2.4 The orchestra of the twentieth century music

Downright funny is the compliment paid to Schönberg by his former student and avid communist Hanns Eisler, who wrote in 1935: “I think he is the greatest bourgeois composer. If the Bourgeoisie does not appreciate his music I can only mourn the fact, for the Bourgeoisie has no better composer than him. Naïve listeners may not find Schönberg’s music appealing, as he makes us hear exactly how Capitalism sounds when it is not embellished. Through his works we are staring at the face of modern capitalism. Because he is a genius and brilliant technician we see this face very clearly, which scares many people. However, he has the historic merit of turning the concert halls of the Bourgeoisie into less pleasing and pleasant places where one can be moved by the reflection on one’s own beauty when his music is performed there. Now one is compelled to reflect on the chaos and misery of the world or to reject it.”29 The emancipation of the dissonance as symbol of the unembellished Capitalism, I wonder what Schönberg thought of that!

2.4 THE ORCHESTRA OF THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY MUSIC One of the largest orchestras ever was assembled by Schönberg for his Gurre-Lieder (1900-1903, 1910). Perhaps he was even taken aback somewhat himself. In Verklärte Nacht (1899) he had already written a symphonic poem just for string sextet. Between 1913 and 1927 Schönberg stayed aloof from the orchestra. In those years he did work on the oratorio Die Jakobsleiter though, but the instrumentation for this – unfinished - work did not take place until after 1940.

In 1906 he wrote a symphony for 15 solo instruments (Erste Kammersymphonie op. 9). The instrumental line-up for this work was afterwards adopted by many composers and after World War II the ensemble, in a great variation of instrumentations became the core of twentieth century music. At this moment there is extensive literature for these ensembles and in many countries they are subsidised by the government, just like the - much more numerous - orchestras.

The line-up of the ensemble generally consists of one of all instruments except the two violins, often reinforced by a piano and sometimes a harmonium. This idea of an ensemble with basically one of each instrument is immediately copied: even the late-Romantic composers Richard Strauss and Franz Schreker wrote works for it.

In the 1970s, a group of students and their mentor Reinbert de Leeuw founded the Schönberg Ensemble, for the purpose of performing Schönberg’s Suite and Serenade. It marked the beginning of the rich ensemble culture in the Netherlands up to 2011, when the decline set in due to a sudden denial of subsidisation money. The Schön-

29 Hanns Eisler, New Masses, 26 November 1935, page 18f.