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Breaking Free: Tom Service on the Second Viennese School

As part of Radio 3's Breaking Free season, Tom Service considers how to listen to the Second Viennese School, which developed from early expressionist ventures into atonality.

Breaking Free - the minds that changed music. Tom Service explores how to listen to the Second Viennese School - music that exploded with expressive feeling in the early years of the 20th century, and then gradually rebuilt harmony into a new system, using the 12-note series. He explains how the music developed from Arnold Schoenberg's early expressionist ventures into atonality, to the cool jewel-like precision of his pupil Anton Webern. In conversation with art historian Lisa Florman, he finds parallels in the painter Wassily Kandinsky's journey towards abstraction and his theories of shapes and colours. (Kandinsky was a friend of Schoenberg). And composer George Benjamin describes the intricate structures of Webern's music, which greatly inspired his own compositions.

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29 minutes

Last on

New Year's Day 2017 17:00

Music Played

  • Alban Berg

    Wozzeck - Act 1 Sc.3

    Performer: Vienna Philharmonic. Performer: Claudio Abbado.
    • Wozzeck.
    • DG.
  • Franz Liszt

    Faust (Faust Symphony)

    Orchestra: Budapest Festival Orchestra. Conductor: IvΓ‘n Fischer.
    • PHILIPS.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Symphony no. 40 (K.550) in G minor, 4th movement; Allegro assai

    Conductor: Charles Mackerras. Orchestra: Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
    • Mozart; Symphonies 38-41; SCO; Sir Charles Mackerras.
    • Linn.
  • Anton Bruckner

    Symphony no.9, Adagio

    Performer: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Performer: Bernard Haitink.
    • Philips.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    Six Little Piano Pieces Op.19 no.1

    Performer: Mitsuko Uchida.
    • Philips.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    Six Little Piano Pieces Op.19 no.4

    Performer: Mitsuko Uchida.
    • Philips.
  • Alban Berg

    3 Orchestral Pieces Op.6

    Performer: Berliner Philharmoniker. Performer: James Levine.
    • Philips.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    Erwartung

    Performer: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Performer: James Levine.
    • Philips.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    String Quartet no.2, 4th mvt

    Performer: Quatuor Diotima.
    • NAIVE.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    5 Pieces for Piano, Op 23, 5. Waltz

    Performer: Glenn Gould.
    • Works by Schoenberg.
    • CBS.
    • 8.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    Variations for Orchestra Op. 31

    Performer: Berliner Philharmoniker. Performer: Herbert von Karajan.
    • DG.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37

    Performer: Schoenberg Quartet.
    • String Quartets.
    • Chandos.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    Concerto for Piano, Op. 42

    Performer: Mitsuko Uchida. Performer: The Cleveland Orchestra. Performer: Pierre Boulez.
    • Philips.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    Moses Und Aron

    Performer: Chicago Symphony Chorus and Orchestra. Performer: Georg Solti.
    • Moses Und Aron.
    • Decca.
  • Anton Webern

    Symphony Op.21, 1st Movement

    Performer: Berliner Philharmoniker. Performer: Pierre Boulez.
    • Philips.
  • Anton Webern

    5 Pieces Op.10 no.4

    Performer: Ensemble intercontemporain. Performer: Pierre Boulez.
    • Philips.

Broadcast

  • New Year's Day 2017 17:00

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