Expressionism

Inner anxiety written into harmony, with melody broken into fragments.

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ModernChromaticismTonalityPiano

Expressionism was a Viennese way of writing in the early twentieth century that put anxiety, fear and spasm directly into harmony and timbre. It did not picture the outer world; it pushed a subjective state to the front.

Origins and dates

Around 1908 Schoenberg gave up a tonal centre in the Three Piano Pieces and the Six Little Piano Pieces. Berg and Webern pushed the language further. Before and after the First World War, painting, poetry and music shared the same unease. In the 1920s the twelve-tone method gave it an order.

Listening features

The tonic never comes home and chords do not resolve. Melodies leap widely and the range is pulled to both extremes. Dynamics change abruptly, playing is sharp, with mutes or bowing near the bridge. Works are often very short, one idea and gone. The voice uses Sprechstimme, halfway between speech and song.

Composers and works

Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. Berg's Wozzeck carried expressionism into opera; Webern compressed it into seconds.

Lineage

It grows from Wagner's chromaticism and Strauss's orchestration and leads to twelve-tone and total serialism, and it reaches horror-film scores and free jazz.

Misconceptions

Expressionism is not noise, nor is it emotionless. It is not always loud; many passages are extremely quiet. Atonality is not writing anything at random, since intervals are still strictly controlled.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "Expressionism" — definitions and dating checked, not quoted
• Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 4 — context checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.