Chamber Symphony No.1 Op.9

If any composer played a revolutionary role in the history of music it was Arnold Schoenberg. His own development, however, was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. He might have seemed to make two particularly subversive efforts to overturn his late-romantic Viennese heritage – first when he abandoned tonality towards 1910 and then when he formulated the principles of serial technique in the early 1920s. But, while both those events had lasting and far-reaching consequences, they were the results of a natural, long-term progression in his thinking. The Chamber Symphony Op.9, which he wrote in its orignal version for 15 solo instrument in 1906, represents an early and exciting stage in the evolutionary process. The version for large orchestra, which the composer arranged nearly 30 years later, transforms the sound, thickening already elaborate textures, but the fundamental characteristics of the work remain the same.

A highly melodious and, indeed, harmonious score, Schoenberg’s Op.9 is in some respects a classical inspiration (reassuringly bearing the key signature of E major). As a contribution to the symphonic tradition, it is no less valid because it concentrates the conventional four movements into one. And it is not without precedent in that respect: Schoenberg himself had recently done something similar in his First String Quartet Op.7 and before that there were Liszt’s monumental Piano Sonata in B minor and Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasia. But it wasn’t the construction of the work that angered Schoenberg’s contemporaries so much as its harmonies. For them harmony was based on the major and minor scales while chords were built in thirds. Although Schoenberg did not, at this stage, set out to defy those expectations he did make prominent use of material that contradicted them.

The horn call that makes its first entry immediately after the few bars of slow introduction is a rising series of fourths and the answering phrase that follows on lower strings and wind is made up of whole tones. For Schoenberg’s contemporaries at the first performance in Vienna in 1907 these ideas made little melodic or harmonic sense. For us they are positively exhilarating, as are the other themes that spill out in such abundance from the initial explosion of what the composer called “riotous rejoicing” – on woodwind, lower strings, high violins and horns, solo oboe… The tempo fluctuates but the initial impetus surges on until there is a pronounced drop in both tempo and dynamic level to prepare for the entry of a quietly lyrical new melody on violins.

This slower episode is the equivalent of the second subject of the first movement in a conventional symphony. In this case, however, it is fairly soon pushed aside by a return of the earlier tempo and the material that goes with it: the general thrust is not towards the development section that would follow in a classical symphony but, with an impetuous acceleration, towards a very quick scherzo. Though urgent rather than jokey, it is scherzo enough to include a trio section, based on theme on dotted rhythms on woodwind. It is only after the return of the first part of the scherzo that, with a prominent recall of the horn call in fourths but now in descending order, the development section begins.

A texturally complex, thrillingly engineered intermingling of familiar themes, including the scherzo material, the development section reaches its climax on a proclamation of the all-important motif of fourths. But then, in sudden quiet, the fourths rise in eerie harmnics on a solo double bass and the equivalent of the slow movement begins. At the same time the development continues because, while the new section has its own charomatically expressively melody introduced by solo violin, it recalls other ideas – first in the original chamber scoring of 1906 and then on the whole orchestra.

The only element missing from the four-movement symphony at this stage is the finale. Or, looking at it another way, all that is needed to complete the single-movement construction is a recapitulation. So Schoenberg ingeniously combines the two. Material from the first section of the work is duly recalled but not in the order in which it orignally appeared, the ultimate aim being to end the work with a climactic treatment of the fourths and whole tones that were introduced at an early stage and which have permeated the texture throughout. In so doing, ending miraculously in E major, he achieves a brilliant success, a triumph of structural intellect and emotive inspiration.

Gerald Larner © 2009