I like Schoenberg?

Yea, you read it right. I've got about 12-20 scores that I use in various capacities to teach my students various things. At least 20 times now I've dug out the Mallarme songs of Ravel in order to teach harmonics, color, and transparency. Even more I've gotten the Barber Symphony No.1 to teach what I like to call the "activation" of harmony. Lately, I'm really into the concept of the various forces of music (keep in mind that a favorite and highly influential book is Ernst Toch's The Shaping Forces of Music) and the possibility of diffusing the forces and I feel that my bag of tricks needs some serious augmenting. So, inspired by the hardcore programming sessions with the jv3k and also feeling quite hungry for new music (as in new to me) I decided to check out some oldie-but-goodie and new scores from our non-music-library-music-library at See Us Use eBay. My hope is that through studying more intensely these scores I'll have a wider range of music to bludgeon my students with.

So, what did I check out?

• Mahler, Symphony No.1 (I kind of know this)
• Brahms, Clarinet Quintet (I only know the first two movements)
• Copland, Appalachian Spring (I mainly know the "Simple Gifts" part of this)
• MacMillian, The Confession of Isabel Gowdie (heard this once, would like to give it lots of listens)
• Schoenberg, Five Pieces for Orchestra (I know of this - the third movement: "Farben" - but really don't know the piece)

So, you've got to understand. Going through my M.M. and D.M., Schoenberg has come to represent almost everything pedantic and moronic about contemporary composition. His music (namely the piano works) are just shoved down graduate student throats and we are often strapped to tables, eyelids forced open, with images of P R I RI I R P P I RI P RI P I I P RI P flashed before us.

RI P - that is funny...

So, I was quite reluctant to even check out the Schoenberg. I hate (yes, hate) most of what I've heard. However, I do remember an absolutely stunning performance of Pierrot Lunaire when I was at Tanglewood. This performance was the first time I started to doubt my Schoenberg hatred. But, that was six years ago.

I popped the recording of the Five Pieces for Orchestra into my CD player and took a deep breath. Well, I was immediately drawn in. It was really strange. I listened quite intently and after the piece was over, I played it again. And again. And again. I listened to the piece for 1.5 hours straight (that is how I know I really like it).

I still don't like most of his other stuff but I will say that I love these pieces and I am looking forward to other surprises that may come about in my studies of works that are not well known to me.