Schoenberg... est mort! (2015)

One way to view Schoenberg's music, which he may well have appreciated, is as the end of a long line of composers who have, to some extent, sought to achieve continuous music in constant change, a state of metamorphosis. This constantly varying and thus narrative Schoenbergian form of expression, with its restless search for variation in, for instance, harmony, can be perceived as "emotional" music.

Inspired by this, and drawing on a kind of Schoenbergian approach to composition from this period, Asbjørn Schaathun's Schoenberg… est Mort! takes its point of departure in the Sarabande from J. S. Bach's Cello Suite No. 3 in C minor. Its tenderly formed line is highly melodic while indicating harmonic changes throughout: horizontal and vertical simultaneously, as Schoenberg would have put it.

After working to "knit" together several versions of the Sarabande's harmonically varied melodic line at different speeds, Schaathun saw Schoenberg's musical visage (or was it his death mask?) suddenly appear: complex individual lines, harmonically vagrant. Here was material he couldn't resist using, with all its connotations and possibilities.

The result is a form in which Schaathun, true to the dialectic principles of this music, pursues what the essence of composing is, at least in the spirit of Schoenberg: to vary as much as possible without letting go of the starting point (Grundgestalt!). Combining the intimacy of the string trio with the opacity of the lines is a magnificent challenge.

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Schoenberg… est Mort! is a fiercely expressive string trio that turns Boulez’s famous provocation on its head. Drawing on Bach and Schoenberg, the music unfolds through continuous variation and metamorphosis: intimate, complex, and defiantly alive.

- Asbjørn Schaathun