# What got you into Schoenberg?? in the first place? do you remenber?



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Me it's it's chamber symphony no.2 , Palleas und melissande and a definitive most
*six songs for soprano and orchestra*, what a glorieous work anyone like i here, very easy to get into, quite moving, captivating, almost catchy,... if you find schoenberg hard to get into pick this and *Verlake Natch.*

What was your entry in Schoenberg world and did it took you time to really enjoy or appreciated his music to his just value , his laurel yah knows, in the pantheon of great composer of his respective era.

Oh almost forgot, his cinematographic tracks are awesome (accompaniment to cinematrogrphic scene opus opus 34),,ii confessed, before i thought hmm well yah Schoenberg is brilliant , but what my own favorite work of his...

Than i come up whit the following highlight in orange.

:tiphat:


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

This almost doesn't count, but when I was about 15 I went to a BSO concert conducted by its former concertmaster, Richard Burgin, whose concerts were always more interesting than you expected them to be. He programmed the large orchestra version of Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony (Opus 9B), which I hadn't expected to like, but it blew me away.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It was _Verklarte Nacht_, _Survivor from Warsaw_, and, indirectly, Berg's _Wozzeck_, all about 50 years ago. None of them got me very far into Schoenberg back then, but at least they made me aware of his existence. I actually sang in _Survivor_ with my New Jersey All-State Chorus; learning the atonal vocal line was a challenge, but the choral portion is mercifully brief. It was rather exciting.


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

*I actually sang in Survivor with my New Jersey All-State Chorus; learning the atonal vocal line was a challenge, but the choral portion is mercifully brief. It was rather exciting.* nice woodduck, it most have been a rather pleasant experience :tiphat:


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

_Theme and Variation_ for Band.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Five Pieces For Orchestra on the Dorati Second Viennese School album.


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## Gosza2 (Jun 10, 2018)

It was probably Drei Klavierstucke op. 11. I consider second one to be just mesmerising.

And verklarte nacht, performed by ensemble intercontemporain.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

When I was around 15 (I was already beginning to like Mahler and knew a lot of Strauss, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Bartok), Verklarte Nacht and Gurrelieder were easy nuts to crack. And Pierrot Lunaire was entertaining. But I did find Berg and Webern more obviously attractive than much mature Schoenberg, which I found (unfairly!) to be quite dry. I then (in my early 20s) spent quite a long time not listening to much classical music at all. When I returned to listening to classical music I started off with very conservative tastes and then rediscovering the more modern music that I had liked as a teenager. So it was a while before I was ready to go beyond my teenage taste. 

I think it was the piano concerto that broke through for me. It was in the context of a brief period when I was enjoying exploring the many great piano concertos of the first half of the 20th Century. After that I found it interesting enough to explore a fair amount of Schoenberg. My appreciation of his achievement still grows so it does seem like he is not a composer who I ever took to "naturally".


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Nothing so far.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

either Verklärte Nacht or his piano concerto. His string trio is also awesome, as are his string quartets. The first string quartet is tonal, the second quartet is tonal in its first half, and that Schoenberg plunges into atonality. The third and fourth are atonal. So the quartets are a nice way to follow his development as a composer. 
For a beginner, I would suggest Verklärte Nacht. It is tonal and is a masterpiece.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Schoenberg was one of those composers who I took more trouble to read about before plunging in. I started with the Karajan disc featuring _Verklärte Nacht_ and _Pelleas und Melisande_. I consciously bought these two early but important works to serve as a base camp because I wanted to get some kind of idea of Schoenberg's evolution from late romanticism. I then bought the four numbered string quartets, Ozawa's recording of the cantata _Gurre-Lieder_ (which conveniently included the two chamber symphonies) and, at about the same time, a disc of vocal chamber works which included _Pierrot Lunaire_ and _Ode to Napoleon_. By then I'd also bought von Dohnanyi's recording of Berg's _Wozzeck_, which had Schoenberg's monodrama _Erwartung_, another pivotal work, as a fortuitous fill-up.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I remember it quite clearly. My first trip to Vienna. I arrived at the hotel around 9 in the evening, my internal clock completely messed up so I went for a walk around the Ringstrasse with my am/fm radio. It didn't take long to find the classical station. There was this amazing, sensual, powerful and at times frightening music that I'd never heard but it hooked me. Some 15 minutes later they announced it was Pelleas und Melisande. The next day I went to a cd shop and picked up the Karajan recording. Then on to Gurrelieder, the concertos, chamber symphonies, quartets. There is some I don't like. A Survivor in Warsaw grates on my ears. One of his greatest works is the arrangement of the Brahms g minor quartet. Brilliant!


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## Biffo (Mar 7, 2016)

Verklaerte Nacht when I was about 19, followed by the Suite for String Orchestra on a second hand LP coupled with works by Britten and Lutyens. After that came Gurrelieder (Kubelik). The non-tonal stuff came later.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Fascinating to hear how much Schoenberg was influenced by R. Strauss and Mahler in his pre-atonal works (Pelleas and Melisande and Verklarte Nacht).


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I heard a piece once in 1974 that was absolutely spellbinding in its simplicity and orchestral colors but never knew its name. It stayed with me ever since, and I always wondered what it was.

