Expressionists

• Expressionists

1. Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer and painter, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. 

Born: September 13, 1874, Leopoldstadt, Austria

Died: July 13, 1951, Los Angeles, California, United States

Period: Der Blaue Reiter

Compositions: Pierrot Lunaire, Verklärte Nacht, Gurrelieder

Artwork: Denken, Der rote Blick, Blauer Blick, Gehendes Selbst-Portrait,Blue Self-Portrait, Christus, Hass

*Pierrot Lunaire

Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire' ("Three times Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire'"), commonly known simply as Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the Moonlight"), is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg. It is a setting of twenty-one selected poems from Otto Erich Hartleben's German translation of Albert Giraud's cycle of French poems of the same name. The première of the work, which is between 35 and 40 minutes in length, was at the Berlin Choralion-Saal on October 16, 1912, with Albertine Zehme as the vocalist.

The narrator (voice-type unspecified in the score, but traditionally performed by a soprano) delivers the poems in the Sprechstimme style. Schoenberg had previously used a combination of spoken text with instrumental accompaniment, called "melodrama", in the summer-wind narrative of the Gurre-Lieder, and it was a genre much in vogue at the end of the nineteenth century. The work is atonal but does not use the twelve-tone technique that Schoenberg would devise eight years later.

 2. Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian, and later French and American composer, pianist and conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. 

Born: June 17, 1882, Oranienbaum, Germany

Died: April 6, 1971, New York City, New York, United States

Buried: Isola di San Michele

Compositions: The Rite of Spring, The Firebird, Petrushka,

Children: Soulima Stravinsky, Ludmila Stravinsky, Maria Milena Stravinsky, Fyodor Stravinsky

Spouse: Vera de Bosset (m. 1940–1971), Yekaterina Gabrielovna Nossenko (m. 1906–1939)

*The Rite of Spring

The Rite of Spring (French: Le Sacre du printemps, Russian: «Весна священная», Vesna svyashchennaya) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev'sBallets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky, with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. When first performed, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation and a near-riot in the audience. Although designed as a work for the stage, with specific passages accompanying characters and action, the music achieved equal if not greater recognition as a concert piece, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.