Planet Schoenberg: Fierce Beauty Part I

FIERCE BEAUTY PART I
Arnold Schoenberg – Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23
Pierre Boulez – 12 Notations
Leo Ornstein – Suicide in an Airplane
John Coltrane – A Love Supreme

Schoenberg’s Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, which marks the crystallization of his twelve-tone technique is the launchpad. Other groundbreaking piano methods are heard in Leo Ornstein’s Suicide in an Airplane, distinctive for its tone clusters. Pierre Boulez’s fascinating 12 Notations uses the number 12 as a self-imposed structure with a 12-note row forming the basis of 12 solo piano pieces, each just 12 bars long. The indirect passing of the Schoenberg baton is heard in A Love Supreme, a progressive jazz masterpiece by the famed innovator John Coltrane, whose groundbreaking style is rooted in Schoenberg’s techniques, gleaned from his teacher Dennis Sandole, a Schoenberg student. Coltrane also studied with Ornstein as a teenager in Philadelphia.

Artists:
Steven Vanhauwaert, piano
David Murray, saxophone
James Sanders, violin
Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
Lyris Quartet
Kahil El Zabar, director