Arnold Schoenberg - Weihnachtsmusik (1921)

Weihnachtsmusik (1921)
for 2 violins, cello, harmonium, and piano
by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Performers: Arditti Quartet, Hakon Austbo, Louise Bessette
Recording: Weihnachtsmusik & Transcriptions, Montaigne, MO 789011. 1994.
(Original audio source: • Weihnachtsmusik for 2 ... )
In this 'domestic' Christmas piece, probably written for a family occasion in 1921, Schoenberg demonstrates his great contrapuntal skill in devising a Chorale-Prelude (such as he rged his students to practice on two familiar Christmas hymns - "Es is ein' Ros' entsprungen" and "Silent Night". The Sources for this first publication of Weihnachtsmusik consist of three manuscripts: 1) a completed rough draft dated 23/XII/1921; 2) the fair copy, in which the last 30 bars are left incomplete (except for the harmonium part), and which is dated Weihnachten 1921; 3) the entire piano part, copied out by the composer. In a few cases choices have had to be made from among differing version (usually phrase markings) of the same passage. Dynamic marks (in parentheses) have been added occasionally for clarify and balance.
-Leonard Stein
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[@TenorCantusFirmus]

In the years he was experimenting with atonality, and later would go on codifying the twelve-tone method and ground the foundation of serialism, Schönberg still gave us this. Really like it.

[@PabloGambaccini]

It's strange how you can continue to listen his personality in another style of music. I can recognise his "collage" style of orchestrating even here.

[@deliciousmrcheese]

I did not understand this very much at all until I heard the triplet rhythm at the end fall apart and revert to duplets like in the beginning of "Clair de lune" ... then I was suddenly in tears for some reason. So gorgeous!!

[@Twentythousandlps]

Lovely Christmas present on your channel. Brahms and Barber also gave this melody a contrapuntal workout.

[@giorgiociomei5030]

💖💖💖💖💖

[@wmgflute]

if only schoenberg wrote more music like this :(

[@Whatismusic123]

If only schönberg ceased to exist

[@f.p.2010]

Nah I'm glad he didn't

[@juanmaMCMLXXXII]

Why? I think that he composed the music that he needed to compose without wanting to please the audience. And I think that that sincerity also applies in pieces like this one.

[@Scriabin_fan]

I'm so annoyed by comments like yours. People like you just want composers to compose in one style over and over again because your fragile ears are so afraid of hearing anything more abstract and complex. Schoenberg wrote music that he wanted to despite having countless people like you constantly whining about his atonal music. He bravely followed his own aesthetics and that is the sign of a true artist, bravely following your own path, listening to your own voice despite what others will say about you.

[@wmgflute]

@@Scriabin_fan please do not lecture me, you have no idea who I am or what my tastes are. all i meant by my comment was that I wish Schoenberg wrote more music out of desire for creation rather than to flex his intellectual ability. 12 tone was an academic exercise, I'd rather hear genuine music.

[@RichardASalisbury1]

I'm no fan of serialism, though I can enjoy some of what I hear, e.g., in Schoenberg's Piano Concerto. What surprises me is how boring this is to my ears--whether compared to Bach or to Bartok, two of my favorites, the latter of whom I believe acccomplished what S. may have hoped to--the liberation of music from diatonic tonality--but without in large measure sacrificing audible coherence.

[@GUILLOM]

Have you listened to other of his early works?

[@euclid1618]

This sucks