Uploaded December 2012 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
The Sonata for Cello & Piano was composed in 2010 and was dedicated to the composer's fiancée. The work is in one movement. This is the third of three parts.
The Sonata for Cello & Piano was composed in 2010 and was dedicated to the composer's fiancée. The work is in one movement. This is the third of three parts.
![Arnold Schoenberg, String Quartet No. 3 (1927)
Schoenberg diverged from the serial row-form in this String Quartet to the extent that, when questioned about a particular passage by a violinist from Kolischs quartet he angrily responded: If I hear an F-sharp I will write an F-sharp . . . Just because of your stupid theory you are telling me what to write? This is an indication of his
revulsion towards conceptual responses to composition
as an actual expression of feeling in sound. He was telling the theorist What it Is.
How did Kolisch look at it? The tone rows are used as motifs and not as schematic solutions to tonic dilemmas. The series form a dense contrapuntal texture which, apparently untrue to form, return to classical compositional procedure. For example, in the First Movement there is the
suggestion of sonata form and what seems to be a relaxation of 12-tone technique as the same pitches occur for 12 measures, in apparent defiance of his principled compositional stance. There is a recurrence of varied shapes which function as connective rather than motivic tissue and the movement ends with a leaping and falling theme in an increasingly higher voice.
In the Second Movement there is a series of variations which violate stylistic expectation and appear to repudiate notions of format and theme. The Intermezzo Movement with prominent viola presents a fluid thematic section, suggesting a motif with a narrow range and repeated notes
culminating in a violent trio fading to a lyrical conclusion.
The Fourth Movement is dense and complex with a contrast of internal musical logic and its leaps within a narrow melodic range breathing inconclusiveness and a frenzy to recapitulate sonic material.
This is what we hear and perhaps how we might respond, but does it get to the essence of it? Strictly speaking, a composition refers to nothing but itself and in that respect Hanslick is right. But let us look more closely. I listen to the Kolisch String Quartets interpretation of Schoenbergs
Third Quartet because I have the desire to hear it, a desire which is born of need or curiosity. This is also because of the unfulfilled expectation that the composition will present itself in the way in which Schoenberg wanted, without any concealment or betrayal by a theorist who might imagine that a composition is the end-result of a musicological
schema. I desire to experience the composition as a collaborative event in which an affective apprehension
will change me. This is an urge to transformation, not a confirmation of a sedimented emotional life which I might have. It is not a plea for the reassurance of a concretely determined pathology. It is an imaginative way out, a
reawakening. It possesses the logic of a dream
which will alter me. The Quartet is, therefore, not so much an object with quantifiable sonic or musicological
characteristics, but an event. This event takes place in time and it was written on a particular historical occasion. But when I listen to it I do not perceive it as an event in that sense. It is an occasion with a consuming fascination in which the everyday world has evaporated and only
essential meaning remains. This is the meaning of imaginative and affective apprehension. Quantifiable and calculable external circumstances have disappeared as I give myself over to the event. My apprehension of the
composition is not chronological but successive, the meaning of which unfolds as I attend to it. This is areal time, not the time of the clock, and its presenting itself is my composition, Schoenberg being the expressive inventor of the circumstance, the one who gives shape and logic to sound. The composition is not analogous to anything but itself and his Third Quartet invokes a meaning of
which, temporally and affectively,
I am the secret sharer.
We listen here for: What it Is.
Michael Lawrence Woods, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, 2010
[This recording is by the Kohon String Quartet] Arnold Schoenberg, String Quartet No. 3 (1927)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9TDlBCrK56E/mqdefault.jpg)
![Arnold Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Op. 15
Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten (The Book of the Hanging Gardens) is a fifteen-part song cycle composed by Arnold Schoenberg between 1908 and 1909, setting poems of Stefan George. Georges poems, also under the same title, track the failed love affair of two adolescent youths in a garden, ending with the womans departure and the disintegration of the garden. The song cycle is set for solo voice and piano. The Book of the Hanging Gardens breaks away from conventional musical order through its usage of atonality.
The Book of the Hanging Gardens served as the start to the atonal period in Schoenbergs music. Atonal compositions, referred to as pantonal by Schoenberg, typically contain features such as a lack of central tonality, pervading harmonic dissonance rather than consonance, and a general absence of traditional melodic progressions. This period of atonality became commonly associated with the expressionist movement, despite the fact that Schoenberg rarely referred to the term expressionism in his writings. Whether or not he wanted to be associated with the movement, Schoenberg expresses an unambiguous positivity with his discovery of this new style in a program note for the 1910 first performance of The Book of the Hanging Gardens:
With the [Stefan] George songs I have for the first time succeeded in approaching an ideal of expression and form which has been in my mind for many years. Until now I lacked the strength and confidence to make it a reality. I am being forced in this direction ... not because my invention or technique is inadequate, but [because] I am obeying an inner compulsion, which is stronger than any upbringing. I am obeying the formative process which, being the one natural to me, is stronger than my artistic education.
Schoenbergs libretto transcends the tragic love poems of George and become a deeper reflection of Schoenbergs mood during this period when viewing his personal life. Alan Lessem analyses the Book of the Hanging Gardens in his book Music and Text in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg. However, how to interpret the work remains debated. Lessem maintained that the meaning of the song cycles lay in the words. Lessem treats each interval as a symbol: cell a provides material for the expression of poignant anticipations of love, cell b of frustrated yearnings ...the structure of [the] cycle may, viewed as a whole, give the impression of progression through time, but this is only an illusion. The various songs give only related aspects of a total, irredeemable present.
