As a follow-up to the Maestro Music concerts, we have prepared this PowerPoint presentation to help students write a piece based on Schoenberg’s ‘Farben’.

1. A Composition Project
Copyright Katy MacKintosh and
John Poulter 2012

3.  This pack has been
designed to give
Higher music pupils
an insight into early
twentieth century
music of the Second
Viennese School,
using “Farben” from
Schoenberg’s Five
Orchestral Pieces

4. • Farben, translated as “Colours” was
written by Schoenberg in 1909
• It is a sound picture based on a single
concept – texture
• Schoenberg uses this one technique to
focus our attention on the individual
instruments of the orchestra and their
sounds

5. • Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg was
born in 1874, and is famous as the leader of
the Second Viennese School
• Here, along with Webern and Berg, he
revolutionised composition by a novel
approach to harmony and development, and
his name would become synonymous with
atonality and the development of the twelve
tone technique

6. • Schoenberg’s work, Five Pieces for Orchestra,
is important as it signaled a change in the
use of orchestral instruments – using them
for their variety of sounds instead of pitch
• Of the five, initially published without names,
we are going to look at the third
• In later editions, this piece was titled Farben,
and in 1949 Schoenberg gave it the name
“Morning by the Lake”

7.  Farben was revolutionary in 1909, and even
today still sounds modern and fresh in its
approach
 Yet in 1909, Princes Street in Edinburgh
looked like this…

9.  And Argyle Street in Glasgow looked like
this…

11. Let’s start by putting the piece into a historical
context:
 1902 Marie and Pierre Curie isolate radium
 1904 Teabags invented by Thomas Sullivan
 1904 Britain and France sign Entente Cordiale
 1904 Invention of ice cream cone
 1909 North Pole reached
 1909 First aeroplane flight
 1912 Titanic sinks
 1915 Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary and
Germany

12. And also in a musical context:
 1900 Rimsky-Korsakov writes “Flight of the
Bumblebee”
 1902 Scott Joplin writes “The Entertainer”
 1908 Debussy’s “Children’s Corner” is premiered
 1909 Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 3 is
premiered
 1910 Stravinsky writes “The Firebird”

13.  The structure of the piece is simple, in that
rhythm, dynamics and harmonic changes all
build to approximately two thirds of the way
through, before returning to material very
similar to the beginning
 The piece is built upon the concept of texture
– chords morphing from one another, with
instruments creating different sound colours
 There is no real melody in the piece, but a
growth of texture builds to a climax
 The piece closes with a coda section

14.  The first section starts very smoothly and with a
gentle pulse moves from chord to chord without any
jumps
 In the second section, the piece develops, as pitch
climbs and more colours change, leading to a third
section where much more overlapping, dovetailing
and sharper chord changes are evident
 The piece finishes very much as it started with a
slowing of chord changes
 Throughout, there are small decorations which
develop in complexity as the music progresses
 These “leaping fish” add to the textures and give the
piece a slightly uneasy feel

15. La Parade de Cirque
Georges Seurat

16.  Seurat developed the technique of Pointillism, which
uses small distinct dots of colour to form an image
 This technique relies on the eye and mind of the
viewer to merge these individual dots into a complete
picture
 The musical version of Pointillism is called
Klangfarbenmelodie
 It involves distributing a musical line between several
instruments, instead of assigning it to one soloist, to
add colour and texture
 Schoenberg was a pioneer of this technique and most
notably used it in Farben from his Five Pieces for
Orchestra

17.  The piece we are going
to write requires five
notes
 Schoenberg chooses
his notes by mixing
the chords of a minor
and e major (linked by
the note e), to create c
gsharp b, e and a
 You can use his notes
in your piece or choose
your own using two
separate chords

18.  You may want to
use xylophones or
a piano to find your
five pitches
 Later, you can
transfer these
pitches to another
instrument

19.  Now we have all the
material required to
start our piece
 Each pupil should
pick one of the
chosen notes, then
as an ensemble try
playing your chord
together

20. • Do some notes sound better with a variety of
instruments playing them, or just one?
• Experiment with using different instruments and
timbres

21. • Schoenberg changes his chords chromatically
• Practise moving upwards and downwards by
one semitone from the original notes as an
ensemble
• To blur the chord changes, Schoenberg moves
each note in the chord individually
• Practice taking it in turns to move, waiting
until all players have moved to the new chord,
before moving back to your original chord
• Try this at various speeds

22. • We now have the basis to our piece
• To help create the atmosphere use
cymbals, shakers, and other resonant
percussion instruments to supplement
your chords
• Schoenberg renamed Farben in 1949 to
“Morning by a Lake”
• Can you represent sounds found in the
title with your instruments?

23. • There are four sections in Farben - A,B,C and A
• For section A, start by playing your original
chord and very slowly, move to your chromatic
variations, returning to the original chord with
a pause, which marks the start of section B
• You can experiment with different sounds by
using mutes and flutter-tonguing on woodwind
and brass, different sticks on percussion
instruments, and tremolo and pizzicato on
string instruments

24. • For section B we need to create some new
material using the original five notes from
your chord
• We are then going to alter them in a
technique used by Schoenberg later in his
career
• Experiment with ordering the five notes
from your chord
• We call this original melody the Prime
version

25. • To turn this row of notes into the Retrograde
version, write out the Prime version in reverse
order
• An Inversion form of your melody can be
created by writing the intervals upside down,
with all the interval directions changed
• Finally, a Retrograde Inversion of your
original melody can be created by writing the
notes of the inversion in reverse order
• Here is an example using Schoenberg’s
original chord:

26. Prime, Retrograde, Inversion and
Retrograde Inversion

27. • To develop the piece into section B, take
the material you’ve created in section A
and place your melody in its various
forms on top
• Experiment alternating the chords with
your melody
• You can play the melodies on their own
with your original chord underneath, or
with your sound pictures from the
percussion used in section A

28. • In Section C the music develops so that
movement between chords is quicker and
more agitated
• You can do this by using staccato notes and
pizzicato, and by changing the chords more
rapidly
• Throughout this section your melodies can be
played at random, in full or fragmented
• Try to develop the underlying percussion
textures by using harder sticks and shorter
sharper sounds before building to a climax

29. • The final section, which should take the
form of Section A, finishes your piece.
Good Luck!

30. Katy MacKintosh is the RSNO’s Associate John Poulter has been the RSNO’s
Principal Oboe, a position she has held for Associate Principal Percussion for six
eight years. In addition to her orchestral and years. As well as his orchestral
solo work, Katy is passionate about her responsibilities he also works with the
education work which includes regular education department helping to deliver
workshops at Yorkhill Hospital, Glasgow and projects, giving pre-concert talks and in
Rachel House Hospice. She is a keen Childrens’ Hospices. In his spare time
participant in mountain marathons, and John enjoys hill walking and has recently
spends a lot of spare time in her kitchen. taken up canoeing.

31.  I can use my chosen vocal and/or
instrumental skills to improvise and
compose, showing developing style and
sophistication [EXA 4-17a]
 Having developed my ideas from a range of
stimuli, I can create and present
compositions using a broad range of musical
concepts and ideas [EXA 4–18a]

32.  Coda  Tone row
 Muted  Inversion
 Flutter  Retrograde
tonguing
 Pizzicato
 Interval
Credit Higher