Schoenberg, Britten and Gershwin.

Schoenberg, Britten and Gershwin at face value are a diverse trio of composers whose only commonalities appear to be that all of them have been recognised as writing works in the sphere of western art music in the 20th century. Schoenberg is noted for his 12 tone principle and serialism, Britten is viewed as a major English composer of opera, folksong and orchestral works and Gershwin known for his embracement of jazz in writing popular songs and a small number of more serious works. Schoenberg and Gershwin became good friends and tennis partners when the former became a political exile in America. Both men were avid painters, which seemed to be the initial bond between them. Coincidentally both men’s fathers worked in the shoe trade.
They had a mutual respect for each other’s music but Gershwin never adopted Schoenberg’s tonal approach. Britten and Schoenberg met once through Britten’s teacher Frank Bridge who had employed 12 note tonalities e.g. his String Quartet No. 3. Bridge was a major influence on Britten and as a young man Britten’s admiration of Schoenberg kindled a desire to study under Berg in Vienna but it never occurred due to family displeasure. Britten therefore remained almost wholly in tonal music with some exceptions which will be discussed later and founded his composition after Purcell, Mozart and Schubert but was also influenced by Stravinsky, Bartok and Holst.
Arnold Schoenberg, an Austrian by birth emerged from the Austro-German art music tradition.Schoenberg had little musical training and like Gershwin and unlike Britten, he never attended music college. Initially a follower of Brahms, his early works were of a Romantic nature. He later was influenced by Mahler and arrived at the use of serialism and twelve notes after a period of writing atonal music. Schoenberg believed in composing strong motivic music and was very interested in the use of counterpoint which had long been a tool in the German compositional tradition. He felt there was a crisis in tonality and viewed serialism as the natural progression to what had preceded similar to the other expressionist artists and scientists e.g. Klimt and Freud in fin de siècle Vienna. Moving away from the tradition of using keys he saw all twelve notes as having an equal value and created stability in his compositions by playing as many chromatic notes as possible.Schoenberg had a strong interest in psychology and along with other expressionists reflected extreme emotional and psychological states and obsession with premature death into his work e.g. Erwartung. Theodor Adorno the philosopher and great supporter of Schoenberg argued that Schoenberg was not only influenced by German art music but in the popular music and folksongs which were embedded in Viennese culture.Adorno attributes Schoenberg’s use of large intervals in his music as being directly influenced by the Austrian tradition of yodelling and his frequent direction of Schwungvoll meaning ‘with verve’ as being derived from Viennese waltzes.
George Gershwin was born into the melting pot of races which was America at a time when there was national excitement and hope for the future of a relatively new country. The son of Russian / Jewish parents he had little formal musical training and quickly became actively involved in popular song working in Tin Pan Alley. Gershwin neatly fitted into the quest and debate to define an American music. Dvorak had proposed in an interview in the New York Herald on 21 May 1893 that a true American music should be founded on what he called ‘Negro melodies’, native Indian music and New England gospel which he viewed as the folksongs of America and likened the Negro and Indian music to the use of the “Scotch� scale which had been used successfully in art music e.g. Mendelssohn’s Hebridean Overture or Bruch’s “ Scottish Fantasy�. Dvorak’s statement opened a wide debate amongst scholarly musicians but ultimately it was precisely the use of blues and jazz influences which Gershwin incorporated into his music. Gershwin’s popular tunes are widely viewed as being representative of America in the twentieth century.
…true music… must repeat the thought and aspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans. My time is today…
George Gershwin 1925
His Rhapsody in Blue with its’ busy rhythm has become synonymous with New York and has become universally popular on the serious concert stage. The title has a double edge the blue of jazz and blues notes and a reference to impressionist painters who were prone to using similar titles. Personally, I have always felt that the Andante Moderato theme at bar 324 middle contrasts with the opening theme and is more representative of another side of America, that of a sleepy town where the values of the country are upheld. His use of flattened thirds, sixths and sevenths permeate the work and the underlying harmony is unusual for art music e.g. the chromatic descent of the top and middle lines of bars 2-6 coupled with a diatonic descent in the bottom line creating a complex sequence of chromatic chords. The improvisory nature of his piano playing on the first recording in 1924 and use of Paul Whiteman’s jazz orchestra underline the influence of jazz. Gershwin was not the only composer to be influenced by jazz as Debussy, Ravel, Milhaud and Stravinsky were all influenced by jazz’s rhythmic possibilities and instrumentation. In turn there is a strong French leaning in American composers with Aaron Copland amongst others travelling to Paris to study under Nadia Boulanger in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Gershwin himself was influenced by Ravel and Debussy culminating in his An American in Paris which begins with a very much Debussy influenced ‘walking theme’ which appears throughout the piece. The first 53 bars are very chromatic(not unusual for Gershwin) and almost atonal in composition and it is not until bar 54 that the theme develops into a more familiar Gershwin jazz/ blues theme . The theme introduced at bar 1 has a falling minor seventh and a dissonant semitone interval (B C) on the first beat of the theme over a second inversion V7 and I chords. (See below). The dissonant first notes resemble the sound of a car horn.

Bars 1-5 An American in Paris

Schoenberg uses a falling seventh in Erwartung alternating with a falling major seventh in the cor anglais part in bar two. (See below).
Bars 1-2 Erwartung

It is here in the adherence to furthering a musical national identity that we find a similarity between the three composers but to a lesser degree Britten who aimed to be more internationalist probably due to his pacifist views. He is quoted on leaving for USA in 1942:
Three years ago it seemed to me that a self-conscious wave of musical nationalism was sweeping this country, and I was sorry to see it … now, more than ever, nationalism is an anachronistic irrelevance.

Here I would like to draw an autobiographical similarity to the three composers in that all three were exile in USA, Britten albeit for a short time. Schoenberg was a political or religious exile being Jewish he had to leave Austria because of nazi persecution. Gershwin, although born in America but was in a similar position by virtue of his parents being Russian Jews who had fled Russia for the same reason. Britten was persuaded by W.H. Auden to leave Britain in 1942 as he may have been in danger of being jailed either for his pacifism as a conscientious objector or for his homosexual activities which were still illegal in Britain at that time. The theme of being an outsider to society or oppressed is a theme which Britten often explores in his work e.g. Peter Grimes and Death in Venice. Britten was never comfortable with his homosexuality and had a negative view of the labelling of homosexuals in a “normal� society. Therefore he attributed some of his operatic characters with homosexual traits e.g. Peter Grimes and Quint from The Turn of the Screw.

Benjamin Britten was viewed as one of the next generation of English composers who would further the cause of establishing an English musical identity .He is also the only one of .the three composers to have a formalised musical training studying with Frank Bridge at the age of 14 (he had first heard Bridge at the age of 10 and was immediately impressed). Bridge was more of a mentor rather than merely a teacher to Britten . At 16 years old he entered the Royal College of Music studying composition with John Ireland. Although the drive to establish an English musical identity had been driven to a large degree by the revival of English folksong and in latter life Britten was to be a major contributor of folksong settings, as a young man he was unimpressed by the folksong settings of Vaughan Williams but both he and his lifelong companion the tenor Peter Pears held Grainger’s folksongs in high regard.
Assuming that Adorno’s assumptions that Schoenberg’s folksong and popular music influences are correct and that Dvorak’s assertion that “Negro melodies� are American folksong it can be said that all three composers used folksong as an influence. Furthermore Schoenberg and Gershwin used popular song as an influence. Obviously Gershwin wrote popular song himself but in An American in Paris he self refers by including the theme from his song I Got Rhythm at bars 112-118 and 160-164 (See below).

Bars 160-163 An American in Paris

An American in Paris is a Symphonic or Tone Poem and both Schoenberg and Britten were also composers of Tone Poems e.g. Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht(1899) and Britten’s Sea Interludes. All three composers were also involved in the production of music for films. Gershwin as a songwriter of musicals, Britten composed music for short films for the GPO film unit Night Mail and Coal Face. Schoenberg produced music for a cinema library Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene, Op. 34 (1930).

In the “Turn of the Screw� Britten although maintaining tonality throughout refers ideas from the Second Viennese School with regard to serialism and there is a direct reference to Erwartung as Schoenberg uses a harp and celeste to signify moonlight which appears in a threatening manner signifying a halfway between dream and reality, sanity and madness. Britten uses a celeste and the same motive when the mood is threatening e.g. when she reads the letter to say that Miles has been in trouble at school. The motive and celeste are associated in the opera with Quint.The motive is transposed and embellished in the opera when it appears much in the same way as the main “Screw� theme. The threatening aspects of the opera are sung or played in flat keys for effect. The duel between Quint and the governess at the end of the opera illustrates the effect and contrast of the keys Quint singing in A and the governess in A a dissonant semitone apart. The celeste, as suggested by Christopher Palmer in his 1985 essay is used for its’ “other-worldly effect and is inspired by Britten’s fascination with gamelan music and instruments. Britten uses a chamber orchestra of thirteen players for the opera with some doubling of instruments and a range of percussion instruments. This allows him not only to underpin the opera musically but also to add to the tension of the scenes by using musical effects e.g. pizzicato strings and percussive effects. This is a feature of Britten’s use of the orchestra and the deliberate manipulation of psychological emotions has a direct reference to Schoenberg and other expressionists’ obsession with extreme emotional and psychological states. One interpretation of The Turn of the Screw is that it is not so much a ghost story but a psychological erosion of the governess character. The vocal colour of especially Quint’s part along with the orchestration underline the meaning of the words and creates interplay between vocal and instrumental forces. Schoenberg uses the instrumentation in a similar way in Erwartung with the texture and harmony becoming thicker to increase the tension. In the final bars of Erwartung Schoenberg saturates the music with chromatic notes in a short space of time, increasing tempo and glissando being employed on all the notes. This is Schoenberg’s method of compensating for the lack of key. Gershwin’s orchestration of An American in Paris
and Rhapsody in Blue contributes to the jazz feel. The clarinet opening to Rhapsody in Blue being one of the most famous openings to a concert piece. His use of motor horns in An American in Paris sits nicely into the modernist camp.
In conclusion despite the diversity of composition between Schoenberg, Britten and Gershwin there are factors which two or three of them have in common in their compositional approach. All were innovators using instrumental forces to reinforce the music’s effect and all based some of their work on folksong and in the case of Schoenberg and Gershwin also on popular music. Schoenberg and Britten were both involved in using serialism as a compositional technique although Britten was more selective in its’ use. All three composers used chromaticism freely in their compositions.

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