String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2

One of the most influential and important composers of the twentieth century, Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) brought remarkable new elements to modern music. His compositional style moved progressively from lush, late Wagnerian chromaticism to a complete break with traditional tonality, later organized theoretically as "composition with twelve hours." This systematic control of all pitches evolved into a similar serialization of all of music's elements — a revolutionary advance that dominated international compositions through most of this century.
This new volume presents two major early chamber works in an attractive study-score edition. The String Quartet No. 1, Op. 7, while still showing the Wagnerian influence evident in such early masterpieces as Verklärte Nacht, displays an advanced chromaticism that is developed even further in the String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10. More radical in its structure and harmonic design, this work pushes music to the brink of atonality, pointing the way to Schoenberg's radical innovations. Even more striking in its design is the unexpected addition of a soprano in the second quartet's third and fourth movements — settings of two poems by Stefan George ("Litanei" and "Entrücking").
All students of twentieth-century music will want to add this attractive, authoritative edition to their library of music scores.