Gurrelieder at the Sydney Opera House

[sydneyboy]

I know it’s not an opera but this seems the best place to discuss it.

Last night I attended a performance of Schoenberg’s cantata Gurreleider at the Sydney Opera House by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Simone Young. It was the first time Sydney has heard the work and it an occasion to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the composer.

There were 139 players in the expanded orchestra, 3 choirs totalling 271 singers and 6 superb international soloists.

It was an astonishing overwhelming experience never to be repeated in my lifetime. The spontaneous standing ovation at the end said it all. Tremendous.

I just read a review online of the performance by the Sydney Morning Herald’s music critic. In his words “ a massive monument to the imagination, this performance was a triumph.” 

 

 

Edited March 17 by sydneyboy

[mike carey]

I heard Simone Young talk about the performance a couple of days ago on ABC RN (on the Music Show, I think). I'm glad it lived up to her ambitions for it.

[sutherland]

Hello Sydneyboy - how is opera attendance in Australia?  Here in the USA sold-out operatic performances are very rare and all the major opera companies discuss audience building as a priority.

[+ nycman]

On 3/17/2024 at 12:02 AM, sydneyboy said:

Last night I attended a performance of Schoenberg’s cantata Gurreleider at the Sydney Opera House

Sounds like a phenomenal performance. The piece calls for 3 all male 4-part choirs. Sexy as fuck!

Unfortunately I’d rather listen to screeching mating cats than have to sit through Schoenberg‘s atonal crap. 

In fact the piece is much like it’s inspiration…Gurre Castle in Denmark….ruined.

 

Then again, anyone who had his portrait done by Egon Schiele can’t be all bad…

 

[Marc in Calif]

4 hours ago, nycman said:

Unfortunately I’d rather listen to screeching mating cats than have to sit through Schoenberg‘s atonal crap. 

In fact the piece is much like it’s inspiration…Gurre Castle in Denmark….ruined.

Over-generalizing the music of Schoenberg is very common -- and very misinformed. 🤣

His early music is simply the continuation of romantic and late-romantic tonality. It has absolutely nothing to do with "atonality" at all.

Do you also refer to music by R. Strauss and G. Mahler during the same period as "atonal"? Wrong again! All three actually were using the same varieties of late-romantic, highly chromatic tonality -- which, in fact, the world had previewed way back in Wagner's operas. Surely you've heard of those operas. Are they "atonal" too?

Schoenberg started and virtually completed Gurrelieder in 1901. At that time, he was nowhere close to switching from tonality to "atonality" and then to 12-tone serialism. In fact, he began working on Gurrelieder just after finishing his tone poem Verklärte Nacht (his most popular work), which is itself still quite tonal. VN starts pretty much in D minor and then centers on D major for its "transfigured" second part. That's called tonality.

[sutherland]

8 hours ago, nycman said:

Then again, anyone who had his portrait done by Egon Schiele can’t be all bad…

That's a great line!  Aha ha ha

[sydneyboy]

11 hours ago, nycman said:

Sounds like a phenomenal performance. The piece calls for 3 all male 4-part choirs. Sexy as fuck!

Unfortunately I’d rather listen to screeching mating cats than have to sit through Schoenberg‘s atonal crap. 

In fact the piece is much like it’s inspiration…Gurre Castle in Denmark….ruined.

 

Then again, anyone who had his portrait done by Egon Schiele can’t be all bad…

 

The music was surprisingly approachable. As Marc in Cali has pointed out it was before Schoenberg embraced atonality. Simone Young in a promotional video said if you like Mahler you will like Gurrelieder. 
I should add the 2 performances in the 2700 seat Concert Hall were completely sold out and the spontaneous standing ovation at the end said it all.

[+ nycman]

On 3/20/2024 at 4:06 PM, Marc in Calif said:

Over-generalizing the music of Schoenberg is very common -- and very misinformed. 🤣

His early music is simply the continuation of romantic and late-romantic tonality. It has absolutely nothing to do with "atonality" at all.

Do you also refer to music by R. Strauss and G. Mahler during the same period as "atonal"? Wrong again! All three actually were using the same varieties of late-romantic, highly chromatic tonality -- which, in fact, the world had previewed way back in Wagner's operas. Surely you've heard of those operas. Are they "atonal" too?

Schoenberg started and virtually completed Gurrelieder in 1901. At that time, he was nowhere close to switching from tonality to "atonality" and then to 12-tone serialism. In fact, he began working on Gurrelieder just after finishing his tone poem Verklärte Nacht (his most popular work), which is itself still quite tonal. VN starts pretty much in D minor and then centers on D major for its "transfigured" second part. That's called tonality.

