Arnold Schönberg
Five Piano Pieces op. 23
The Five Piano Pieces op. 23 are a transitional work in which Schönberg made the decisive step from free atonal music to composition based on tone rows, which however did not yet necessarily have to contain all twelve chromatic tones. Begun in 1920 as a contribution to a memorial album for Debussy, the cycle was completed – now as an independent work – only in 1923. The most famous piece in it is certainly no. 5, “Waltz”, an ironic playing with genre traditions that at the same time is a swift-moving piece of music! Our editor, Ulrich Krämer, is one of the most distinguished Schönberg scholars, while the fingerings are provided by specialist Shai Wosner. The clear and neatly set score is an ideal basis on which to explore this fascinating piano universe.
作曲家について
Arnold Schönberg
The most important composer of the first half of the twentieth century, who with the transition to atonality and twelve-tone technique influenced musical history like no other. 1874 Born on 13 September in Vienna. Largely self-taught except for lessons with Alexander Zemlinsky. 1890–94 Worked as a bank clerk. 1899 String Sextet “Transfigured Night” op. 4 as first mature original piece. 1900–11 “Gurrelieder”. 1901–03 Conductor in Berlin at Ernst von Wolzogen’s “Überbrettl”. 1903 Symphonic poem “Pelleas and Melisande” op. 6. After returning to Vienna, he taught (pupils included Anton Webern and Alban Berg, with whom he formed the Vienna School). 1906 Chamber Symphony op. 9 with quartal harmony. 1908/09 Shift away from tonality: String Quartet op. 10, Three Piano Pieces op. 11, Five Orchestra Pieces op. 16, monodrama “Erwartung” (Expectations) op. 17 (composed 1909, performed 1924), “Die glückliche Hand” (The Hand of Fate) op. 18. From 1911 Second sojourn in Berlin. “Theory of Harmony”. 1912 Melodrama cycle “Pierrot lunaire” op. 21 was a great international success. 1918 Founding of the Society for Private Musical Performances in Vienna. Ca. 1920 After a creative crisis, he found his way to twelve-tone technique (Suite for Piano op. 25, 1921–23). 1925 Appointed to a professorship at the Prussian Academy of Arts Berlin. 1930 Period-piece opera “Von heute auf morgen” (From Today to Tomorrow) op. 32. 1930–32 Started work on the opera “Moses and Aaron”. 1933/36 Emigrated to the USA, professorship in Los Angeles. 1942 “Ode to Napoleon” op. 41, Piano Concerto op. 42. 1947 “A Survivor from Warsaw” op. 46. 1951 Died on 13 July in Los Angeles.
校訂者や運指担当者について
Ulrich Krämer (校訂)
Dr. Ulrich Krämer, born in 1961 in Bielefeld, is Head of the Research Centre at the Arnold Schönberg Complete Edition in Berlin. He read musicology and German in Hamburg and Bloomington and wrote his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Rudolf Stephan on Alban Berg as a pupil of Arnold Schönberg.
In addition to his editorial work, he has been a lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” and at the Berlin University of the Arts, as well as “Visiting Scholar” at the Graduate Center at the City University New York. Alongside the volumes he has prepared for the Schönberg Complete Edition (including the score of the Gurre Lieder which was awarded the Deutsche Musikeditionspreis), his scholarly publications include editions of Alban Berg’s student compositions and Theodor W. Adorno’s compositions found in his estate, as well as essays and articles on Brahms, Berg, Schönberg, Ravel and Astor Piazzolla.