Composition project

Schoenberg Five Orchestral Pieces:

“Farben”A Composition Project

Copyright Katy MacKintosh and John Poulter 2012

Farben

Farben This pack has been

designed to give Higher music pupils an insight into early twentieth century music of the Second Viennese School, using “Farben” from Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces

Farben

• Farben, translated as “Colours” was written by Schoenberg in 1909

• It is a sound picture based on a single concept – texture

• Schoenberg uses this one technique to focus our attention on the individual instruments of the orchestra and their sounds

Farben

• Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg was born in 1874, and is famous as the leader of the Second Viennese School

• Here, along with Webern and Berg, he revolutionised composition by a novel approach to harmony and development, and his name would become synonymous with atonality and the development of the twelve tone technique

Farben

• Schoenberg’s work, Five Pieces for Orchestra, is important as it signaled a change in the use of orchestral instruments – using them for their variety of sounds instead of pitch

• Of the five, initially published without names, we are going to look at the third

• In later editions, this piece was titled Farben, and in 1949 Schoenberg gave it the name “Morning by the Lake”

Farben was revolutionary in 1909, and even today still sounds modern and fresh in its approach

Yet in 1909, Princes Street in Edinburgh looked like this…

Farben

And Argyle Street in Glasgow looked like this…

Farben

Let’s start by putting the piece into a historical context:  1902 Marie and Pierre Curie isolate radium 1904 Teabags invented by Thomas Sullivan 1904 Britain and France sign Entente Cordiale 1904 Invention of ice cream cone 1909 North Pole reached 1909 First aeroplane flight 1912 Titanic sinks 1915 Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary and

Germany

Farben

And also in a musical context:  1900 Rimsky-Korsakov writes “Flight of the

Bumblebee” 1902 Scott Joplin writes “The Entertainer” 1908 Debussy’s “Children’s Corner” is

premiered 1909 Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 3 is

premiered 1910 Stravinsky writes “The Firebird”

Farben

The structure of the piece is simple, in that rhythm, dynamics and harmonic changes all build to approximately two thirds of the way through, before returning to material very similar to the beginning

The piece is built upon the concept of texture – chords morphing from one another, with instruments creating different sound colours

There is no real melody in the piece, but a growth of texture builds to a climax

The piece closes with a coda section

Farben

The first section starts very smoothly and with a gentle pulse moves from chord to chord without any jumps

In the second section, the piece develops, as pitch climbs and more colours change, leading to a third section where much more overlapping, dovetailing and sharper chord changes are evident

The piece finishes very much as it started with a slowing of chord changes

Throughout, there are small decorations which develop in complexity as the music progresses

These “leaping fish” add to the textures and give the piece a slightly uneasy feel

Farben

La Parade de CirqueGeorges Seurat

Seurat developed the technique of Pointillism, which uses small distinct dots of colour to form an image

This technique relies on the eye and mind of the viewer to merge these individual dots into a complete picture

The musical version of Pointillism is called Klangfarbenmelodie

It involves distributing a musical line between several instruments, instead of assigning it to one soloist, to add colour and texture

Schoenberg was a pioneer of this technique and most notably used it in Farben from his Five Pieces for Orchestra

Farben

The piece we are going to write requires five notes

Schoenberg chooses his notes by mixing the chords of a minor and e major (linked by the note e), to create c gsharp b, e and a

You can use his notes in your piece or choose your own using two separate chords

The Composition

You may want to use xylophones or a piano to find your five pitches

Later, you can transfer these pitches to another instrument

The Composition

Now we have all the material required to start our piece

Each pupil should pick one of the chosen notes, then as an ensemble try playing your chord together

The Composition

• Do some notes sound better with a variety of instruments playing them, or just one?

• Experiment with using different instruments and timbres

The Composition

• Schoenberg changes his chords chromatically• Practise moving upwards and downwards by

one semitone from the original notes as an ensemble

• To blur the chord changes, Schoenberg moves each note in the chord individually

• Practice taking it in turns to move, waiting until all players have moved to the new chord, before moving back to your original chord

• Try this at various speeds

The Composition

• We now have the basis to our piece• To help create the atmosphere use

cymbals, shakers, and other resonant percussion instruments to supplement your chords

• Schoenberg renamed Farben in 1949 to “Morning by a Lake”

• Can you represent sounds found in the title with your instruments?

The Composition

• There are four sections in Farben - A,B,C and A

• For section A, start by playing your original chord and very slowly, move to your chromatic variations, returning to the original chord with a pause, which marks the start of section B

• You can experiment with different sounds by using mutes and flutter-tonguing on woodwind and brass, different sticks on percussion instruments, and tremolo and pizzicato on string instruments

The Composition

• For section B we need to create some new material using the original five notes from your chord

• We are then going to alter them in a technique used by Schoenberg later in his career

• Experiment with ordering the five notes from your chord

• We call this original melody the Prime version

The Composition

• To turn this row of notes into the Retrograde version, write out the Prime version in reverse order

• An Inversion form of your melody can be created by writing the intervals upside down, with all the interval directions changed

• Finally, a Retrograde Inversion of your original melody can be created by writing the notes of the inversion in reverse order

• Here is an example using Schoenberg’s original chord:

Prime, Retrograde, Inversion and Retrograde Inversion

The Composition

• To develop the piece into section B, take the material you’ve created in section A and place your melody in its various forms on top

• Experiment alternating the chords with your melody

• You can play the melodies on their own with your original chord underneath, or with your sound pictures from the percussion used in section A

The Composition

• In Section C the music develops so that movement between chords is quicker and more agitated

• You can do this by using staccato notes and pizzicato, and by changing the chords more rapidly

• Throughout this section your melodies can be played at random, in full or fragmented

• Try to develop the underlying percussion textures by using harder sticks and shorter sharper sounds before building to a climax

The Composition

• The final section, which should take the form of Section A, finishes your piece.

Good Luck!

Meet the Writers

Katy MacKintosh is the RSNO’s Associate Principal Oboe, a position she has held for eight years. In addition to her orchestral and solo work, Katy is passionate about her education work which includes regular workshops at Yorkhill Hospital, Glasgow and Rachel House Hospice. She is a keen participant in mountain marathons, and spends a lot of spare time in her kitchen.

John Poulter has been the RSNO’s Associate Principal Percussion for six years. As well as his orchestral responsibilities he also works with the education department helping to deliver projects, giving pre-concert talks and in Childrens’ Hospices. In his spare time John enjoys hill walking and has recently taken up canoeing.

I can use my chosen vocal and/or instrumental skills to improvise and compose, showing developing style and sophistication [EXA 4-17a]

Having developed my ideas from a range of stimuli, I can create and present compositions using a broad range of musical concepts and ideas [EXA 4–18a]

Experiences and Outcomes

Concepts

Credit Higher

CodaMutedFlutter tonguing

Pizzicato Interval

Tone row InversionRetrograde