Arnold Schoenberg: Five orchestral pieces

Commented by Michael Gielen, a close look at Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces.

"No architecture, no construction, just a ceaseless flow of colours, rhythms and mood.," that is how Arnold Schoenberg describes the Five Orchestral Pieces he composed in 1909. By rehearsing this work with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Dutch radio, conductor Michael Gielen, a great specialist of this repertoire, explores its different layers with the pianist and musicologist Charles Rosen.

As for Rosen, he compares the Five Orchestral Pieces to paintings by the Viennese Secessionists and Gustav Klimt whose Kiss he reveals to us, for the ability they each have of arousing strong emotions through short fragments. At the end, Rosen interprets the last movement of Schoenberg's Three Pieces for Piano before Michael Gielen conducts the complete Orchestral Pieces.