Fast-forward to 2010, and I was on a job talking to an attorney who was a Schoenberg enthusiast. I had always turned up my nose at this composer, preferring the "more pure" Webern. He encouraged me to listen to Gurre-Lieder.

In the process, I encountered Five Pieces for Orchestra. My jaw dropped when I got to Farben; that was the piece I had heard once and had never forgotten. 

So Five Pieces got the hook in my jaw.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

I first heard Schoenberg when I was in high school - I checked out his Violin Concerto, Pelleas & Melisande, Prelude to Genesis Suite, etc...I enjoyed them to a large extent, but didn't really understand too much what was going on...sounded pretty wild, but very interesting...
At conservatory - things changed dramatically - we performed the 5 Pieces for Orchestra...it was amazing!! the parts were so interesting, and challenging...you really had to pay attention, and you had to be conscious of AS' bracketed notations that showed that you had a fragment of the melodic line...you had to be aware of who preceded you, and who followed you to make a smooth line...
it was great fun to play...I've loved Schoenberg's music ever since...great composer, IMO...


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## St Matthew (Aug 26, 2017)

When I heard Pierrot Lunaire I loved it straight away. This was in my teens when I was first getting into classical music, I didn't know anything about so-called Atonal music when 8 first heard it and loved it a lot.
His 6 piano miniatures was also another early piece I heard of his


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## aussiebushman (Apr 21, 2018)

Despite early attraction to Verklärte Nacht I was a fairly late comer to Schoenberg - until (around 25 years ago) I heard a radio broadcast of Gurreleider and was subsequently hooked for life. Now, Pelleas und Melisande is another all time favorite. 

I'm actually amazed how long it took me to become such an ardent admirer, especially considering my decades of loving Brahms and Wagner.

Afraid I do find the Karajan versions somewhat simplistic. There are better versions on disk and a recently acquired CD (thanks WoodDuck) with Yoel Levi and the Atlanta Symphony is wonderful. Not to be overlooked is Mitropoulos’s New York Philharmonic 1953 performance of Pelleas and Melisande


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

my favorite P&M is Boulez/Chicago, on Erato....really outstanding...excellent Variations, also.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Heck148 said:


> my favorite P&M is Boulez/Chicago, on Erato....really outstanding...excellent Variations, also.


The Boulez/Erato box set is a treasure for 20th century music fans.


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## Schoenberg (Oct 15, 2018)

Thanks for the appreciation everyone.
It really means a lot to me.

Jokes based off of my username aside, I got into Schoenberg because my piano teacher introduced to me the Op. 19 piano pieces, and I truly felt that it was truly amazing and beautiful the emotion that was brought through the music, even without the lack of a tonal core. From there I began to explore more of Schoenberg, and currently I am in love with his 5 string quartets, though diverse they are, they are all amazing and in addition show the evolution that his music took.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I got my first exposure to Schoenberg in the cut-out bins of LP's at K-Mart.

There was a record of Transfigured Night, the large string orchestra version, cond. by Stokowski. Next, Pierot Lunaire by Domaine Musical. Then, another Domaine Musical with Boulez of the sextet version of Transfigured Night.
There were a lot of Everest cut-outs, and Vox, Turnabout, electronic music on obscure foreign labels, lots of Nonesuch, and other weird cut-outs that nobody wanted (world music, too). It was good bang for the buck, as I was a voracious consumer of music. So, I figured there must be something to that; if the music was un-commercial and unattractive to classical consumers, I wanted it.
The Eloy piece on the second LP below was a revelation. I fell asleep listening to it on headphones, and I woke up in a partial state of consciousness, and realized that I "understood" the music, which had been an opaque mystery up to this point.
And yes, deprofundis, it did take me a good while to understand this kind of music. At first it was very opaque, and a mystery, but there was something about it, maybe the pure sensual sound of the instruments, which kept me listening and trying. I "believed" it could somehow be understood, and finally it was. And still reveals itself.
I wish these would be released just like this again on CD, with same cover art and everything. I might still have the original LPs, though. I'll have to dig through my boxes of LPs.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Schoenberg impressed me first through the von Karajan and LaSalle LP boxes for DG in the 70s. I still have the LaSalle but I've bid Herbie farewell. I don't usually find Boulez the best either but good Schoenberg recordings are scarce.But I agree about the Erato Boulez box, which represents the best period for Boulez before DG turned him into cream cheese. 

These days I enjoy Schoenberg's chamber music the most, the quintet, suite, serenade, and string quartets. All these pieces leave his critics in the dust.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

starthrower said:


> The Boulez/Erato box set is a treasure for 20th century music fans.


I didn't know they released a box set - I'll have to check it out...thanx....


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

In my late teens, after my Mahler phase, I wanted something 'heavier'. A quick internet search led me to the conclusion that Schoenberg was classical music's Beelzebub. I then went ahead and listened to Pierrot Lunaire on youtube.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Nothing yet I'm afraid!


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

Heck148 said:


> my favorite P&M is Boulez/Chicago, on Erato....really outstanding...excellent Variations, also.


This CD was it for me. Pelleas is great, and the Variations are just so _rich_. I find Schoenberg difficult because, as a listener who is not particularly perceptive, dense music like his is a challenge. However, the more I listen, the more I like. Along with the two works above, another favourite is the Op. 11 piano pieces.


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