Wien Modern, Arnold Schönberg and the look to the future
Schönberg 150
„To me, art is: new art“ – Arnold Schönberg formulated this as his „minimum requirement“. When Wien Modern celebrates Schönberg's birthday in 2024, it will therefore not be retrospective, but very contemporary: For the 150th birthday of the famed Viennese pioneer of New Music, we have invited exciting and vastly different artists to, with the eyes and ears of our time, inquire into Schönberg's impulses and impacts and make them tangible once again.
As a prime example of ‘individual strokes of genius’, Schönberg contributed significantly to the creation of the myth that new music is difficult, hard to explain, elitist, inaccessible and only interesting to a select group of specialised geeks. Moments like the legendary ‘Watschenkonzert’ [slap concert] at the Vienna Musikverein in 1913 or the ‘Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen’ [Society for Private Musical Performances], which was set up in Vienna in 1918 to ‘remove new music performances from the corrupting influence of the public’, are a welcome opportunity for Wien Modern in this anniversary year to examine the relationship between new music and the audience, so shrouded in myths, clichés and rumours, and to reinvestigate it today.
ATTENTION: POSTPONEMENT! The four-day-long complete performance of the Schönberg string quartets as part of Wien Modern at the Wiener Konzerthaus (1st and 2nd November 2024) and at the Musikverein (4th and 5th November 2024) with four major commissions by Sarah Nemtsov, Chaya Czernowin, Hilda Paredes and Stefan Prins is also the world's most elaborate production to mark the 50th anniversary of the London Arditti Quartet.
The symposium Digging Schönberg at the Arnold Schönberg Center (6th to 8th November 2024) is concerned with the impact and perception of Schönberg in popular music, with musical contributions by Georg Graewe and Burkhard Stangl/Franz Hautzinger.
At the Festkonzert [celebratory concert] in the Vienna Town Hall (6th November 2024), the combined orchestra of young musicians from MUK and Bruckner University will present, alongside two orchestral works, also the performance classic Proposition #2: Make a Salad by legendary Fluxus artist Alison Knowles, in which the orchestra prepares a salad for the audience.
The audience also plays the leading role in the film He's soo blue – Schönberg Pfeifen [Whistling Schönberg] which pianist Marino Formenti and filmmaker Thomas Marschall have been filming in numerous public spaces in Vienna since May 2024. It will be shown as a preview at Wien Modern in the Reaktor (8th November 2024). Schönberg's famous wish "that people know and whistle my melodies" will be put to the test from Praterstern to Brunnenmarkt.
The stories Arnold Schönberg told in exile were short and funny. In them, his children became heroes, Schönberg grimaced with great pleasure, he disguised his voice and embodied all the characters – as in Die Prinzessin – ein Schönbergmärchen [The Princess – a Schönberg fairy tale]: the impatient princess, the daft wolf, the witty grandmother. Based this story Arnold Schönberg told his children at dinner, Margareta Ferek-Petrić composed her new piece of music theatre for Schönberg's 150th birthday, which will be premiered under Nina Kusturica's direction at Dschungel Wien (7th to 17th November 2024).
Born in Düsseldorf in 1956, the composer, percussionist, artist and lyricist Manos Tsangaris brings together his exploration of Arnold Schönberg in a large, new and walkable group of works at Wien Modern. At a total of four locations surrounding Karlsplatz, Arnold Elevators will become a festival within a festival between November 13th and 21st, with PHACE, Studio Dan and numerous soloists and objects: Blicke in the Secession (13th–15th November) invites you to explore six locations on an individual tour from the basement to the roof, from the goods lift to the meeting room. Schönberg's fascination with looks, glances, and views (‚Blicke‘ in German) leads us step by step to a polyphony of musical-theatrical points of view. Schönes Wetter in Gmunden (19th–21st November), a series of six "public private performances" in different parts of the Brahms Hall at the Musikverein, each for nine listeners, leads into one of the most dramatic and momentous episodes in Schönberg's biography. At the Double Portrait with Arnold in the Neuer Salon of the Wiener Konzerthaus (19th–21st November), the audience swaps places during the interval. And on three evenings, the Arnold Schönberg Centre will become a Metabolic Salon with a wide array of discussion partners, music, performances and interactive sound installations (13th, 15th, 16th November 2024).
Along a section of the future tram line 12, the institut für transakustische forschung [institute for transacoustic research] invites us on a transacoustic walk Auf den Spuren der 12 [on the tracks of the 12] and thus indirectly pays homage to Arnold Schönberg. The participants of this walk will be put into a "dodecamania" and equipped with a research journal. In this, they can document their own research results relating to the number 12 during the course of the walk. At each location, there is a stamp representing one of the 12 tones. These stamps should be arranged individually in the research journal. In this way, a personal 12-tone series is created, which, finally, is also made audible. (institut für transakustische forschung)
The Claudio Abbado Concert in the Musikverein (29th November) includes not just the Concert for piano and orchestra by Schönberg’s pupil, John Cage – which caused what was probably the last scandal concert in Vienna – but also the winners of the joint call for scores by ACOM – Austrian Composers Association, Wien Modern, ORF RSO Wien and the Arnold Schönberg Center: Tanja Elisa Glinsner, Shiqi Geng and Marios Joannou Elia.
And finally, with The Great Learning by Cornelius Cardew on the final day of Wien Modern (30th November 2024), Junge Musik will be launching a major participatory project that will invite hundreds of participants to the upcoming 38th edition of the festival.
The Schönberg Year is jointly coordinated with the support of the City of Vienna by Wien Modern and the Arnold Schönberg Center. An overview of all Schönberg 150 projects can be found on the website schoenberg150.at.