As Arnold mentioned, Schoenberg's move to

atonality, or pantonality, happened here in this second

of four string quartets, in spite of his denials. As one would expect

at such moments of change in music history,

think premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring,

the first performance of this piece by the Rose Quartet in Vienna

on December 21, 1908, sparked ridicule and anger.

This atonal or keyless approach, however, does not appear in this work

from the onset. It occurs in the final movement

for very clear narrative reasons. The finale is preceded by three movements

that toy with moments of dissonance and atonality,

but are forced to maintain allegiance to a key.

Schoenberg's 2nd string quartet displays traditional string quartet form.

The first movement is in sonata style and cast in the key of F-sharp minor.

It doesn't move to F-sharp major by the end of the movement, which

is often what we see in minor keyed first movements of the tonal variety.

Here, the consistent minor mode helps establish a downcast uncertainty,

as does the descending opening theme which tries in vain to ascend.

This opening theme morphs or is combined with similarly shaped ideas

through a process of continual motivic development.

And, Schoenberg creates a sense of tension, a central idea to sonata form, by contrasting

tonal motives with atonal ones. Let's listen to this dark and intense

quality in the opening measures of Movt. 1

as well as the presentation of tonal and atonal motives.

[MUSIC]

The second movement is a scherzo in d minor with a D major trio

of pizzicati and staccato notes. Toward the end of the movement,

Schoenberg inserts a reference to the popular song, "O du lieber

Augustin," which sounds the message, "All is past,"

a reference to his wife's affair.

This song is the same one as the familiar nursery tune

with the words, "Have you ever seen a lassie,

a lassie, a lassie, have you ever seen a lassie go this way and that."

Now, Schoenberg introduces a singer, a soprano singer, in the slow third movement,

which he described as a variation form. Here, loose associations with the key

of E-flat minor establish the setting for Stefan George's poem,

which is a prayer lifted up in a moment of complete hopelessness.

The fourth and final movement is a response to this desperate prayer.

It is also slow and dark, and not of the quick, upbeat variety.

As a response to the sorrows expressed by the singer in the third movement,

the fourth movement promises the speaker's soul freedom

or rapture from the ties that bind her to this world. To reflect the poetry's

meaning, Schoenberg rids the music of a key signature, thus making it atonal,

or without reference to a key center. "Rapture," the title of the poem,

reads as follows: I feel air from another planet.

I faintly through the darkness see faces Friendly even now, turning toward me.

And trees and paths that I loved fade So I can scarcely know them and you bright

Beloved shadow, summoner of my anguish-- Are only extinguished completely in a

deep glowing In the frenzy of the fight

With a pious show of reason. I lose myself in tones, circling, weaving,

With unfathomable thanks and unnamed praise, Bereft of desire, I surrender myself

to the great breath. A violent wind passes over me

In the thrill of consecration where ardent cries

In dust flung by women on the ground: Then I see a filmy mist rising

In a sun-filled, open expanse That includes only the farthest mountain hatches.

The land looks white and smooth like whey, I climb over enormous canyons.

I feel as if above the last cloud Swimming in a sea of crystal radiance--

I am only a spark of the holy fire I am only a whisper of the holy voice.

Schoenberg closes the movement on an F-sharp major harmony,

thus bringing back the parallel major version of the first movement's key. He has in essence

brought us full circle from F-sharp minor to F-sharp major. The dark uncertainty

of the work's beginning has, in theory, been resolved, but anyone listening to it

would come away with different thoughts. That's because the driving force behind

this music is Expressionism, an artistic style of the

early 20th century, in which anxious inner struggles and yearnings

gain expression through exaggerated melodic gestures

and the emancipation of dissonance. In the world of music, this unusual final

movement marks a point of no return. Tonality,

it would seem, had become a thing of the past. With the introduction of a singer

in the third and final movements of this work

comes a change in the quartet's role. Here, it functions as accompaniment.

The usual string texture has, thus, been fundamentally changed by the

addition of a singer and text. Moreover, the atonal language upends the structural

underpinnings of classical form where key contrast AND harmonic tension

and resolution are essential. It also untethers the ear

from the kinds of string interactions one is accustomed to in tonal music.

In a nutshell, the sound is altogether different.

Atonality and Expressionism

The World of the String Quartet

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