Moods are conveyed though harmony, texture, tempo, and declamation. The inner meaning, if in fact there is to be found, is the music itself, which Lessem already described in great detail. Anne Marie de Zeeuw has examined in detail the three against four rhythm of the compositions opening and its manifestation elsewhere in the work.
As argued in Carl Schorskes groundbreaking study of Viennese society, the Book of the Hanging Gardens uses the image of the garden as a metaphor of the destruction of traditional musical form. The garden portrayed in Georges poem, which Schoenberg puts to music, represent the highly organized traditional music Schoenberg broke away from. Baroque geometric gardens made popular during the Renaissance were seen as an extension of architecture over nature. So too did the old order of music represent all that was authority and stable. The destruction of the garden parallels the use of rationality to break away from the old forms of music. Arnold Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Op. 15](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9rGUov3Adlk/mqdefault.jpg)




![Roberto Gerhard, Wind Quintet (1928), Part 2 of 2 (3rd & 4th movements)
Roberto Gerhard, born in Tarragona in 1896, was a pupil of Felipe Pedrell, and has never lost (or despised) his gift for that picturesque style which stresses Spanish folk characteristics. But his works can preserve a subtle national flavor even when employing the more sophisticated technical resources he acquired during his study with Schönberg in 1925-28. Thus the Wind Quintet, written at the end of that period and four years after Schönbergs weighty essay in the medium, opens with a bassoon phrase that has the nonchalant rhythm of a folksong yet also establishes a seven-note row that is of crucial (though not, as in Schönberg, exclusive) importance throughout the first two movements. In the first, set against its inversion (oboe and clarinet, after the reiterated tutti chords), it also forms the second subject of a sonata scheme, but in the Andante (aba;c;aba;coda) it is constantly played off against its images in contrapuntal textures of extreme lucidity. The new theme (flute) of the Allegro giocoso, though also subject to quasi-serial transformations, demands a more harmonic accompaniment, while the trio, with an evocative echo of Spanish folk-song (oboe), finally transplants this serenade from Schönbergian territory. In the scherzoso finale, the refrain (oboe) and horn-call accompaniment piquantly dispute, rather than deny, tonalities; the central episode and the presto coda explore, with contrasted results, the conjunction of the refrain shape with the two rows of the earlier movements.
The members of The London Wind Quintet were Gwydion Brooke (bassoon), Alan Civil (horn), Gareth Morris (flute), Sidney Sutcliffe (oboe), and Bernard Walton (clarinet).
[We apologize for the rather poor sound quality of this 1960s lp.] Roberto Gerhard, Wind Quintet (1928), Part 2 of 2 (3rd & 4th movements)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AXdLyvZVPJ4/mqdefault.jpg)


![Sometimes Like A River (Loving You), Joy of Cooking
Joy of Cooking were one of the earliest [some say THE earliest] female-led rock bands. Formed in Berkeley in 1967 by pianist and main songwriter Toni Brown, along with folk-singing guitarist Terry Garthwaite (also known as Ruby Green), their music was an ear-catching polyrhythmic amalgam of folk, rock, jazz, blues and gospel elements driven by the duos interweaving vocal verve atop a freewheeling, innovative three-man rhythms section. The rest of the band consisted of bass guitarist David Garthwaite (Terrys brother), drummer Fritz Kasten and percussion player Ron Wilson. Keyboard player Stevie Roseman replaced Toni Brown for a time and bass players Happy Smith and eventually Jeff Neighbor replaced David Garthwaite on bass guitar. The music was a mix of hippy(sic) sensibility on blues and folk roots, and the lyrics often reflected feminist or environmental themes.
Joy of Cooking recorded three albums with Capitol Records. Brown and Garthwaite had solo careers afterwards and also released albums as a duo, mostly notably Cross Country. The San Francisco Chronicles Jon Carroll described the band as a remarkable rock and roll band, half ballads and half boogie, with a driving rhythm section fronted by two swell women, Toni Brown (a smart, crafty songwriter who could evoke sentiment without sentimentality) and Terry Garthwaite (who sings like an angel with dirty wings.)
Rather unusually (especially for the time) the members of the band were all over thirty when they cut their first record. According to some, it is for this reason that they and Frank Sinatra veteran John Palladino to produce their first record.
Sometimes Like a River (Loving You) is perhaps The Joy of Cookings finest studio outing. The backup vocals by the guys in the group on this track strike is as being quite effective. We mention this because this is one of the very few Joy cuts where male backup vocals were employed.
If you like this cut, we strongly encourage you to buy The Joy of Cookings 2007 CD Back To Your Heart, and also the other Joy albums. To the best of our knowledge Toni and Terrys solo CD, and their very good duet effort Cross Country, have not been re-released, so we may try to follow up with a few cuts from these. This upload is from an LP with no further processing. That was the original sound, after all, occasional clicks and all.
Even though the lyrics of this song have nothing to do with us, we like it, for some reason. Sometimes Like A River (Loving You), Joy of Cooking](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/B0SX71abL_U/mqdefault.jpg)