Thank you for the lecture….I was waiting for this.

But if you re-read what I wrote, you’ll see than I never stated Gurreleider was atonal. It clearly is not.

What I said I said was, "I’d rather listen to screeching mating cats than have to sit through Schoenberg‘s atonal crap."

I can see the misunderstanding though and I apologize for not making my transitions more clear.

My understanding is that Schoenberg completed Gurreleider later, around 1911 when was he was well on his way to his atonal monotony, which does make Gurreleider’s preserved tonality interesting. 

If I were trying to disparage Gurreleider, I would have called it a Wagner/Mahler ripoff, which is what is sounds like to me.

I look forward to your 5 page rebuttal showing how Gurreleider is NOT Wagnerian regurgitation, but a unique masterpiece.

grin

PS I still hate Schoenberg’s atonal crap and am obviously in way over my head. I’ll show myself out.

PPS Why do I visit the Opera forum?….I’ll never learn

 

[sutherland]

2 hours ago, nycman said:

PS I still hate Schoenberg’s atonal crap and am obviously in way over my head. I’ll show myself out.

I've sat through Berg's "Lulu" 3 times and I'll will never go again.  My policy is this - if I hear a work 3 times and I still sleep through more than 50% of the performance I have tried my best.   For the same reason I'll never go again to Berlioz's "les Troyens" or Mozart's "Idomeneo", though "Don Giovanni" is one of my all-time favorites.

[Marc in Calif]

3 hours ago, nycman said:

My understanding is that Schoenberg completed Gurreleider later, around 1911 when was he was well on his way to his atonal monotony, which does make Gurreleider’s preserved tonality interesting. 

That date is misleading. What he added in 1911 merely completed in full what he'd essentially composed earlier (1901-1903). The "tonality" didn't change at all because he'd already set down the work's melodies and harmonies. Obvious, no?

That's not peculiar or even "interesting." It's what composers (and other artists) frequently do when they're busy with other work. They simply resume work when they finally have the time. 

In his own account of the chronology of Gurrelieder, Schoenberg states that the whole composition was finished in 1901, with only the final chorus in rough sketch and the orchestration more or less worked out. However, the pressure of earning a living (he claims that he wrote more than a thousand pages of arrangements [ed. -- all tonal works, of course!] for operetta composers), the apparent hopelessness of securing a performance of a work of such magnitude, and, probably most important, the changes of style and expression that were taking place in his own compositions, caused him to put aside this work for a number of years.

So he simply put it "aside." The final touches that he added to Gurrelieder in 1911 continued the chromatic tonality of the rest of the score. It inherited no influences from other compositions he was working on in 1911. Gurrelider is a unified work from start to finish. Nothing surprising there at all. 

[musclestuduws]

Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder is one of the greatest vocal-symphonic works in the history of classical music. Truly earth shattering when you experience a live performance. Great to know that the performance at SOH was so successful. It is rarely done because of the huge logistics it demands.  They’re doing it at Carnegie Hall this weekend too. Unfortunately I cannot go. 
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2024/03/22/American-Symphony-Orchestra-0800PM

The work has a fascinating reception history. It was not premiered until 1913. By then, Schoenberg had moved on and was writing atonal music. The premiere was a huge success and the audience gave Schoenberg a standing ovation. Critics who had rejected  his more recent atonal works were suddenly won over by a work he had written almost 12 years earlier and published rave reviews extolling his artistic genius. At the concert, Schoenberg refused to acknowledge the audience’s applause, disappointed and somehow angry because music that no longer represented him was so well received, implicitly rejecting his atonal music yet again. Fascinating to think about an artist who gets widespread acclaim for a style he had long abandoned while his current work is despised by the very same audience and critics. 

 

Edited March 22 by musclestuduws

[sydneyboy]

One further anecdote about the Gurrelieder. Schoenberg initially composed the work for soloist and pianist as a gift to his wife. After Mahler composed his mammoth symphony for a thousand, Schoenberg was determined he would do one better and upped the ante and recomposed the Gurrelieder in its present form.

[jeezifonly]

I’m a fan of Simone Young, and thrilled for her success with it! I heard it performed live by the LA Philharmonic (EPS conducting) before they relocated from the Chandler to Disney Hall. Thrilling. 

Thanks for the reminder to dig out my CD (Ozawa/BSO, Norman, McCracken, Troyanos)