Schoenberg's Tonalities in the Middle Period: Deterritorializing Pierrot Lunaire

Abstract

Arnold Schoenberg’s freely atonal period has been overshadowed in scholarship by his later serialist period. When the middle period is mentioned in literature, it is often viewed as existing only in service of the twelve-tone method. Rather than being an unorganized method of composition as some suggest, Schoenberg’s middle period presents music that sees the composer keenly aware of the concepts of tonality. The composer’s thoughts on the tonal system are elucidated in his theoretical writing in his Harmonielehre. These thoughts are also present in his 1912 Pierrot Lunaire.In this thesis, I argue that Pierrot Lunaire makes clear the connection between Schoenberg’s theoretical concepts and his compositional practice. Utilizing the Deleuzian concept of the refrain, I analyze Pierrot Lunaire as musically presenting Schoenberg’s deterritorializing process regarding the elements of tonality, which he then reterritorializes into an atonal framework. What this analysis reveals is a musical work that sees the composer actively working towards what he believed to be the inevitable usurpation of the tonal framework. Rather than being a chaotically explored dead-end on the path to twelve-tone music, I argue that Pierrot Lunaire evinces a complicated, conscious approach towards atonality that is reliant on the composer’s own theoretical writings.