Object #18

Arnold Schönberg
String Quartet No. 2 op. 10
4th movement: Entrückung [Rapture]
Text: Stefan George
1908
Score, self-published

Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

The String Quartet No. 2, op. 10 forms a milestone not just in the history of Schönberg’s composing, but also in the development of New Music as a whole.
It represents the transition from tonal to atonal composition, and also an extension of the genre (the soprano added in two movements relaxes standard string quartet scoring). – “The fourth movement, Entrückung [Rapture], begins with an introduction depicting the departure from earth to another planet. The visionary poet foretold here sensations which perhaps soon will be affirmed. Becoming relieved from gravitation, passing through clouds into thinner and thinner air – forgetting all the trouble of life on earth – that is attempted to be illustrated.” (Arnold Schönberg, Introduction to the Four Quartets, 1949)