hand
• So do the others – a crescendo of accusations
(using master rhythm) chases Wozzeck away
Wozzeck
Act III, Scene iv
Invention on a chord of six notes
• B-flat, D-flat, E-flat, E, F, G-sharp
• Stated throughout, both as chord & as melody
Wozzeck goes back to the murder scene
• Orchestra creates eerie nighttime sounds
Wozzeck’s mind has finally cracked
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Obsessed with blood, he looks for the knife
He drowns while trying to hide it in the pond
Vivid orchestral gurgles accompany his death
Doctor & Captain happen by – but do nothing
Wozzeck
Act III, Orchestral Interlude
Invention on a tonality
• Orchestral music for the blackout after
Wozzeck’s drowning
• Based on a D minor tonality, but loosely, in a
late Romantic idiom influenced by Mahler
• A mourning lament for Wozzeck, Marie, &
humanity at large
• D minor often used for serious, tragic subjects
 Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D minor
 Mozart’s Don Giovanni, final scene with statue
 Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony