| Suite für Klavier, Op. 25 (1921-23) | Arnold Schoenberg |
1. Präludium
2. Gavotte - Musette
3. Gavotte da capo
4. Intermezzo
5. Minuett & Trio
6. Gigue
| Miroirs (1904-05) | Maurice Ravel |
1. Noctuelles (Night Moths)
2. Oiseaux tristes (Sad Birds)
3. Une barque sur l'océan (A Boat on the Ocean)
4. Alborada del Gracioso (The Comedian's Aubade)
5. La vallée des cloches (The Valley of the Bells)
Intermission
| Etudes Op. 25 (1829-36) | Fryderyk Chopin |
1. A-flat major, "Aeolian Harp"
2. F minor
3. F major
5. E minor
11. A minor, "Winter Wind"
| Sonata No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 83 (1939-42) | Sergei Prokofiev |
1. Allegro inquieto
2. Andante Caloroso
3. Precipitato
"The artist does nothing that others deem beautiful, but rather only what to him is a necessity."
-Arnold Schoenberg, Harmonielehre
"I, in my reactionary way, stick to writing [my music] on orders from The Most High."
-Arnold Schoenberg, "Italian National Music" (Style and Idea)
"Schoenberg's 'creations' represent a negation of all German musical culture, as the extermination of all taste, feelings, traditions, and all aesthetic principles. To perform Schoenberg means the same as to open a cocaine bar for the people. Cocaine is poison. Schoenberg's music is cocaine."
-Paul Zschorlich, Deutsche Zeitung (June 11, 1930)
"One of the safest methods of acquiring attention is to do something which differs from the usual, and few artists have the stamina to escape this temptation. I must confess that I belonged to those who did not care much about originality. I used to say: 'I always attempted to produce something quite conventional, but I failed, and it always, against my will, became something unusual!'"
-Arnold Schoenberg
"I am completely insensitive to the prestige of revolution. All the noise it may make will not call forth the slightest echo in me. For revolution is one thing, innovation another."
-Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music
"I was not destined to continue in the manner of Transfigured Night or Gurrelieder or even Pelleas and Melisande. The Supreme Commander had ordered me on a higher road. But a longing to return to the older style was always vigorous in me; and from time to time I had to yield to that urge."
-Arnold Schoenberg
"No doubt, had it been possible, Schoenberg's opera, Moses und Aron, would have been encored after its premiere in Zürich in 1957; the spontaneous storm of applause was so overwhelming, so demonstrative of the profound impact the work had made, that it has lived on in the memory of those who witnessed it almost as an experience in its own right. This posthumous triumph was suggestive of the success his music might have enjoyed if it had been played more and talked about less."
-Donald Mitchell, The Language of Modern Music
"I saw [Schoenberg's] very controversial opera, Moses und Aron, in Paris and I was deeply impressed by its emotional impact. I didn't understand the music well; but 'understand' is a word one shouldn't apply to music; there's nothing to be understood -- for me, music must be felt."
-Artur Rubinstein
"Better not listen [to Debussy] -- one runs the risk of getting accustomed to his music, and one would end by liking it!"
-Rimsky-Korsakov
"I write twelve-tone compositions, not twelve-tone compositions."
-Arnold Schoenberg
"Schoenberg is dead."
-Pierre Boulez