The Second Viennese School

Around 1900 came the rise of the second Viennese School. It is interesting that they considered themselves to be continuing the tradition of the first Viennese School (Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven), yet their music sounds so different. Their music began to explore expressionism, which is the condensation of meaning, uses atonality as a freedom of expectation, and attempts to release subconsciousness.

Schoenberg’s Op. 33a piano piece is largely based off of 12 tone writing. It uses melodic material that sounds like it is interrupted by clusters of chords. It can sound very disjunct, although is easier to understand than Webern's Piano Variations Op. 27, who was a student of Schoenberg. His music can be hard to grasp, although if you study the score you realize it is much more methodical than it sounds. The first movement is composed of palindromes. It in in ABA form, which is again, coming back to traditional forms like the first Viennese School. The second movement was written in repeated binary form, and the third movement is variation form. Alban Berg, another student of Schoenberg’s, could be considered the easiest to follow. It is based on tonality, and uses chromaticism that is similar to Scriabin’s writing. He uses the same developmental and motivic practices that the first Viennese School used. So although the music of these composers may seem very different from the German composers preceding them, they were just developing the styles further.