Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-century classical music, and a central element of his music was its use of motives as a means of coherence. He propounded concepts like developing variation, the emancipation of the dissonance, and the "unity of musical space".
Sprechgesang and Sprechstimme, more commonly known as speak-singing in English, are expressionist musical vocal techniques between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, Sprechgesang is directly related to the operatic recitative manner of singing, whereas Sprechstimme is closer to speech itself.
Opera in German is that of the German-speaking countries, which include Germany, Austria, and the historic German states that pre-date those countries.
Peter Alexander Goehr was a German-born English composer of contemporary classical music and academic teacher. A long-time professor of music at the University of Cambridge, Goehr influenced many notable contemporary composers, including Thomas Adès, Julian Anderson, George Benjamin and Robin Holloway.
Franz Schreker was an Austrian composer, conductor, librettist, teacher and administrator. Primarily a composer of operas, Schreker developed a style characterized by aesthetic plurality, timbral experimentation, strategies of extended tonality and conception of total music theatre into the narrative of 20th-century music.
Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet were a duo of French filmmakers who made two dozen films between 1963 and 2006. Their films are noted for their rigorous, intellectually stimulating style and radical, communist politics. While both were French, they worked mostly in Germany and Italy. From the Clouds to the Resistance (1979) and Sicilia! (1999) are among the duo's best regarded works.
The term expressionism "was probably first applied to music in 1918, especially to Schoenberg", because like the painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) he avoided "traditional forms of beauty" to convey powerful feelings in his music. Theodor Adorno interprets the expressionist movement in music as seeking to "eliminate all of traditional music's conventional elements, everything formulaically rigid". This he sees as analogous "to the literary ideal of the 'scream.' " As well Adorno sees expressionist music as seeking "the truthfulness of subjective feeling without illusions, disguises or euphemisms". Adorno also describes it as concerned with the unconscious, and states that "the depiction of fear lies at the centre" of expressionist music, with dissonance predominating, so that the "harmonious, affirmative element of art is banished". Expressionist music would "thus reject the depictive, sensual qualities that had come to be associated with impressionist music. It would endeavor instead to realize its own purely musical nature—in part by disregarding compositional conventions that placed 'outer' restrictions on the expression of 'inner' visions".
Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the music to the third act unfinished. The German libretto is by the composer. based on selected incidents from the Book of Exodus.
Erwartung (Expectation), Op. 17, is a one-act monodrama in four scenes by Arnold Schoenberg to a libretto by Marie Pappenheim. Composed in 1909, it was not premiered until 6 June 1924 in Prague conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky with Marie Gutheil-Schoder as the soprano. The opera takes the unusual form of a monologue for solo soprano accompanied by a large orchestra. In performance, it lasts for about half an hour. It is sometimes paired with Béla Bartók's opera Bluebeard's Castle (1911), as the two works were roughly contemporary and share similar psychological themes. Schoenberg described Erwartung, saying "the aim is to represent in slow motion everything that occurs during a single second of maximum spiritual excitement, stretching it out to half an hour."
Dika Newlin was a composer, pianist, professor, musicologist, and punk rock singer. She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University at the age of 22. She was one of the last living students of Arnold Schoenberg and was a Schoenberg scholar and a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond from 1978 to 2004. She performed as an Elvis impersonator and played punk rock while in her seventies in Richmond, Virginia.
Von heute auf morgen is a one act opera composed by Arnold Schoenberg, to a German libretto by "Max Blonda", the pseudonym of Gertrud Schoenberg, the composer's wife. It is the composer's opus 32.
Winfried Zillig was a German composer, music theorist, and conductor.
In music, a reduction is an arrangement or transcription of an existing score or composition in which complexity is lessened to make analysis, performance, or practice easier or clearer; the number of parts may be reduced or rhythm may be simplified, such as through the use of block chords.
Moses und Aron, known in English as Moses and Aaron, is a 1975 film by the French filmmaking duo of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet based on the unfinished opera of the same title by Arnold Schoenberg. During its 1975 run at US festivals, it was also known as Aaron and Moses, and was frequently reviewed as such.
The Arnold Schoenberg Choir is a Viennese/Austrian choir which was founded 1972 by Erwin Ortner, who is still its artistic director. The choir has a high reputation both among conductors and among critics and the musical scene in general. All members of the choir have broad experience and expertise in vocal music; most of them have graduated from or are currently studying at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts. The choir is named after Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg.
Hans Herbert Fiedler was a German operatic bass and actor. He is best known today for portraying the role of Moses in the original 1954 production of Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron.
Helmut Kretschmar is a German classical tenor who spent most of his career performing in concerts and recitals with major orchestras and at important music festivals internationally. Although he focused his career mainly within the concert repertoire, Kretschmar did appear two times on the opera stage, notably singing in the world premiere of Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron in 1954. Possessing a rich and warm lyric tenor voice, Kretschmar excelled in the concert repertoire of Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Joseph Haydn, and Felix Mendelssohn. Also an admired interpreter of Lieder, Kretschmar performed and recorded a number of works by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Hugo Wolf.
Günter Reich, also spelled Günther Reich and Gunther Reich, was an Israeli baritone of German birth. He was a member of the Staatsoper Stuttgart for more than 20 years and is known for interpreting the works of Arnold Schoenberg in collaboration with Michael Gielen and Pierre Boulez.
Gertrud Bertha Schoenberg was an Austrian opera librettist. She was the second wife of Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, whom she married in 1924, and the sister of his pupil, the violinist Rudolf Kolisch.
Ursula Zollenkopf is a German classical contralto singer. A member of the NDR Chor based in Hamburg, she appeared as a soloist in opera and concert, including premieres of contemporary music such as Stravinsky's Threni and Schoenberg's Moses und Aron.
