SCHOENBERG’S BRAHMS
Recall the quotation, toward the end of Schoenberg’s “atonal” monodrama Erwartung, of the opening phrase from Am Wegrand, a song in D minor (Ex. 6-20). Although it had originated in a “tonal” context, the phrase contained a motif (or a pair of inversionally equivalent motifs) that had been serving in the opera as a Grundgestalt, a fundamental musical idea or “basic shape” that gave coherence to the harmonically nonfunctional (“atonal”) musical texture. There is no reason to suppose that the D-minor melody had been the actual source for the intervallic motif as it appears in the opera. More likely the association occurred to Schoenberg in the course of work, in response to the poetic idea or dramatic situation that the song and the opera had in common: waiting anxiously and fruitlessly for a desired person to appear.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2024. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006021.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III). In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 12 Oct. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006021.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 12 Oct. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006021.xml
