In celebration of Arnold Schönberg's 150th birthday, the music world is gearing up to honor his legacy with a series of events. Also the Brussels Philharmonic will present two concerts featuring works by the Austrian-Hungarian-American composer.

Fleeing the Nazi regime, Schönberg found refuge in Los Angeles in the 1930s. Despite this, he never worked for Hollywood, though his oeuvre did inspire several notable soundtracks in the 21st century. Discover these Schönberg-inspired scores with the film selection by film journalist Robin Broos.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

director: Steven Spielberg

In this third collaboration between director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams, music once again plays a crucial role. In Jaws (1975), two notes are enough to convince an entire cinema audience that a shark is lurking. Close Encounters (1977) on the other hand, is famed for its five-note sequence, a signal from the aliens landing on Earth. The score is dissonant and avant-garde, the structure is a creative musical journey from atonality to tonality: it starts with avant-garde tone clusters and moves into the expressionistic atonality of Schönberg. So without Schönberg, no communication with aliens in Close Encounters.

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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

director: Joseph Sargent

The film follows a group of criminals taking the passengers hostage inside a New York City Subway car for ransom. They demand a million dollars if their demands are not met within an hour. A thrilling story that requires thrilling music. Schönberg's twelve-tone or serial technique seeks to avoid any implication of tonality. It’s a trick often used by film composers to create a sense of tension. American David Shire also applies the twelve-tone system to his music for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three: "Pelham was one of the hardest pictures I ever had to crack. I wanted to get that dissonant-sounding jazz, but I didn't want it to sound arbitrary."

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Planet of the Apes (1968)

director: Franklin J. Schaffner

Hollywood legend Jerry Goldsmith is also indebted to Schönberg's serial technique, which he applies in the sci-fi film Planet of the Apes. Astronaut Taylor and his crew land on an unknown planet where the roles of animals and humans are reversed. The planet is ruled by apes, while humans are treated as wild animals. “I haven’t done a totally serial procedure, but neither have the serial composers. But what difference does it make? No one can tell the difference.”

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Regen (1929)

director: Joris Ivens

This short Dutch documentary may not have a specific plot, but it beautifully captures Amsterdam in the 1920s. Before, during, and after a downpour, from sunny streets to pouring rain on windows, umbrellas, and trams. In 1941, the film received a soundtrack written by German-Austrian composer Hanns Eisler. The piece is titled 14 Arten den Regen zu beschreiben, Op. 70, or: fourteen ways to describe the rain. Eisler's score is a study in twelve-tone music, an experiment for the Film Music Project of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York. The composer dedicates it to his old teacher Arnold Schönberg and premieres it in his home for his seventieth birthday.

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My War Years - Arnold Schoenberg (1992)

director: Larry Weinstein

No composer other than Arnold Schönberg has been at once more despised, revered, controversial, and ultimately influential. Celebrated Canadian film director Larry Weinstein reflects on this in 1992, exploring the life of the Austrian-Hungarian-American composer, his extraordinary work, and his flight from Europe to the United States. But he also focuses on the years that shaped him. Against a backdrop of poverty and war, Schönberg struggled to proclaim his new vision of music to the world. Weinstein's documentary examines this period, with excerpts from live performances of works like Verklärte Nacht and Pierrot Lunaire.

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SCHÖNBERG Marc Pennartz P1155981 Dx O CROP

Shades of Schönberg · 10.10.2024 · Flagey

Thu 10.10.2024

Even after a century and a half, the name Arnold Schönberg still inspires fear in some people. The festival Aimez-vous Schönberg celebrates his jubilee year and will probably help you break free of that phobia. Because although we generally associate the man with his sometimes somewhat calculated twelve-tone technique, there is a wealth of repertoire that is rarely heard because the dodecaphony hangs over Arnold’s head like the sword of Damocles. It turns out that the younger Arnold could just as easily look over his shoulder romantically or be inspired by the art movements around him. This weekend with Pierrot lunaire and Verklärte Nacht is all about his connection with symbolism… and therefore with Claude Debussy, too.

Schönberg: Pierrot lunaire · 12.10.2024 · Flagey

Sat 12.10.2024

"Pierrot lunaire is for a small orchestra and a singer who sings and half-speaks. Based on 21 selected poems from the Belgian Symbolist poet Albert Giraud, Schönberg’s music invites you to a one-of-a-kind experience: sometimes beautiful, sometimes grotesque, and sometimes both at the same time – you might be surprised!" – Kazushi Ono

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