from there on the themes learnt to stand on their own feet, so to speak, so that they can now allow themselves to indulge in far greater intervallic freedom. So please listen to the line here [plays Gurrelieder]. But that is not the only interesting thing about it. Rather, you have something here that is very characteristic of Schoenberg’s approach to metric structures. With its exclamation ‘Du wunderliche Tove’, the first phrase is very short, almost a little abrupt [plays]. Now, the second entry is somewhat similar, and likewise has three bars. But already – and here you have all of this Schoenbergian sensibilité, this incredible sensitivity to anything rigid, mechanical, motionless – after the first phrase he has a long ending [plays], then in the second phrase [plays] he goes on immediately [plays]. In other words, because the space between the second phrase and the beginning of the third is shortened to a crotchet rest, the monotony that might otherwise have ensued because of the two three-bar phrases is already paralysed because the second one immediately shifts to a different metric form, and this is the first instance of a four-bar unit, which one might say fulfils the form. Now listen – please try to listen very closely, these are really the compositional details that matter. So he starts with a three-bar unit. This is followed by a transition, likewise three bars long, and then a second three-bar group in the voice whose note values, with one exception, correspond to the first so that one almost worries, one expects fearfully, that a symmetrical transition will now follow. But instead the music moves on immediately, and the rapidity of this continuation undoes the symmetry after the event, as it were, and the second three-bar unit now becomes the antecedent of another irregular period, shortened to seven bars, whose consequent has four bars. This is of such consequence that the next period follows in very close succession but is now expanded to nine full bars, if I am not mistaken, thus creating a large formal arc, and then there is another instrumental transition. In keeping with the extension of these arcs, however, this is also expanded to five bars. So you see how the proportions here all depend on one another. That is, this tendency to extend the arc, which really comes only from the quicker succession of the third entry after the second, this first brings about a seven-bar unit, but then this impulse to lengthen the phrases continues until we reach nine bars; and, on the other hand, this must also have consequences for the idea of the brief instrumental transition,and accordingly the next transition is likewise extended. Now, take a look at the whole thing; I will play it for you once more so that you understand not only its rhythmic variety – on its own, this variety would not be at all interesting – but so that you understand the sense in the succession of these different proportions in the piece’s periodic structure. And the whole results only from the problem that arises, namely how to develop a rather call-like, appellative phrase into a song whose parts are joined into long lines. The first introduction, incidentally, the first instrumental introduction that begins the song is only two bars long, that is, one bar shorter than the others, so that the metric units grow longer very organically and gradually [plays].
Now, I would like to show you something else in order to demonstrate how Schoenberg actually composes. Look, this theme with the marking ‘very calmly’ on page 59, this is introduced here only as a consequent to the instrumental transition [plays], and so forth. Now, it is a fundamental part of composition to assess the relative weight of the melodic ideas in comparison to one another. This theme, this individual idea, has a very large weight. It is so vivid, so characteristic, that it cannot simply remain intermittent but must emerge as a form of main theme. It is very difficult, or we just have no time, to put these things in very exact musical terms – we could do it if we addressed the question of why this theme has this individual weight. One of the reasons, of course, is that the tonic is reached definitively here and then remains above the dominant, which already gives it a very striking character in harmonic terms. But it is also partly due to the use of intervals. It is this theme [plays]. And this theme now has a very clear character of a consequent, an Abgesang. Schoenberg feels this so strongly that, once the song has developed much further, he closes with a general pause and then brings this theme back as a pure, very clear Abgesang – I am leaving aside the requirements of the text and am speaking purely musically – only because this character of a consequent or closing group to the theme demands that it is introduced at the end, as an ending theme. The theme has the weight of an ending, the weight of something that is coming to an end, and Schoenberg feels this weight. In composition, then, it is generally vital to feel the specific weight of the individual themes, to feel which theme has an ending character, which has a positing, thematic one, which has a continuing one, which has a transitional or contrasting one, and so on. And I want to say time and again that Schoenberg’s true greatness as a composer, it seems to me, lies in the fact that he had an instinct for these elements of musical language as elements of musical sense shared by hardly any other composer. So I will play you the end of the song so that you can see how that appears now, as an Abgesang or a coda, if you like [plays]. As an aside, one might say the following about the formal approach: he simultaneously weaves the reprise of the theme’s first entrance into the Abgesang, but now as a retrograde, in such a way that he presents what was the continuation theme [plays] first, and then, with his unerring sense of form, he uses this seal-like invocation of the very beginning, which eludes all variation, which cannot be varied, as a renewed invocation – but now an ending one, so that it closes with the words ‘Du wunderliche Tove’. So he has this character of a closing group, then moves to the continuation theme, which is in the middle again, logically enough, and then the opening theme forms the end, which creates this incredibly compelling and convincing closing effect. Perhaps you can have another look at it now to see – it’s on page 61 – to understand this formal shaping [plays].
So, that is what I wanted to show you in this song.
Now I will give you a few more details about ‘Lied der Waldtaube’, which is probably very familiar to all of you, and rather than conducting any microscopic examination I will draw your attention to a few technical achievements. First of all, regarding the evolution of new compositional methods in Schoenberg, there is a constant interplay, one might say, between the harmonic and contrapuntal aspects. This means that, on the one hand, the harmonic effects result from contrapuntal collusions and, on the other hand, that the contrapuntal complexity stems from the complex construction of the chords, of which I gave you several examples in the previous sessions. Now, the example I will give you this time is an opposing one, for it shows how the voice leading actually brings about new chords, how the logic of the parts simply has consequences for the formation of new chords. The passage I would like to mention is on page 74. – Yes, that’s very regrettable […].20 So I’ll play it to you in context [plays Gurrelieder, ‘Lied der Waldtaube’]. So you see here how these two groups are approaching each other chromatically […].
[…] Now, this formation of chords in passing, this proves especially in Gurrelieder to be one of the most revolutionary means of harmonic formal crafting, and I think it was fundamental to the emergence of the new harmony. Incidentally, let me also point out one matter in which this forms a good starting point. In the so-called heroic days of new music – and the book on linear counterpoint by Ernst Kurth21 is partly to blame for this – people always said that harmony did not really matter in new music, it was merely a result of the counterpoint. I just gave you an example from which you could see – well, one cannot speak of ‘counterpoint’ here, because it is not really a contrapuntal passage – but how the movement of the inner parts leads to certain new and, by the standards of traditional harmonic theory, unusual events. But it would really be entirely wrong to assume, and it was only the superficiality of the cretins who were spouting their nonsense about these things back then, that these matters of counterpoint or voice leading always have a harmonic sense too. Schoenberg never simply ‘went for it’ like many other later composers, especially in the period of free tonality, who really no longer listened to the harmonic aspect; rather, he was always extremely finely attuned to points of harmonic emphasis, as I just showed you. Listen to this progression [plays]. It is like that with all these things. That is to say, this ear for harmonic detail, for the individual harmonic event, which I already mentioned when we looked at the song ‘Erwartung’, this is always so alert in Schoenberg that every product of Schoenberg’s counterpoint simultaneously has a harmonic sense. In other words, and I would like to say this about the problem of counterpoint in general
