A Sunday Diversion

I wish I could put something up occasionally without telling you what it is--make you guess. It is quite an interesting exercise because it sidetracks our biases and enables us to listen without prejudice. I would like to put up this piece without you knowing what it is, but with YouTube you can't really do that.

I said a while back that Schoenberg's music, despite its reputation, isn't really atonal. I was waiting for some disparaging comments, but none appeared! Mind you, his music certainly redefines, extends and complexifies tonality to a high degree, but it isn't atonal. Even when it is twelve-tone, there are tonal-type relationships between the transpositions of the rows. And, even in his middle years, in the late 1930s, we find a piece like the Chamber Symphony No. 2, began in 1906 but not completed until 1939, given a key signature of E-flat minor.

It is a surprisingly beautiful piece. Let's listen. This is the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antonello Manacorda. There are only two movements: Adagio and Con Fuoco.