2nd Chamber Symphony (Schönberg)
The Chamber Symphony No. 2 in E flat minor, op. 38 for 19 instruments by Arnold Schönberg was tackled by the composer in 1906 immediately after the First Chamber Symphony (for 15 instruments) had been completed. Schönberg composed and orchestrated the first movement ( Adagio , E flat minor ) in full and wrote the short score for the meanwhile first part of the second movement ( Con fuoco - "with fire", G major ), but then broke off the work. In 1911 and 1916 he tried to complete the work, but only orchestrated a few bars. It was not until 1939, when he had been living in the USA for six years, that he took up the composition again. The originally planned three-part system was abandoned; instead of a Maestoso closing movement, he wrote a Molto adagio epilogue in E flat minor which thematically related to the opening movement and which now formed the second part of the second movement. On December 15, 1940, Fritz Stiedry conducted the world premiere of the two-movement "Complete Torso" in New York by the chamber orchestra of the "New Friends of Music"; The program also included the first and fourth Brandenburg Concerts by Johann Sebastian Bach .
Although conceptually the work is still rooted in the twelve-note or even atonal phase, it represents one of Schönberg's most sophisticated works in terms of handling harmony and the use of dynamics. From a symphonic point of view, it relies much more on the interplay of the individual Voices as the First Chamber Symphony, in which the chamber music juxtaposition of emphatically emphasized characters predominated, and thus on the surface represents a more orthodox contribution to the genre.
literature
The most comprehensive analyzes of the work come from Glenn Gould as an accompanying text to the recording by Robert Craft (1965) and by Michael Gielen as an accompanying text to his own recording (1995).
Web links
- Detailed cast and full discography
- Factory introduction ( click on introduction )
Individual evidence
- ^ Reinhold Brinkmann: Arnold Schönberg, three piano pieces Op. 11 - Studies on early atonality in Schönberg , Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 2000, ISBN 3-515-07804-5 , p. 3