For the first time, I heard Schoenberg's Erwartung. Schoenberg, in this melodrama, as he called it, really reduces music to the primeval and, in a sense, surpasses the recitative. Probably, 'breaks the bonds' is a better expression. Can anyone truly surpass Bach??
An earlier expression, in a more idiomatic style, is Gurrelieder. I would argue that this cantata is more in the tradition of Western opera, but, once again, the music is 'proleptic', a word I borrow from the phenomenoligcal philosopher, Edmund Husserl. In a post-Wagnerian/Mahlerian mould, Schoenberg is trying to fashion something new, 'the light of other planets' as he states in his Quartet. He is aching to cast a new sound which is beyond-sound, beyond life itself even..
Finally, I listened to his Serenade. The serenade is pastoral in nature, and draws on Schoenberg's education under Viennese classicism. I always remember that Schoenberg loved Brahms and chamber music. The serenade is thus more Viennese. His later works really approach the 'namesless', the soundless. Interesting that Mach's phenomenalism and Wittgenstein's logical positivism took off at this time, an antidote to Freud, Schnitzler, Mahler et al.
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