Word: idioms
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Schoenberg began composing in an atmosphere of fin-de-siecle decadence with the ponderously rich chromatic harmonies of the post-Wagnerian idiom. He matured as a composer at a time when tonality, the structure which had supported music for over 300 years, was finally sinking under the bloated burden of its own chromaticism into an anarchic morass. The ferment which resulted from the destruction of the old order gave rise to Schoenberg's great expressionist compositions like the sextet Verklarte Nacht, which seems to breathe in that decaying, sickeningly rich atmosphere, and Pierrot Lunaire, which for many is the ultimate...
...after ten years without publishing a single work, Schoenberg produced his first compositions in the twelve-tone idiom. An intellectual creation of the highest order, this system is a logical outgrowth of 19th century chromaticism and turn-of-the-century atonality, which both moved toward giving an equal significance to each of the twelve tones. It is a method which has dominated the musical life of this century, eventually exercising a hold even on Igor Stravinsky, the man who had once seemed the great opponent of this serial technique...
...dial New York, the light comes on, and I send traffic. In Saigon I often had to wait two or three hours." Long is eager to learn better English. Indeed, the language barrier is the worst problem for the entire family, though American customs are as unfamiliar as the idiom. Accustomed to Saigon's strictly military parades, the Longs were surprised to find not only firemen and politicians but also schoolchildren marching in Corte Madera, Calif., on the Fourth of July. After seeing a drive-in movie theater and hearing about drive-in churches and banks, Long kept repeating...
...wrong to think of The Taking of Miss Janie as a dirge. Black Playwright Ed Bullins often uses a party as the central structure of his plays, and he does it again here. Even when it is slightly sick, a Bullins party jives. The people talk a vivid street idiom with the fluent opulence of jazz. Their moods dance. They make hot, sly, funny, drunken, sexy scenes together that have the cumulative impact of a seduction. Then they fall apart in revealing stop-motion monologues as if a petal were trying to be a flower...
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti conducting; London, $6.98). Solti's way with Berlioz, Wagner, Mahler and Strauss stamps him as a Romantic and post-Romantic conductor without superior. This megatonic Rite now confirms his mastery of the contemporary idiom. Where Pierre Boulez etches in cold objectivity, Solti paints in swirling shapes and colors. The effect is electrifying...