Uploaded August 2010 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
The idea of inviting Rudolf Kolisch and Eduard Steuermann to Darmstadt was suggested to Wolfgang Steinecke by Theodor W. Adorno. The efforts on the part of Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik relating to twelve-tone music were, as Steinecke wrote in 1954, "intended to close the gaps that the offical musical world had left in the overall portrayal of New Music. For, at a time when one could reasonably assume a familiarity through a number of performances with the important works of Stravinsky, Krenek, Bartok and Hindemith, it seemed imperative from a pedagogical standpoint that the works of Arnold Schoenberg, which had been passed over in silence by the official musical world, should also be made known, in order to produce an objective and no longer one-side view of the situation of New Music."
The greatest composer of the twentieth century, Arnold Schoenberg was born on September 13, 1874 into a lower middle class Jewish family in the Leopoldstadt district (in earlier times a Jewish ghetto) of Vienna, at "Obere Donaustraße 5". Although his mother Pauline, a native of Prague, was a piano teacher (his father Samuel, a native of Bratislava, was a shopkeeper), Arnold was largely self-taught, taking only counterpoint lessons with the composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, who was to become his first brother-in-law. In his twenties, he lived by orchestrating operettas while composing works such as the string sextet Verklärte Nacht ("Transfigured Night") in 1899. While composing the most important and brilliant works of the early 20th century (including Pierrot Lunaire, his first two string quartets, his Serenade, and his woodwind quintet), Schoenberg also became a renowned teacher. His students included not only Anton Webern and Alban Berg (two of the greatest composers in history), but also Roberto Gerhard, Adolph Weiss, Hans Erich Apostel, and Nikos Skalkottas,
In the early 1930s Arnold Schoenberg was dismissed from his academic position in Germany and fled to the United States. He eventually settled in Los Angeles, where he resided for the final twenty years of his life. Initially he taught composition students on a private basis, including John Cage and Lou Harrison, who went on to become two of the most highly original American composers (and musical thinkers) of the modern era. Schoenberg settled in the Brentwood area near Sunset Boulevard, where he befriended his fellow composer (and tennis player) George Gershwin
Needless to say, Rudolf Korisch was the leader of the famous Kolisch Quartet, which premiered several of Schoenberg's string quartets and made the first recordings supervised by and in the presence of the composer at "United Artists Studios" (between Trader Joe's and The Formosa) on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. Rudolf Kolisch was also Arnold Schoenberg's brother-in-law from his second marriage. Eduard Steuermann was intimately associated with Schoenberg's music almost from the beginning: He was the pianist for the first performance of Pierrot Lunaire and also premiered Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, He was also famous for his Beethoven recitals.
The idea of inviting Rudolf Kolisch and Eduard Steuermann to Darmstadt was suggested to Wolfgang Steinecke by Theodor W. Adorno. The efforts on the part of Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik relating to twelve-tone music were, as Steinecke wrote in 1954, "intended to close the gaps that the offical musical world had left in the overall portrayal of New Music. For, at a time when one could reasonably assume a familiarity through a number of performances with the important works of Stravinsky, Krenek, Bartok and Hindemith, it seemed imperative from a pedagogical standpoint that the works of Arnold Schoenberg, which had been passed over in silence by the official musical world, should also be made known, in order to produce an objective and no longer one-side view of the situation of New Music."
The greatest composer of the twentieth century, Arnold Schoenberg was born on September 13, 1874 into a lower middle class Jewish family in the Leopoldstadt district (in earlier times a Jewish ghetto) of Vienna, at "Obere Donaustraße 5". Although his mother Pauline, a native of Prague, was a piano teacher (his father Samuel, a native of Bratislava, was a shopkeeper), Arnold was largely self-taught, taking only counterpoint lessons with the composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, who was to become his first brother-in-law. In his twenties, he lived by orchestrating operettas while composing works such as the string sextet Verklärte Nacht ("Transfigured Night") in 1899. While composing the most important and brilliant works of the early 20th century (including Pierrot Lunaire, his first two string quartets, his Serenade, and his woodwind quintet), Schoenberg also became a renowned teacher. His students included not only Anton Webern and Alban Berg (two of the greatest composers in history), but also Roberto Gerhard, Adolph Weiss, Hans Erich Apostel, and Nikos Skalkottas,
In the early 1930s Arnold Schoenberg was dismissed from his academic position in Germany and fled to the United States. He eventually settled in Los Angeles, where he resided for the final twenty years of his life. Initially he taught composition students on a private basis, including John Cage and Lou Harrison, who went on to become two of the most highly original American composers (and musical thinkers) of the modern era. Schoenberg settled in the Brentwood area near Sunset Boulevard, where he befriended his fellow composer (and tennis player) George Gershwin
Needless to say, Rudolf Korisch was the leader of the famous Kolisch Quartet, which premiered several of Schoenberg's string quartets and made the first recordings supervised by and in the presence of the composer at "United Artists Studios" (between Trader Joe's and The Formosa) on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. Rudolf Kolisch was also Arnold Schoenberg's brother-in-law from his second marriage. Eduard Steuermann was intimately associated with Schoenberg's music almost from the beginning: He was the pianist for the first performance of Pierrot Lunaire and also premiered Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, He was also famous for his Beethoven recitals.
![Jörg Herchet, Komposition 1 für zwei Violinen, Viola und Violoncello [1980] - ii.](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EJ3Ezo_1GYs/mqdefault.jpg "Jörg Herchet, Komposition 1 für zwei Violinen, Viola und Violoncello [1980] - ii.
The subject of Jörg Herchets thesis while studying in East Berlin was The Theoretical Writings of Arnold Schönberg and Their Significance for the Teaching of Composition. Herchet argued the need for a teaching method setting out from Schönberg and leading to Pierre Boulez. This line of thought was anathema to the school administrators, who felt that the teaching of composition should lead to Hanns Eisler [ironically, a student of Schönberg, and a fine composer in our opinion]. After failing to complete his degree Herchet worked for a year in Dresden as a temporary employee in the bookdealers trade. In 1970 Paul Dessau was able to have the young composer accepted as his special pupil at the Akademie der Künste in East Berlin even though he lacked a degree. In Dessau, Herchet found a teacher who could accept and further his own approach to composition.
Jörg Herchets Composition 1 for Two Violins, Viola and Violoncello was written in 1980 and is dedicated to Paul Dessau in veneration and gratitude. Herchets two-movement string quartet is based on a specific dramaturgical conception. The second movement starts out with scraps of material and motifs from the preceding movement. The texture becomes more compressed, and for a moment we hear once again the arpeggiated passage of chromatic saturation, this time built of all-interval chords. Then, in rigid and regular repetition, all-interval chords march past en masse in a wide variety of transpositions. The motor-like thrust of the rhythm, however, soon dissolves once again into a dense polyphony in which striking particles of melody occasionally rise to the surface. At the very end, clearly divided into dynamically activated chordal blocks, we hear mirror-reflections and inversions of the pure all-interval chord vanishing in pianissimo. A state of stability seems to have been reached.
The only supra-musical dimension that Herchet allows his works to assume is expressed in the phrased soli Deo gloria [to the glory of Gold alone] found at the end of each of his compositions since 1984. Herchet sees himself entirely as a composer of religious and sacred music. His understanding of religion, however, cannot be easily conveyed on words. Parts of it are alluded to in such concepts as veneration of the all-encompassing, the holistic, the common substance of man. He regards his music to as a yearning for God. The important thing for me is first to unify all the different areas and then the most important thing in all of my music to proceed from that unity.")
