Five Pieces For Orchestra - "Summer Morning By A Lake"

"Summer Morning By A Lake"

According to Robert Erickson, "harmonic and melodic motion is curtailed, in order to focus attention on timbral and textural elements." Blair Johnston claims that this movement is actually titled "Chord-Colors", that Schoenberg "removes all traditional motivic associations" from this piece, that it is generated from a single harmony: C-G♯-B-E-A (the 'Farben' chord), found in a number of chromatically altered derivatives, and is scored for "a kaleidoscopically rotating array of instrumental colors". Whether or not this was an early example of what Schoenberg later called "Klangfarbenmelodie" (in his Harmonielehre of 1911) is a matter of dispute. One scholar holds that Schoenberg's "now-famous statements about 'Klangfarbenmelodie' are, however, reflections, which have no direct connection to the Orchestra Piece op. 16, no. 3". An attempt to refute this view was published in the same journal issue. Schoenberg explains in a note added to the 1949 revision of the score, "The conductor need not try to polish sounds which seem unbalanced, but watch that every instrumentalist plays accurately the prescribed dynamic, according to the nature of his instrument. There are no motives in this piece which have to be brought to the fore"

Read more about this topic:  Five Pieces For Orchestra

Famous quotes containing the words summer, morning and/or lake:

    The summer grasses:
    of mighty warlords’ visions
    all that they have left.
    Matsuo Basho (1644–1694)

    When the morning was waking over the war
    He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died....
    Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)

    Such were the first rude beginnings of a town. They spoke of the practicability of a winter road to the Moosehead Carry, which would not cost much, and would connect them with steam and staging and all the busy world. I almost doubted if the lake would be there,—the self-same lake,—preserve its form and identity, when the shores should be cleared and settled; as if these lakes and streams which explorers report never awaited the advent of the citizen.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)