Schoenberg: Reshaping Tradition

Arnold Schoenberg’s early works, such as his Chamber Symphony of 1906, expanded the lush harmonies of late Romanticism to the extent that it scandalised audiences and incited them to riot at the strange physicality of the sounds they were hearing. Schoenberg and his pupils, among them Anton Webern, pushed this experiment in chromaticism to its extreme conclusion, eventually doing away with tonality in its entirety in the development of the 12-tone system, also known as serialism or dodecaphony. This most recent edition in London Sinfonietta’s series of season-opening composer portraits celebrates Schoenberg in his 150th anniversary year.